ABORIGINAL REMAINS IN THE CHAMPLAIN VALLEY

SECOND PAPER

By G. H. PERKINS

Na former paper, published in this Journal (vol. xi, pp. 607–

IN

623) the writer described a portion of the aboriginal remains which have been found in the region which may be fairly included in the Champlain Valley.

It is the design of the present paper and of another to follow to complete what has already been written by some account of several classes of objects not included in the first paper. It is important to preserve and discuss the specimens found in the region named, because, here, as indeed in many another locality, the accumulation of any considerable number and variety of stone and other objects that were made and used by the ancient occupants is no longer possible. This is eminently true of a long and well settled area and one much visited by tourists as is that here considered. As indicated in the first paper, the only collections of much value that have been made in the Champlain Valley are: that in the Museum of the University of Vermont, which is by far the most important, that in the state collection at Montpelier, and that at Amherst College, collected on the west side of the Valley by the late Dr Kellogg.

In the former paper there were considered, Chipped objects, Gouges, Celts, Earthenware, Bone, Copper and Iron. In the following pages there will be considered Grooved Axes, Problematical Stones-bird stones, two-hole stones, boat-shaped stones, etc.—and Pipes.

All of the specimens figured and most of those mentioned are now in the two Vermont museums.

GROOVED AXES

Grooved axes in a great variety of form and size, and of all degrees of elegance, have been obtained from the soil of this region.

Some are of the simplest and rudest character, shaped apparently with the least amount of labor while others equal our finest specimens in perfection of form and finish. Most of these axes are well made and give abundant evidence of the care and labor expended in their shaping from the flat, oval quartz pebbles from which they have been produced. The simplest are merely flat pieces of quartzite or other hard stone, even sandstone being occasionally used. Roughly shaped and notched only on the edges, these rude implements may have been often used as hammers rather than as axes and yet they have the ax form. Plate XII shows several forms and examples of the best of our Champlain Valley axes.

Most of these, as is true of all similar specimens, are so completely worked over the surface that it is not always possible to determine whether they were made from drift pebbles or from material broken from some nearby ledge. The specimen shown on the plate at the top, however, is very obviously made from a quartz pebble, water worn, and worked only so far as necessary to adapt it to its purpose. The smaller ax at the right of this is also obviously made from a pebble and probably also that at the lower right-hand corner, but the other two are not so plainly of the same sort. As the figures show, our better axes are ground or rubbed over the whole surface. At first, usually, the stone selected was hammered or pecked into the desired form and then rubbed smooth, but, when the ax was made from a pebble, the smooth, water worn surface was retained as far as possible. As the figures show, our axes differed materially in form from those of the west and south or even from those of the Ohio Valley. None are as large as some from these other localities nor do we ever find those in which the upper portion, that above the groove, is conical or pyramidal.

On the average, our axes are not more than six to eight inches long and three or four wide and they do not weight more than three or four pounds. Somewhat larger specimens occasionally occur, but none greatly exceed the dimensions given.

Clumsy and inefficient as these dull-edged tools seem to us they appear, nevertheless, to have been quite serviceable in the hands of those who knew how to use them. In speaking of a temporary encampment which his Algonkin companions made on one of the

large islands in the lake which bears his name, Champlain tells us that they built a barricade and cut "gros arbres" with "meschantes haches" for this purpose. As this was merely a stop of a single night it is not probable that these Indians wasted any great amount of labor upon the structure they had thought it necessary to make. In all the best axes the groove is well defined and encircles the implement. As the figures show, the groove is sometimes near the middle, sometimes near the end opposite the edge. In the most perfect specimens the groove is as seen in the three lower figures of plate XII, but it may extend only across each end as in the two upper figures. It is rarely if ever made about three sides only, the fourth being left flat, as in specimens found in other places. I have seen but one specimen of this sort in our collections and this is doubtfully from this region.

Naturally, because of the labor of making them, the grooved axes are by no means as common as the celts. Indeed, finely wrought stone axes are among our least abundant specimens. In no part of this region have more than three or four been found in a single locality and usually only one or two.

PROBLEMATICAL OBJECTS

This name has been proposed, as it seems to me most wisely, to include a group of quite heterogeneous specimens, some of which may have been, and very probably were, used as amulets or charms, others as emblems of one sort or another, others as ornaments, while the design of some can not be conjectured with probability.

As every reader of archeological articles knows, a great variety of names have been assigned to these objects, some of them undoubtedly fanciful, others probably indicating the use to which this or that specimen was put. Some of these common names will be used, but without the intention of expressing thereby any certainty that the term applied is entirely correct. Unless found in an unfinished condition, these objects are all well shaped, finely finished, and were evidently considered by the makers of sufficient importance to be worthy of their best efforts.

The material of which they are made is usually fine in grain and attractive in color. The kind of objects of which I am writing