Indians of North America -- Implements; Stone implements -- United States; United States -- Antiquities
Yet the most important deposit of flint implements resembling certain
types of the European drift, is that discovered by Messrs. Squier and
Davis during their researches in Ohio. They have described this
interesting find in the "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley,"
and a _resume_ of their account was given by me in the Smithsonian
report for 1868, (p. 404.) The implements in question, I stated,
occurred in one of the so-called sacrificial mounds of Clark's Work,
on North Fork of Paint Creek, Ross County, Ohio. This flat, but very
broad mound contained, instead of the hearth usually found in this
class of earth-structures, an enormous number of flint discs, standing
on their edges and arranged in two layers, one above the other, at the
bottom of the mound. The whole extent of these layers has not been
ascertained, but an excavation six feet long and four broad disclosed
upward of six hundred of those discs, rudely blocked out of a superior
kind of dark flint. I had occasion to examine the specimens from this
mound, which were formerly in the collection of Dr. Davis, and have
now in my collection a number that belonged to the same deposit. They
are either roundish, oval, or heart-shaped, and of various sizes, but
on an average six inches long, four inches wide, and from
three-quarters to an inch in thickness. These flint discs are believed
to have been buried as a religious offering, and the peculiar
structure of the mound which inclosed them rather favors this opinion,
while their enormous number, on the other hand, affords some
probability to the view that they constituted a depot or magazine.
Many of them are clumsy, and roughly chipped around their edges; and
hence it has been suggested that they are no finished implements, but
merely rudimentary forms, destined to receive more symmetry of outline
by subsequent labor. Many of the discs under notice bear a striking
resemblance to the flint "hatchets" discovered by Boucher de Perthes
and Dr. Rigollot in the diluvial gravels of the valley of the Somme,
in Northern France. The similarity in form, however, is the only
analogy that can be claimed for the rude flint articles of both
continents, considering that they occurred under totally different
circumstances. The drift implements of Europe represent the most
primitive attempts of man in the art of working stone, while the Ohio
discs, if finished at all, are certainly very rough samples of the
handicraft of a race that constructed earthworks of astonishing
regularity and magnitude, and was already highly skilled in the art of
chipping flint into various shapes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account