89 
Of human bones only small fragments were seen in the prehistoric 
cemetery, and only a fragment of bone and a tooth in the shell-heaps, 
so that there is no evidence of wounds, injuries, or disease. One pre- 
historic cemetery has been found on the harbour where burial was made 
in the ground, on a hillside back from the beach. No mounds are known 
in the province, but bodies were placed in trees or on scaffolds in historic 
times. Intertribal trade or gifts, conquests, or extended journeys are not 
indicated by any of our finds. 
The people of the harbour left less imperishable material in the shell- 
heaps than would be found in some village sites in other places, such as, 
for instance, the Iroquoian sites of New York and southern Ontario. The 
specimens from Nova Scotia, or from the Maritime Provinces as a whole, 
are not of great variety, nor of a high order of technique and art, as com- 
pared with those from New York, southern Ontario, southern Manitoba, 
or southern British Columbia. This condition suggests poorer people, 
sparser settlement, or a shorter period of occupation, if not all of these 
conditions. 
The prehistoric culture on Merigomish harbour appears to be a 
prehistoric Micmac Indian culture. The Micmacs are the only Indians 
known to have lived in this area, and the archaeology bears certain resem- 
blances to the material culture of the modern Micmacs. These Indians 
use a lance-shaped, simple point made of bone for hunting caribou, and 
a barbed point of the same material for seal-hunting. Some of the awls 
resemble modern Micmac snowshoe mesh punches. No handles for the 
knives made of incisor teeth were found. If they were hafted in wooden 
handles, as are the modern Micmac crooked knives, the handles would 
have decayed. But the shape of the modern handle is like the one made 
of antler holding a beaver tooth incisor, found at Bocabec, New Brunswick. 
A Micmac skin scraper, made of bone sharpened at the end, resembles 
an object from the harbour, possibly used for the same purpose. The 
shape of the modern needles made of wood, antler, and copper, is like 
that of the old bone needles. There are certain differences, however; 
chiefly, the expected absence of perishable material corresponding to that 
used by the modern Micmacs; but also the absence of skin scrapers, like 
draw-shaves made of leg bones, similar to those found among the Micmacs, 
Montagnais, Beothuks, and Naskapi. There is also the absence of the 
disks of bone used in the bowl game, so characteristic of the modern Mic- 
macs and their neighbours. These are so numerous in proportion to other 
objects among the modern Indians that one would expect to find them in the 
extensive collection made. They are also absent among archaeological speci- 
mens found in Nova Scotia as a whole. This game, therefore, is probably 
new to the Micmacs; or the disks are new and replace some such objects as 
plum pits. The modern Micmacs use stone pipes, whereas on the harbour 
none was found in the shell-heaps and only a few are known, which may 
be modern. There is nothing to show that the cone-shaped birch-bark 
pipe was used in ancient times on the harbour, although, being perishable, 
it would not be preserved. That the modern Micmac does not make 
arrow points of stone since the gun has taken the place of the bow and 
arrow for serious hunting is a natural development rather than an indi- 
cation that he belongs to a different culture from that of the shell-heaps 
