Warren King Moorehead

“ It would be as accurate for one to say that because leaves grow on trees and serve the same purpose, therefore, all leaves are of the same form.
To one who has examined chipped implements in a perfunctory manner they will appear more or less alike, just as to him who is not a botanist, leaves convey no more information than that they are leaves. Yet he who is interested in the technology of flint implements will become proficient after a few years of work, and may distinguish the arrow-points of one section from those of elsewhere. ”

“ He must, through long and painstaking labors both in the field and in the museum, form his deductions. In these he is aided by numerous reports, papers, books, and other published records of explorers, travelers, archæologists, and ethnologists. But he must remember that he is studying the past and not the present—an unwritten past, in fact.
It is well to emphasize the fact that “The Stone Age” is a classification of man’s handiwork. It is not a work relating to cultures, although remarks as to the culture and relation of tribes are suggested frequently by certain types of specimens. ”

“ In old times, before the invention and introduction of planing and shaping machines to work metals, the first and most important lesson taught to the machinist’s apprentice was the use of the hand-hammer and cold-chisel. When an outer shell was to be removed from a metal casting and its surface left in condition to be finished by file or scraper, the smoothness and regularity of that surface was essential, not only for economy in working, but accuracy of the file finish. ”

“ PLANS FOR AN ARCHÆOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION There are something like three hundred museums or institutions in the United States that contain archæological collections. These exhibits range from more than a million objects, as in the case of the Smithsonian Institution, or Field Museum of Chicago, or the American Museum of Natural History, to private collections of one to ten thousand specimens each. I have roughly estimated the number of prehistoric artifacts available for study, or those of aboriginal manufacture that show little influence of European culture, at about eight million objects. ”

“ It has occurred to me that those museum men who collect and study modern material more than the prehistoric have not a clear perspective of the past in this country. As against this statement these gentlemen might properly reply that those of us who study olden times fall into grievous errors because we do not explain ancient cultures through a study of cultures among living tribes. ”

“ Greenstone possesses a fine texture. It is hard and tough and forms an ideal material in many respects, but it has this one drawback, it does contain a great many structural planes, and the axe sooner or later comes to grief. How rarely a greenstone axe is well finished, the aborigine knew all too well that in some unexpected hour it would break. If ninety per cent of our Wisconsin axes are made of igneous rocks, about eight per cent perhaps are made of metamorphic rocks, while the remaining two per cent are formed from sedimentary rocks of various types, chiefly sandstone and limestone. ”

“ I suggest that the critical reader bear in mind that a classification of all the implements of the United States brings out certain facts or tendencies, or may indicate conclusions which escape the observer who is interested in the exploration of a given territory rather than in a study of types, or who is not familiar with the implements of most of the United States. ”

“ If he were not skilful he would spend time to look for a blank that was a close approximation to the desired tool, that he might be spared the necessity of shaping it with his unskilled fingers. This would often mean the selection of poorer material than might have been the case under different circumstances. Primitive man, as a recent writer has pointed out, had to exercise more real mental acumen and sagacity, had to be more agile and alert and bring into action more varied qualities of mind and body in order to live, than the great mass of our present population. ”

“ As one studies implements and puts to a severe working test the classification, it becomes clear that while an object may have an expanding stem, yet there are other features which overshadow the mere fact that the stem expands. ”

“ Not content with merely taking from the hand of nature, the Indians were primitive agriculturalists. In gathering roots they first unconsciously stirred the soil and stimulated better growth. They planted gourds in favored places, and returned in autumn to harvest the crops. Maize was regularly planted on ground cleared with the help of fire, and was cultivated with sharpened sticks and hoes of bone, shell, and stone. Tobacco was cultivated by many tribes, some of which planted nothing else. ”

“ In selecting a rock for axe purposes, other things being equal, he would take first of all a quartzless type. If it were a question between granite, which contains quartz, and syenite, which has little, he would almost invariably select the latter. You very rarely see an axe made of quartz-bearing rock in this region. The axe-maker was aware apparently of the hardness of the mineral, of the difficulty with which it was worked, and he naturally avoided rocks that contained it in abundance when seeking axe material. ”

“ If one will reflect on the beginnings of human culture, it may seem to one that the earliest man picked up a flat bit of bright stone without irregular edges—perhaps it was oval—and drilled a little hole in the top, and wore it about his neck as an ornament. ”

“ Man learned by slow degrees and by experience the nature of rock properties. He learned to distinguish between different types of rocks much as a modern geologist does in the field by taking account of two features, namely: (1) The mineralogical composition; (2) the texture of the rock. I do not mean to imply that early man was absolutely guided by the quality of the rock; other factors entered into the choice, but rock character was always a prominent factor.
Fig. 250. (S. 1–6.) Illustrates 14 axes from the collection of J. A. Rayner, Piqua, Ohio. ”

“ The harder materials, such as quartz, quartzite, and argillite, frequently reach a high state of perfection. But as a rule the less refractory the material, the finer the workmanship. Thus, it is natural that the points found throughout the eastern Alleghenies, in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania are not as highly finished as those of the central Mississippi basin. And again, the flint of the Mississippi basin, while beautifully worked, is not, on the whole, of as high average as that of the Columbia Valley. ”

“ The flaking of stone, and especially that part of it relating to the making of arrow-points, has very generally been regarded as a great mystery and is often spoken of as a lost art; but the art is still practiced by many of our aboriginal tribes, and it appears that almost any one who desires can by a little systematic practice do the work. ”

