Loomis and Young — Shell Heaps of Maine. 2L 



Island, but in neither case was there indication of long occu- 

 pancy. The Flagg Island heap was at once distinguished by 

 the presence of great numbers of large mink and of great auk 

 bones and those of small fishes. It would seem as if these 

 Indians were not the fishermen that those camped at Sawyer's 

 Island were, for the remains of large fishes were very scarce, 

 while those of flounders, cunners, etc., were abundant ; but 

 the apparently easily-caught, and staple food, on this Island 

 was the great auk, the bones of which occurred in large num- 



Fig. 3. 



L ft. , 



... . •*.' tt- 



t 



< .: * ■ ■ „ rA ' + "- ;-* "- 



*• - • ■ " - •+. +. • -'• •+• • • •+... + 



Fig. 3. Diagram of a section, fifteen feet long, along the line between B 

 and C in fig. 1. All the material found in sections B and C is indicated in 

 this figure, which therefore show the depth at which each find was made in 

 these two sections and the relative abundance and relationship of the differ- 

 ent articles. • indicates a food animal, bone or jaw : + indicates a bone 

 tool ; x indicates a stone tool ; — indicates bits of pottery. 



bers, as did those also of many other birds, many of which we 

 have not been able to identify. In Frenchman's Bay the heaps 

 were dominantly of soft-shelled clams, but had in them frequent 

 bands of blue mussel shells, a form occurring about the islands 

 in vast numbers to-day. In these northern heaps moose bones 

 become more abundant, and they are especially well character- 

 ized by the much greater proportion of stone implements found 

 in them. The heap near Winter Harbor was perhaps the most 

 prolific in bones and tools of any examined. It was distin- 

 guished by the quantities of cod and bird bones. 



All these heaps, of course, represent camp sites, occupied for 

 a longer or shorter period, by a smaller or larger group of 

 Indians. Their fortunes varied annually, as is testified by the 

 bones and shells left in the layers. It would seem that at first 

 they did not come to get clams, nor did they even subsist on 

 them. That was a secondary acquirement, but probably, when 

 they began to use the shellfish, it became the staple food supply. 

 The abundance of fish bones, the remains of fish hooks, and 

 the broken harpoon points, indicate that the real business of 

 the camp was fishing, and, presumably, the camp was timed to 



