Max Uhle

“ Human Remains and Relics.—A large part of the Emeryville mound consists of remains which have been deposited here by man. Among these are molluscan shells with bones of fish and mammals, used as articles of food. In the narrower sense the human relics consist of the bones of man, graves, and artifacts, which are all found in greater or less abundance throughout the whole thickness of the mound. ”

“ The leaf-like blade from stratum VIII (pl. 6, fig. 20) , where a crude workmanship is paired with an attempt at more regular sharpening of the edges, does not favor the view that the inhabitants of the mound had been well versed from the beginning in the production of chipped implements.
Very remarkable is the occurrence together of crude splinters of bone, which show from long use their real value as tools, and the neat, almost elegant, knife-like implements. Among the latter we find the only ornamental fragment of a tool of bone obtained during the whole course of the excavation. ”

“ There is before us then a class of the most primitive ethnological implements of which we have knowledge, in which, as in the oldest known implement of the human period, the natural form of the object determines the use, rather than the use the individual form. ”

“ The people who used the splinters of bone for their tools were not so primitive but that they possessed elegant objects of bone, and not so far advanced but that they were often satisfied with such primitive implements as common bone splinters. But both classes of these typical tools are markedly different from what the upper strata of the mound offer in the line of implements. Hence the people of the lower strata must have represented a somewhat different mental type or a different degree of mental training. ”

“ In examining the implements of successive layers of the mound we find that awls and certain knife-like tools found in nearly all known shellmounds are met with in all of the strata, while ornaments consisting of Haliotis shells and other simple objects of decoration made of shells, corresponding in general appearance to those which are still in use among the Indians, are met with in the graves of the VIth to the VIIIth strata. In the deepest strata, however, there have not been found any bone beads, ornaments of Haliotis shells, or saw-like tools such as are known above the VIIIth stratum. ”

“ Therefore it is by no means impossible that rubbed or polished stone implements, excepting mortars and pestles, were unknown at the time of the origin of the lower strata, and that their use was rather limited in the succeeding strata. But the presence of mortar fragments and pestles in the lowest strata points toward a higher development of the human type than is usually expected of men who use flaked tools only. ”

“ The situation of the base of the mound two feet below the water level cannot be explained on the assumption that refuse from a pile dwelling had been the first cause of its formation. This theory would presuppose modes of living to be followed by the Indians of this coast for which there is no parallel elsewhere, and which are not borne out by other evidence obtained in the study of the mound. If the mound has not risen from the water, then the former land surface must have sunk. ”

“ We shall probably not make too great a mistake if we estimate the number of the larger shellmounds around the Bay of San Francisco to be over 100. So many and such enormous shellmounds can not possibly have been constructed by human hands unintentionally in any small number of centuries. Furthermore, they form a link of a larger chain of similar mounds which stretch northerly along the coast and inland from Southern California to beyond Vancouver and possibly still farther ”

“ Usually the early period in which man made use solely of flaked stone tools is contrasted with the later age when polished as well as chipped stone implements were used. In the very lowest stratum of the hill, almost down at the base, there were found stone implements of the well known palaeolithic turtle-back form. A pestle fragment which came from the lower stratum of the mound, though having a completely disintegrated exterior, seems to have originally been artificially rounded. ”

“ Resulting from the discovery of obsidian, plate 10, fig. 15, chipped stones of good workmanship were found as far down as the upper part of stratum VIII. It is extremely doubtful whether they appeared at all in the strata below this. The objects made of material from the vicinity of the mound were certainly made during its settlement. A characteristic mark of the uniform crudity of all of these tools made of local materials and found in the lower strata is that they all are worked from but one side and that the elaboration of that side is accomplished by but a very few strokes. ”

“ In number, the objects of bone and horn about equal those of stone, or if the large quantity of chipped stone in the lower strata be deducted, being mainly workshop chips, the bone specimens are even in the majority. Although shell heaps usually abound in bone implements, the large number of such implements recovered in this mound is quite remarkable, especially since the mound at West Berkeley, only two miles distant, seems to possess a much smaller number of them. ”

“ A large number of lumps of red coloring earth were found throughout the mound, some of these showing marks of scraping or cutting. In Southern California graves we find conditions resembling these almost identically. [49] Up to recent times the California Indians very generally painted their bodies, and there is undoubtedly a religious significance in this practice of daubing the corpses and associated objects with red coloring material, besides depositing them on red earth. The custom of putting red coloring matter on the body of the dead is found with many aboriginal tribes. ”

“ Implements of Bone.
Artifacts of animal derivation appear in great numbers and in a great variety of form among the objects recovered in excavating. This diversity in form is of course partly the result of the different kinds of bone used in their manufacture, partly of their varied manipulation, and partly of the uses to which they were put. There are all grades of elaboration from the most common splinter of bone to the tool whose shape is almost entirely different from that of the bone employed. ”

“ Actual human bones were not found to be common in this part of the mound except in stratum II, and in the graves of stratum VII. The artifacts obtained were only those of very resistant material, such as stone or shell. All other kinds, such as textiles of plant fibre, baskets, and implements of wood, which doubtless have also existed, had disappeared. The more resistant artifacts were distributed throughout all layers of the mound. ”

