42 
The decoration was all impressed and applied before the pottery was 
fired. It consists of lines, gashes, and pits, rows and zigzags of small 
square and triangular impressions made with a stamp or rocking stamp, 
rows of transverse cord impressions, and impressions of fabric. No piece 
of pottery was found that bore any sculpture or that had been painted. 
Some of the impressions and pits, such as those shown on the fragment 
illustrated on Plate X, figure 2, were, probably, made with a stylus such 
as some of the bone objects described as awls, on page 64, and illustrated 
on Plate XVII, figures 3, 16; Plate XIX, figures 16, 17. No impressions of 
carved paddles or of paddles wound with cord or netting were found on any 
of the ware. The decorative art of pottery is discussed on page 85. 
No fragment of pottery bearing finger impressions was found by us, 
and only one piece, the one illustrated on Plate IX, figure 8, had finger- 
nail impressions, but Patterson (a, page 252) states that impressions such 
as might have been made by the finger-nail may be seen on pieces in his 
collection. 
A rocking stamp was used to decorate about a tenth of the ware, 
but the edge of a quahog shell was apparently not used for this purpose 
here as it was on the New York coast. The fragment illustrated on 
Plate X, figure 22, bears a zigzag apparently impressed with a knife- 
edged rocking stamp. The object made of bone or antler described 
as a pendant on page 79 and illustrated on Plate XIX, figure 19, was 
probably a rocking stamp used in stamping pottery. Marks on soft clay 
experimentally made by us with this object are illustrated on Plate IX, 
figure 9. Those on the left were made with the object held vertically, and 
resemble the lines of square checks impressed on the fragments of pottery 
illustrated on Plate X, figures 14, 15, 17. Those on the right were made 
with the object held obliquely and resemble the lines of triangles impressed 
on the fragments illustrated in figures 12 and 18. This similarity is strong 
evidence that the object was used as a stamp. A rocking stamp of this kind 
rather than a roulette was certainly used for at least some of the work, 
since the impressions on some of the ware, such as are illustrated on Plate 
X, figures 1, 18, 19, are deep at the ends like those illustrated on Plate IX, 
figures 9, 10, whereas if made with a roulette the ends of the impressions 
would become shallower and shallower, like the impressions illustrated 
on Plate X, figures 1, 12, 14, 15. 
Some of the impressions made w r ith the rocking stamp overlap. Short 
vertical rows of rectangular depressions probably made with a rocking 
stamp show on the fragment of a pot rim, one of a lot of fragments of one 
pot, illustrated on Plate X, figure 4. On the reverse the rocking stamp was 
tilted to one side until the top of the V-shaped interval between the faces 
of its raised rectangles touched one side of the impressed line, giving a 
raised saw-like edge on the opposite side similar to those shown in figures 
18 and 23. The rows are at a slight angle to the rim and extend over to the 
centre of the rounded rim edge. 
Curved rows of impressions arranged in fan-shape and apparently 
made with the same rocking stamp may be seen on the inner surface of 
another piece of the same rim shown in Plate X, figure 15. 
Such rows of impressions arranged in zigzags may be seen on the 
fragments of pottery illustrated on Plate X, figures 1, 20, 21, 23, 27. Similar 
