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John White made pictures of these towns and they may be regarded 
as typical Algonquian architecture and village planning. We 
may thus restore to the mind*s eye a great village on the 
Eastern Branch and call it the ancient capital of this region. 
It may seem unfortunate that the District of Columbia 
Indians left so few traces of their life here. Archeologists 
trained to the work are able to see much in small things and 
to tell the story without straining the imagination. One picks 
up an arrowhead, say, at Anacostia. It is of a certain stone 
and worked from a boulder most likely at the Piney Branch 
quarry. He knows that the arrow was fixed with sinew at the 
end of a wooden shaft straight and smooth which was nocked at 
the end to receive the string, also that it was feathered to 
guide its flight. 
He knows further that there was a bow to project 
the arrow and that it had a sinew or Indian hemp cord. Then 
it is evident that there was a man in charge of the bow, arrow, 
quiver, and so forth. The arrowhead was found at Anacostia, 
inhabited by the Nacotchtank Indians, and we have got our man, 
equipped for the hunt or battle. The arrowhead was found at 
Anacostia and belonged there because it is the right kind of 
stone. Another variety cf stone would indicate that it was 
a point made by the hostile Indians living on the Susquehanna 
or where the certain stone was found. Perhaps the archeologist 
picked up a fragment of pottery and derived a most interesting 
story from it. Especially it would tell him that the Indians 
lived in a village of houses because fragile pottery cannot 
