SKINNER, INDIANS OF MANHATTAN ISLAND 39 



also held at the time of the interment, judging by the quantity of oyster .shells 

 and animal bones in and near the graves. Some graves have rows or layers 

 of oyster shells, with the sharp cutting edge upward, placed above the bodies 

 as if to prevent wild animals from disinterring and devouring the dead. 



An interesting fact, brought to light by the rock-shelter work of Messrs. 

 Schrabisch and Harrington in their explorations in New Jersey and West- 

 chester County, New York, is that in the lowest and oldest refuse layers of 

 these shelters pottery does not occur. It would be ill advised to infer from 

 this that the earliest occupants were peoples of another culture from the 

 surrounding village dwellers, as the other artifacts found are quite similar 

 to the implements of the latter. Many reasons for this lack of pottery, such 

 as the more easy transportation of vessels of bark or wood through the 

 mountains and bills, suggest themselves, though they are more or less nul- 

 lified by the presence of pottery in the upper layers. The upper layer, 

 however, may have been made during the period when the natives were 

 being displaced by Europeans and at the same time subjected to Iro- 

 quoian raids, when the villages would naturally be abandoned from time 

 to time, for refuge among the cliffs and caves of the mountain fastnesses. 



It has been suggested that the rock and cave shelters are remains of an 

 older occupation by people with or without the same culture as the later 

 known savages. The nature of the finds does not support this view, for the 

 specimens obtained are often of as good workmanship as the best to be found 

 in the villages and cemeteries of the latter, while pottery, on the other hand, 

 occurs on the oldest known Algonkian sites. It seems most probable to the 

 writer that, like the shell heaps, the rock and cave shelters form but a com- 

 ponent part, or phase, of the local culture, perhaps a little specialized from 

 usage and environment, but contemporary with the villages, shell heaps 

 and cemeteries of the lowlands. 



Mounds and earthworks do not occur in the region under consideration, 

 nor does it appear that most of the Indian villages here were fortified, unless 

 they were slightly stockaded. A number of instances of this are known 

 historically, however, and a few earthworks occur just beyond this area. 1 



The remains found do not bear any appearance of very great geological 

 antiquity. In a few instances, rock-shelters, shell heaps and village sites 

 seem to possess a relative antiquity; but the oldest known remains, in even- 

 case, may be placed as Algonkian with considerable certainty. No paleo- 

 liths have been reported, and it would seem from the comparative lack of 

 antiquity of the remains that the natives could not have lived in this region 

 for many centuries before the advent of the whites. The accounts of con- 



1 An earthwork at Croton Point on the Hudson has been excavated by .Mr. M. R. Harring- 

 ton for the American Museum. 



