HOLMES ANNIVERSARY VOLUME 



From 1892 until 19 12 there appears to have been no attempt to 

 investigate Indian remains in Maine, further than the examination 

 of shell-heaps by Amherst College and by Prof. Arlo Bates. In the, 

 summer of 19 12, Phillips Academy organized an expedition and during 

 the succeeding four years carried on extended researches throughout 

 the state. The following large river valleys and lakes have been 

 examined more or less thoroughly, and some of them in considerable 

 detail: The Penobscot and its tributaries, the St John, both rivers 

 St Croix, Grand lakes, Schoodic lakes, Moosehead lake, Union river, 

 Georges river, about half of the Kennebec, Allegash river, and all of 

 the coast except that portion lying between the mouth of the Georges 

 river and the New Hampshire boundary. It is difficult to estimate 

 correctly the distance traveled upon or along these various water- 

 ways, but it is safe to assert that the expeditions traversed a total of 

 more than four thousand miles and conducted excavations in at least 

 a thousand different places. 



The Department of American Archaeology of Phillips Academy 

 has not published its report on the work conducted in Maine during 

 the last five years, and it is therefore not desirable to present in this 

 paper a summary of all the information obtained. In view of the 

 widespread interest attached to the Red-paint problem, however, it 

 will not be out of place to indicate the trend of the facts procured. 



There have been discovered in Maine during the last thirty-five 

 years, eighteen of the so-called Red-paint cemeteries or deposits. 

 Three of these were examined by Mr C. C. Willoughby of the Pea- 

 body Museum, six or seven were excavated by citizens of Maine, 

 and the remainder were explored by Phillips Academy. Of this 

 entire number, two examined by Mr Willoughby had not been pre- 

 viously explored or were only slightly disturbed, and three of the 

 nine investigated by Phillips Academy were practically intact. Pre- 

 vious exploration on the part of untrained collectors caused consider- 

 able damage to the other cemeteries, and, in three instances, complete 

 destruction. 



The aborigines representing the Red-paint culture seem to have 

 selected a sandy or gravelly knoll, or the end of a ridge, or the slope 

 of a glacial kame, in which to place their offerings. Plate 1 illus- 

 trates a cemetery on the Emerson farm at Alamoosook before 

 exploration, and shows the surroundings. All of the eighteen ceme- 

 teries, with one exception, are similar; the exception noted is a mound 

 explored by Mr Willoughby on Lake Alamoosook, which, although 

 natural and smaller, was not unlike mounds common in the Ohio 

 valley. 



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