221 
&ites it seems possible that tliey indicate the habitation of the prov- 
ince by some earlier tribe than the Micmac and lAIalecite who linger 
there to-day. The abundance of i)ottery in the jirehistoric shell-heaps 
su])ports this hypothesis, for none of the early writers appears to 
mention its presence, except Lescarbot, who says, without stating his 
authority, tliat it had fornieity been used by the Micmac, but dis- 
continued before his time.^ We should remember, on the other hand. 
.j6S6I 
.Siifll-iieap ov kitcli('ii-mi<l(l('n near tlie mouth of the Fraser river, JhCh, showing the 
stumps of the trees tliat grew above it after its formation. iMueli of tlie heap 
has been removed. (I^hoio hij IhitUin I. Siniih.) 
tliat there are no detailed accounts of the iMicmac or Alalccite Indians 
before tlie seventeenth century, when they had already been in con- 
tact with Europeans for a hundred years, so that Lescarbot may be 
quite correct in believing that pottery had disappeared in the interval, 
even though it lingered for a much longer period among the Iro- 
(luoians. We may conjecture, too, that the natives had little use for 
gouges and grooved axes at the seashore, and, therefore, left them 
inland at the winter hunting-grounds; although in that case we might 
reasonably expect to find one or two stray specimens in the shell- 
1 Lf.-iCiii'bot : 0]i. cit., \'ol. iii, p. I!15. 
