THE CULTURE OF THE PEOPLE ONCE INHABITING 
A LIMITED AREA NEAR SAGINAW, MICHIGAN, 
AS ILLUSTRATED BY MATERIAL IN THE AN- 
THROPOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT OF THE AMER- 
ICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. 
By Harwan I. Smiru, 
Assistant Curator of Archxology. 
Tue rude archzological objects found in the Saginaw valley, 
Michigan, and exhibited in the American Museum of Natural 
History show that the prehistoric people who lived in that area 
were largely occupied with striving for the necessaries of life. 
The region, although not at all desolate, was still too far north to 
support a civilization that would leave traces of a culture so 
largely given to art and ritual as those to be found in Mexico, the 
Southern States or even in the Ohio valley. Such a collection 
of rather rude implements and objects has value, however, in that 
it gives evidence regarding the lives of the early inhabitants of 
the country. 
The objects from the Saginaw valley were found in such places 
that we now know where there were a number of rather important 
villages and a still larger number of small villages or camp 
sites, besides what were probably scattered habitations and 
burial-places—all of the early people of this region. It is quite 
evident from areas where certain stray objects were found, and 
from the scarcity of other evidences in such areas, that the peo- 
ple also made trips to points remote from the villages, probably 
for fishing and hunting, the gathering of fruits and roots or the 
securing of material out of which to make arrow-points and 
pipes; and that the objects were lost on the way. It would 
seem that the character of the country, with the scattered dis- 
tribution of its products, was the cause af the segregation of the 
people into small villages, and possibly of their establishing 
small outlying camps for the purpose of being, at certain seasons, 
near points suitable for such occupations as are above noted. 
The importance of the collection exhibited in these cases is 
chiefily that it indicates the character of the culture of the people, 
the location of their habitations, burial-places, caches and 
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