The pottery found in graves of the Neolithic period is mostly so imperfectly burned, that, however abundant it may have been, it could scarcely leave a trace in the breccia, or river gravel, from which the larger number of relics of palæolithic man have been recovered. But the pottery and terra-cottas which abound on the sites of Indian villages in North America everywhere exhibit traces of imitative art, in the efforts at modelling the human form, and the more or less successful reproduction of familiar natural objects. Squier remarks in his “Aboriginal Monuments of the State of New York,” that “upon the site of every Indian town, as also within all of the ancient enclosures, fragments of pottery occur in great abundance. It is rare, however, that any entire vessels are recovered. . . . In general there was no attempt at ornament; but sometimes the exteriors of the pots and vases were elaborately, if not tastefully, ornamented with dots and lines, which seem to have been formed in a very rude manner with a pointed stick or sharpened bone. Bones which appear to have been adapted for the purpose are often found.”[95] Ornamentation of a more artistic kind appears to have been most frequently reserved by the native workers in clay for their pipes, to which at times a sacred character was attached, and on which accordingly they lavished their highest skill as modellers and carvers. Some of the smaller articles of burnt clay, however, which Squier denominates terra-cottas, were probably fragments of domestic pottery similar to those hereafter described among the relics of the ancient Indian town of Hochelaga. One example of an ingeniously modelled pipe, found within an enclosure in Jefferson County, New York, is specially selected as a good illustration of Indian art. It is of fine red clay, smoothly moulded, with two serpents coiling round the bowl. “Bushels of fragments of pipes,” he adds, “have been found within the same enclosure.” A carved stone pipe, from a grave in Cayuga County, is described as fashioned in the form of a bird with eyes made of silver inserted in the head, and Mr. Squier notes of another specimen: “The most beautiful terra-cotta which I found in the State, and which in point of accuracy and delicacy of finish is unsurpassed by any similar article which I have seen of aboriginal origin, is the head of a fox. The engraving fails to convey the spirit of the original, which is composed of fine clay slightly burned. It seems to have been once attached to a body, or perhaps to a vessel of some kind. It closely resembles some of the terra-cottas from the mounds of the west and south-west. It was found upon the site of an ancient enclosure in Jefferson County, in the town of Ellisburg.” Again, in describing some similar relics from the site of an old Seneca village in Munroe County, he adds: “The spot is remarkable for the number and variety of its ancient relics. Vast quantities of these have been removed from time to time.