HOLMES ANNIVERSARY VOLUME 



chert, and the disc-like pounder or cracker of porphyry (?). These 

 are rather commonplace. 



A tomahawk-like implement is represented by four specimens; 

 these show some uniformity, with broad waists and somewhat 

 tapering ends. They are crudely finished and may have been mounted. 

 They are not polished, nor do they or any other objects show signs of 

 grooves for hafting. In this feature we meet another similarity with 

 the conditions in northern New England. 1 



Several specimens were found which looked like small broken 

 plummet-shaped objects. They are an inch or so in length and are 

 made of stone similar to that of the chisels. Although none of the 

 so-called plummets of the New England area came to light here, it is 

 not at all unlikely that these may be smaller specimens of the same 

 kind. 



Finally there were absolutely no indications of pottery or stone 

 vessels, and no evidence of bone, shell, or antler tools, nor of objects 

 suggesting ceremonial use. There are no shell-heaps in this immediate 

 vicinity, although such were observed eastwardly on the northern 

 shore of the St Lawrence, at Godbout, Pointe des Monts, Trinity bay, 

 Petite bay, and Caribou island. 



Finally, another point of importance here is that a large pro- 

 portion of the implements found, whether of quartzite or the hardest 

 porphyry, were broken. In a few cases the parts found could be 

 matched, though the fitting surfaces had become much patinated. But 

 there must have been some wholesale breaking process at work: 

 either the intense cold of such an exposed site or else the extreme age 

 of the articles. Some of the chisels show extensive corrosion on one 

 side, altogether different in appearance from the polished, protected 

 under-side. This fact of wear and breakage by exposure should be 

 reckoned with in studying the site. It is not as though a few things 

 were found in a broken state: practically all the objects were in that 

 condition. The suggestion, moreover, that this was a burial site is 

 hardly tenable, considering the quantity and distribution of the 

 stone refuse and unfinished material. 



If this was an ancient habitation site, as the evidence so far seems 

 to show, it must have been occupied at a time when physical con- 

 ditions and the elevation were different from what they are now. My 

 tentative interpretation of the circumstances, in view of archeological 

 correspondences with similarly situated sites in Maine, is that we 

 have here the vestiges of an earlier phase of Algonquian culture. This 



1 C. C. Willoughby, The Adze and Ungrooved Axe of the New England Indians, American 

 Anthropologist, vol IX, no. 2, 1907. 



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