“ One is here reminded of Schumacher’s entertaining description of the way in which a Klamath tipped back his head in order to raise his pipe vertically that he might lose none of the tobacco. The stem ends of the pipes are equally imperfect. They must certainly all have been fastened to a pipe-like mouth-piece similar to the stone pipes which Professor Putnam has pictured and described and which when unearthed still had the mouth-pieces attached by means of asphaltum. ”

“ The sinker-like stones of classes I-III present fewer difficulties in their explanation than do the pear-shaped and kindred ones. The use of flat boulder stones with side grooves as net-sinkers is agreed to by all. [84] The fact that here as in the East, and as in the shellmound of West Berkeley, many of these have been found in groups, points almost conclusively to their use as net weights.
Professor Putnam has already called attention to the use of spherical stones (fig. 20) , with a peripherally encircling groove as sinkers. ”

“ Stone mortars were among the most common and most useful implements that the ancient inhabitants of the land possessed, being used for the preparation of meal and for other purposes. Correspondingly numerous therefore are these objects, found mostly in fragments, and scattered through nearly all the strata from the second to the tenth. There are three perfect specimens and eleven fragments in our collection, nearly all made of lava. The largest of the mortars, 1-9102, fig. 3, was recovered quite accidentally near g in plan III at the extreme western end of the mound. ”

“ The extension of such a similar manner of life over so great an area speaks of itself for the work of a great number of centuries. Even the complete development of this peculiar mode of existence, as represented in these mounds, must have taken centuries. ”

“ Some additional types of mortars are represented among the fragments; they will be given below in the order in which they were recovered. 1-8594, fig. 6, from stratum II, is one of several fragments of this stratum and belongs to a relatively advanced type, resembling a vessel. These stone vessels had a fairly even thickness of the sides of about an inch, and were fashioned quite regularly without and within. This rim is flattened and slopes inward. The diameter of the complete mortars may have been a foot. This type of mortar is quite common in California. ”

“ Stratum V is the uppermost one out of which one or two single objects (among them 1-8756, plate 6, fig. 21) may be considered finished implements. Of the thirty-nine implement-like objects obtained in excavating, only one is of unusual workmanship, an arrow-head of chert, 1-8815, plate 6, fig. 19, which comes from stratum VII, at the lowest part of cut C. The extraordinary accumulation of objects of chipped stone which can be termed implements begins with stratum VIII and continues down to the lowest stratum X. A considerable number of these is shown in plate 6. ”

“ In attempting to discover possible cultural differences we unfortunately meet with several difficulties. The action of the climate has destroyed in all the strata the objects which consisted of perishable materials. Only the more resistant things remained. But the perishable materials are frequently those in which the decorative sense of man expresses itself most easily, and in which cultural differences are most distinctly shown. ”

“ Burial of an adult, in stratum VII, found above the tunnel. The body in the usual squatting position was placed from north to south, facing east, upon a bed of red earth and was itself colored red. This grave contained besides objects of personal adornment a number of bone implements. The former consisted of a number of beads made of bird bone (types similar to object pl. 11, figs. 15 to 17) and a like number of Olivella shells bored at the lower end (pl. 11, fig. 3) ; they were scattered in the earth about the body. One of the Olivella shells was perforated on its side (pl. 11, fig. 4) . ”

“ The specimens of bone implements recovered in shellmounds are of great importance in the study of the use of such implements among primitive peoples, since they are so rarely found in other fields of research (cf. also Abbott, l. c., p. 205) . Still shellmounds greatly differ in this respect. While bone implements are “quite abundant” in the shellmounds of New England, the same as here (Wyman, Am. Naturalist. I, p. 581) , the mounds in New Jersey yield only one bone to every 3,000 stone implements. (Abbott, l. c.)
A. Implements made of Stone. a. Made by Grinding. 1. Mortars. ”

“ For only in many centuries or even in tens of centuries could even large groups of men pile up such enormous quantities of kitchen debris into hills which come to form prominent features of the landscape. ”

“ From the depths at which the different graves were found, varying about nine feet, it is clear that they were not constructed within a short period, but that long periods intervened, during which the mound grew very considerably through the deposition of refuse. P. Schumacher explored the graves of Oregon, which lay at a depth of from 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 feet below the surface, and probably the tribes of the Pacific Coast buried their dead in comparatively shallow graves. ”

“ Shellmounds originate on the accumulated refuse deposited by people who have lived in the place when the heap has formed, and the mounds may therefore be regarded as sites for dwelling places, or abodes for the living, and not as mounds set aside as burial grounds by people living elsewhere in the vicinity. ”

“ Compare knife-like “hide-scrapers” of bone used by the Eskimo of Behring Straits and figured by E. W. Nelson in the 18th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1896-97, Part I, pl. 50, figs. 3-6.
[137] In Moorehead, l. c., p. 272. Two similar objects from South America are figured by F. W. Putnam, l. c., pl. 11, figs. 10, 11, and are described (p. 227) as fishhooks.
6. Saw-like Notched Bones.
The excavations furnish twelve objects of this type of implement, of which perhaps half were from stratum II. The remainder were found from the lower strata up to the eighth. ”