TRAILING EARLY MAN IN VIRGINIA 



By DAVID I. BUSHNELL, Jr. 



Collaborator in Anthropology, Smithsonian. Institution 



The search for tangible evidence of early man in Virginia led me 

 to make several trips during the summer and fall of 1940 to the vicinity 

 of the Peaks of Otter, in Bedford County, a few miles south of the 

 James River. The visits proved both successful and interesting. 

 Here, in a little valley along the northern base of Sharp Top, the 

 lower of the peaks, were discovered traces of a remote settlement, 

 and as it was partly on the property of the Hotel Mons it will be called 

 the Mons site. The area has recently been crossed by the new 

 Skyline Drive, and much of the ancient site was covered and graded 

 during the construction of the roadway. 



The valley, a beautiful secluded spot through which flow small 

 streams and with springs of clear, cold water, had been occupied 

 many times during past centuries — from the early period when it 

 was entered by wandering bands to whom are attributed the Folsom 

 points and certain other types of artifacts found scattered over 

 the surface. Countless centuries must have intervened between the 

 coming of these primitive hunters and the arrival of the historic 

 Cherokee who occupied a village near the peaks in late protohis- 

 toric times, and whose word for mountain, Ottare, is believed to have 

 been rendered Otter by the European colonists. 



Many forms of stone implements and weapons, bits of pottery, 

 and fragments of steatite vessels have been collected on the site. 

 It is easily conceived that the innumerable objects were made during 

 distinct periods of occupancy, and that some pieces are much older than 

 others. 



Two Folsom points, or rather parts of points, have been found 

 on the Mons site mingled with the later material. One specimen is 

 the concave base end of a point made of grayish chert. The second 

 example is made of a very dark quartz schist, now altered to a 

 light color. This is shown, natural size, in figure 78. Other pieces from 

 the site are included in the illustration; all are made of dark or black 

 stones now weathered to a light gray, and all may be equally old. 



Beautiful examples of Folsom points have been found in Bedford 

 County away from the Mons site, but all have been encountered in 

 fields or on hillsides, with no traces of camps or villages nearby. One 