“ I have always been a firm believer in the theory that, as most of the flint was carried on the backs of Indians, or transported in canoes from one point to another, the discs, turtlebacks, and other forms which had been quickly blocked out by a few strokes of the stone hammer, represented material to be transported to distant villages and there refashioned. We may explain the quantity of such material on all these quarry sites by means of a dozen different theories. The workers blocked out more than they could transport ”

“ Almost none are found in Texas, and northward from Texas until southern Iowa is reached axes are almost wanting. On the Great Plains of Kansas and Nebraska, where chipped implements are to be found, axes are rare. In the cave region of the Ozarks, which, by the way, is an anomaly in archæology, there are no stone axes, only two having been found in the entire region; whereas, according to percentages elsewhere, there should be several hundred, if not nearly one thousand. On some village-sites in this country numbers of axes have been found; whereas, on other village-sites there are no axes. ”

“ The polished stone hatchet or celt is an implement much in use entirely throughout the world, and we may doubt whether primitive man could have existed without it. Celts served a multitude of purposes; the ruder ones may be considered as general utility tools in use about the wigwams and cabins. The more skillful worker in stone made very artistic as well as serviceable celts and hatchets, usually paying particular attention to the edge, which was often keen and sharp. Sufficient time and labor were put on certain of the specimens to bring them to a high state of perfection ”

“ No rock is better suited for pecking and polishing than the finer grained igneous rocks, nor on the whole are any more resistant to fracture, none are tougher. These are qualities of prime importance in axes. The very fact that so large a percentage of axes are made of the best obtainable material is significant of the fact that early man deliberately sought for certain qualities and looked until he found them. ”

“ Similar large axes have been found in Ohio, and one or two weighing as much as twenty pounds are in the Smithsonian collection, and one of about sixteen pounds in the collection of the Ohio State University.
“All artifacts are the resultant of an interaction between several factors,—character of the rock, need of the worker, form of the blank selected, skill of the worker. If the tool-maker was in a hurry for a utensil he would be likely to choose material easier to work than ordinarily would be the case,—material that he could shape hurriedly. ”

“ Readers will do well to compare them with the best flint abroad or elsewhere. It was necessary for the master workman who made these objects to secure unusually long, clear blocks of flint, in which were no imperfections. Where the material was obtained for these specimens (some of which are twenty to twenty-two inches in length) is a mystery. It was a simple task for the ancient workman to block out the implement, leaving it spade-like in character, fairly thick, and exhibiting a surface from which flakes an inch or more in size had been chipped. ”

“ Some specimens are convex on one face and plane on the other; but when one face is concave the other is also. Of the latter form many have a secondary depression at the centre; others have a perforation which is sometimes enlarged until the disc becomes a ring. They are made principally of very hard rock, as quartz, flint, jasper, novaculite, quartzite, porphyry, syenite, and the like, though stone as soft as marble, sandstone, barite, and even steatite was sometimes chosen. No type of relics is more difficult to classify than these discs. ”

“ If the Indian found a suitable pebble or block of flint or fragment of stone, he most certainly would fashion that into an implement rather than travel a considerable distance and work laboriously to produce that which was found nearer home. Because of the observations cited above, I cannot believe that the quarries represent the work of aboriginal man during a few generations, but that they indicate, perhaps, three or four thousand years of occupation. ”

“ If there is anything that denotes peculiar development here in America on the part of stone-age man—a development dissimilar to that found anywhere else in the world, it is evinced in these strange, problematical forms. Here and there one will find a stone pendant or simple ornament similar to stone pendants elsewhere in the world. ”

“ Entirely too much has been made of the fact that chipped implements of various kinds have been seen in the possession of modern Indians the past two hundred years. As an illustration of how the modern Indian has drifted away from the past, and in support of my contention that his present condition, while entertaining and interesting, is of little value to archæology, I desire to call attention to one who is more competent to pass upon this subject than many white persons who have written regarding it. ”

“ The handling of the tool and flake to form an arrow-point is as much an act requiring exactness and precision as the handling of the cold-chisel and hammer is to the machinist. The first chip thrown off is analogous to the first starting-work of the cold-chisel; it is the text that must be adhered to the end of the chapter. Holding the flake in such position that, commencing at what is intended for the point of the intended work, the pressure with the flaking-point is brought to bear close to the edge of the forty-five degrees angle and at right angles to it ”

“ There are local cultures, developed in this form of object as in flint or other types.
There are some sites in this country where shale or slate occur; notably at Martin’s Creek, Pennsylvania, where we obtained many unfinished butterfly and winged stones of Pennsylvania form. These materials are not as hard as granite, but they are not always soft. So far as I can ascertain, aboriginal man visited such places and secured masses of material. He reduced this by pecking or pointing with stone hammers or round blocks of flint (for a flint pebble makes a better hammer than other stones) . ”

“ Personally, I have examined sites in twenty states, and I saw but one section of the country where broken pottery exceeded chipped objects in quantity. That was the Chaco region in northern New Mexico and the San Juan Valley. Elsewhere spalls, flakes, discs, and broken chipped implements exceeded axes, pottery, or any other class of prehistoric artifacts. When we counted the specimens in the Andover Museum, November 10, 1906, we found that out of 55,928 objects, more than thirty-two thousand were of the chipped class. Our collection is general, representing most of the states in this country. ”

“ Along the shores of a river or lake, about the foot of a cliff, or on stony ground, he was apt to find fragments of rock broken by natural agencies. Some of these had sharp edges, and it is quite likely that his first knives and scrapers were flakes or spalls which served him as crude implements. This theory has been worked out at length in several publications and need not be repeated here. The chipped implements themselves evince all kinds of workmanship; some are well made, others appear to be either childish attempts or the work of artisans unskilled in flint-chipping. ”