66 Antiquity of the Indians of North America, [February, 
studies have led to a’modification of this view, and a separation 
of the two classes of relics as traces of distinct peoples. This 
subject I propose to dwell upon at some length in a subsequent 
article, and desire to: call attention now to what I believe to be 
positive indications of the very great length of time during which 
the Indian oceupied New Jersey, as derived from the study of 
thousands of stone implements gathered by myself. 
Unless some very marked geological change occurred, obliter- 
ating every vestige of the former surface of the country, lost 
paleolithic implements would naturally occur, scattered about, 
and what more probable than that men of a later period should 
occasionally pick up, preserve, and utilize them? The difference 
between a paleolithic and a neolithic flint hatchet is not as great 
as that between an ancient stone and a modern metal hammer ; 
and Nilsson’ refers to a stone hammer of undoubted antiquity 
being long used by a carpenter, who had put it to uses similar to 
those of its prehistoric owner. When, therefore, among true In- 
dian relics that occasionally are found lying together as the series 
described by the writer in this journal,? that marked the site of 
a “ homestead of the stone age,” there happens to be “ rudely 
chipped implements ” associated “ with some of the very finest 
wrought stone weapons and arrow-heads,” it is not necessary 
to conclude that the latter were made at the same time as the 
others, for we are not sufficiently familiar with the every-day life 
of the stone-age Indian to assert that he could have found no 
use for these rude productions of his predecessors, on the one 
hand, or that he did not gather them up for use, or work them 
over into better forms, when they happened to be met with. In- 
asmuch as these rude relics that are intimately associated with 
newer relics invariably exhibit a greater degree of. weathering and 
decay than accompanying implements of the same mineral, it is 
not difficult to separate them ; and whatever the use to which 
they may have been put, it appears certain that they were occa- 
sionally gathered — veritable relies of a departed people then — 
by the Indians for some practical purpose. | 
As arrow-heads are the best known form of Indian relies, and 
as they certainly outnumber all other forms, and are abundant 
frequently where no other pattern is found, they afford by reason 
of their numbers excellent opportunities for determining various 
questions concerning the condition and degree of culture of the 
1 Stone Age in Scandinavia, 2d ed , p. 69. 
2 Vol. vii, p.271. 
