QUARRYING MATERIALS
We have seen that Professor Mason dealt with occupations rather than implements,[[2]] and did not attempt a classification of artifacts.
The result of the Committee’s investigation was to the effect that we should classify objects as to form and material, not taking into account possible use in our grouping. It was supposed that whoever made use of the classification would present his own interpretation of the meaning of these various forms.
The classification was intended merely as a skeleton on which future classifications were to be built. It must be understood that the expansion of this classification and the changes found necessary and presented here in “The Stone Age” are submitted on my own responsibility. The classifications in axes, celts, copper, bone and shell, mortars and pestles, etc., were made by me because the Committee did not present grouping of these forms; all of which is no reflection on the Committee. It is simply that as no classification of these other things existed, it was necessary to make one.
In describing ancient art there is another method of classification—according to locality. But in any work as large as “The Stone Age,” the adoption of such classification necessitates more or less repetition, and I think it better to describe under a given chapter all the implements of one kind no matter where found in the United States than to treat of geographical distributions. I consider this method less cumbersome and more satisfactory than the separate treatment of all the localities. So far as possible all illustrations are confined to prehistoric objects.
No illustrations—save one or two—of axes in handles, wooden objects or ancient bows are offered. Readers are referred to the museums for such exhibits. To show such, would swell the volumes to unwieldy proportions, and “The Stone Age” already contains more figures than were originally intended.
The textile fabrics, wooden objects, and other things of perishable materials, except where buried in caves in the dry Southwest, have long ago disappeared, and therefore, to make comparisons, one must inspect the older forms among ethnological objects in the collections at New York, Chicago, Denver, Washington, Milwaukee, Cambridge, Toronto, etc., for illustration. There are many hafted implements of various kinds in existence in museums to-day—particularly in the case of specimens collected one hundred years ago—which present trustworthy evidence as to how similar things may have been mounted in prehistoric times. Again, there are hundreds of modern objects collected in the past century among living tribes that to the student of archæology appear to exhibit white man’s influence and are of little or no value in understanding real Stone-Age times. As an illustration of this, I mention the various forms of catlinite pipes, recent examples of which are quite degenerate as compared with the old forms. The same is true of most of the Pueblo pottery, and the war-clubs of Plains tribes.
Fig. 26. (S. 2–3.) Flint knives, made of red and yellow jasper. William C. Mills, Columbus, Ohio.
It seems strange that with the thousands of pages on archæological and ethnological subjects, with which our libraries are filled, no such classification was attempted previously. The time is certainly opportune for such a work and while I am aware that the following pages are more or less incomplete, still I believe that some one should make a beginning, even though the future observers, who will know much more regarding these interesting and mysterious artifacts of the past than do we of the present, may question some of the observations herein set forth.
Fig. 27. (S. 1–2.) Flint cores from which the knives are made. Specimen to the left, red and yellow jasper. Specimen to the right, maroon colored jasper. Flint Ridge material. William C. Mills, Columbus, Ohio. This and some thirty other figures loaned by Mills, appeared in the publications of the Ohio State Archæological and Historical Society, and illustrated his explorations.
I suggest that the critical reader bear in mind that a classification of all the implements of the United States brings out certain facts or tendencies, or may indicate conclusions which escape the observer who is interested in the exploration of a given territory rather than in a study of types, or who is not familiar with the implements of most of the United States.
Therefore, “The Stone Age” is narrowed to a description of the ornaments, utensils, weapons, and artifacts of ancient man in America. Otherwise, one could easily fill ten volumes instead of two, and even then not exhaust the subject.
No description of mounds, earthworks, cliff-houses, pueblos, or village-sites is possible in “The Stone Age.” Readers are referred to the Bibliography, where titles relative to mound, cliff, fortification, and village-site exploration and description will enable them to consult publications relating to these subjects.