The lost Atlantis, and other ethnographic studiesWilson, Daniel, Sir
History
The lost Atlantis, and other ethnographic studies
Wilson, Daniel, Sir
America -- Antiquities; Atlantis (Legendary place); Ethnology -- America; Indians of North America -- Antiquities
The depth at which some accumulations occur, overlaid by the growth of
the so-called primeval forest, points to them as contemporary with, if
not in some cases older than, the earthworks of the Mound-Builders. The
extent, indeed, to which some are overlaid by subsequent accumulations
suggests a remote era. In 1853 Mr. Sellers first visited the site of one
of those ancient work-yards, on the northern bank of the Saline river,
about three miles above its junction with the Ohio. The region was then
covered with dense forest, with the exception of a narrow strip along
the bank of the river, which had been cleared in connection with
recently opened coal works. But at a later date, in sinking a cistern,
about 200 yards from the river bank, the excavation was made through a
mass of flint chips. Subsequently heavy rains, after ploughing, exposed
some spears and arrow points. “But it was not until the great flood of
the winter of 1862 and 1863 that overflowed this ridge three or four
feet with a rapid current, that the portion under cultivation on the
river bank was denuded, exposing over six acres of what at first
appeared to be a mass of chips or stone rubbish, but amongst it were
found many hammer-stones, celts, grooved axes, cores, flakes, almost
innumerable scrapers and other implements, and many tynes from the buck
or stag, all of which bore evidence of having been scraped to a point.
On exposure to the air they fell to pieces.” The actual site of the
quarry appears to have been subsequently identified. “The greater number
of cores, scattered flakes, finished and unfinished implements, are of
the chert from a depression in a ridge three miles to the south-east,
where there are abundant indications of large quantities having been
quarried.” But the same great work-yard of the ancient Mound-Builders
furnished evidence of other sources of supply. Mr. Sellers noted the
finding “a few cores of the white chert from Missouri, and the red and
yellow jasper of Kentucky and Tennessee,” but he adds, “the flakes of
these have mostly been found in nests or small caches, many of which
have been exposed; and in every case the flakes they contained were more
or less worked on their edges; whereas the flakes from the neighbouring
chert preserved their sharp edges as when split from the mass. These
cache specimens with their worked serrated edges would, if found singly,
be classed as saws or cutting implements. But here where found in mass,
evidently brought from a distance, to a place where harder chert of a
much better character for cutting implements abounds, they tell a
different story.” The material was better adapted for the manufacture of
certain classes of small implements much in demand, and the serrated
edge is simply the natural result of the mode of working of this species
of chert and of the jasper.
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