29 
FOSSIL AG Til 0 ULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. A Not© on 
American Flint Hoes. By Principal Dawson, LL.D. 
F.R.S.* 
L ITTLE attention seems to have been given by European 
Archaeologists to the possibility of some of the ruder flint 
implements found in the river gravels having been agricultural 
tools, though I suggested this many years ago in a paper 
published in this country after a visit to the celebrated Amiens 
localities. My attention has recently been again directed to 
the subject in preparing a few popular papers f on the appli- 
cation of American antiquities to the explanation of European 
prehistoric remains. 
The American Indians, before the European discovery, 
carried on the culture of maize, beans, and pumpkins from 
the Gulf of Mexico northward to the St. Lawrence, and the 
region of the great lakes. As they had no domesticated 
animals, their tillage of the ground was all done by manual 
labour, and their ordinary tool, according to the testimony of 
all the early voyagers and travellers, was that time-honoured 
implement, the hoe. In the absence of metal this had to be 
constructed of wood, shell, bone, or stone, or some combina- 
tion of these. Among many tribes a curved stick, or a stick 
with a branch or prong, served the purpose. Others attached 
to the wooden handle a flat bivalve shell, the blade-bone of 
a deer, or a flat stone, sometimes provided with notches at the 
side. 
The most artificially-constructed flint hoes known are those 
from the neighbourhood of St. Louis, described by Professor 
Rau in the Smithsonian Report for 1868, and by Mr. Jones, 
in his Antiquities of the Southern States. I had an oppor- 
tunity of inspecting one of these recently, in the collection of 
the latter gentleman. It was slightly rounded in the front of 
the blade, and evidently polished by long use in the soil. 
Near the upper part were two deep notches to facilitate its 
firm attachment with thongs to the end of the handle. 
* Read Feb. 5, 1877. 
t In the Leisure Hour. 
