The Prehistoric World; Or, Vanished RacesAllen, Emory Adams
History
The Prehistoric World; Or, Vanished Races
Allen, Emory Adams
Archaeology; Indians; Prehistoric peoples
Previous to this discovery, Mr. Foster had recorded the finding
in this same formation, distant but a few miles, a rude hatchet.
There was in this case a possibility that the stone could have
been shaped by natural means, and so he did not affirm this to be
a work of man; but he says, “had it been recovered from a plowed
field, I should have unhesitatingly said it was an Indian’s
hatchet.”43 We think it but another instance of relics found
under such circumstances, that it points to the presence of man
at the close of the Glacial Age.
No doubt many similar discoveries have been made, but the
specimens were regarded as the work of Indians; and though the
position in which they wore found may have excited some surprise,
they were not brought to the attention of the scholars. Nor is it
only in the prairie regions of the West where such discoveries
have been made. Col. C. C. Jones has recorded the finding of some
flint implements in the drift of the Chattahooche River, which we
think as conclusively proves the presence of man in a far away
time as do any of the discoveries in the river gravels of Europe.
It seems that gold exists in the sands of this river, and the
early settlers were quick to take advantage of it. They dug
canals in places to turn the river from its present channel—and
others, to reach some buried channel of former times. These
sections passed down to the hard slate rock, passing through the
surface, and the underlying drift, composed of sand, gravel, and
bowlders. “During one of these excavations, at a depth of nine
feet below the surface, commingled with the gravels and bowlders
of the drift, and just above the rocky substratum upon which the
deposit rested, were found three [Paleolithic] flint
implements.”44
He adds that, “in materials, manners of construction, and in
general appearance, so nearly do they resemble some of the rough,
so-called flint hatchets, belonging to the drift type, as
described by M. Boucher De Perthes, that they might very readily
be mistaken, the one for the other.” “They are as emphatically
drift implements, as any that have appeared in the diluvial
matrix of France.” On the surface soil, above the flints, are
found the ordinary relics of the Indians. The works of the Mound
Builders are also to be seen. Judging from their position, the
Paleolithics must be greatly older than any of the surface
remains. Many centuries must go by to account for the formation
of the vegetable soil above them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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