The frequent occurrence of drilled and perforated stone and shell implements, tubes, pipes, etc., accounts for the finding of a variety of awls, or drills, made of flint and stone. Not only perforated shell-gorgets, stone tablets or guards, plummets, and the like relics, but also beads, bears’ teeth, and other pendants or personal ornaments of various kinds, have been found in the mounds. They correspond to some extent to a class of perforated shell and bone implements met with in the ancient cave deposits of France and England; and the flint awls or borers by which they were drilled have been recognised among the rarer objects of the neolithic period found in England, France, Denmark, and in the Swiss Lake-dwellings.[[37]] Figs. 11, 12 are good examples of two types of such tools in use by the ancient flint-workers of the Ohio Valley. Fig. 11 was found by its present owner, Mr. James Pierce, near Mayville, Kentucky. The square butt which forms the handle retains the natural shape of the block of yellow chert of which it is made, while the chipped surfaces of the blade show the dark grey colour of the core. Fig. 12 is a larger and ruder example of the flint drill, from the collection of Dr. Hill, of Cincinnati, probably designed to be attached to a wooden haft, and used for operations on a larger scale. A more carefully finished small flint-awl, with a neatly worked handle, but unfortunately broken at the point, was presented to me by Mr. Merrin, of Newark, who picked it up in a field in that vicinity. A drill of a different kind is shown in Fig. 13, also from the collection of Dr. Hill.
Fig. 13.—Stone Drill, Cincinnati. Fig. 14.—Flint-Knife, Cincinnati.
It is of diorite, and at the first glance might be taken for a stone arrow-head. But it is worn perfectly smooth along its two edges, especially towards the point, evidently from continuous use in the perforation of some hard substance, such as might result in the hollowing out of the bowl of a stone pipe: though such an instrument would be called into use in many operations of the old flint-workers. Knives and razors of diverse forms, and some of them finished with great care, at times in very fantastic shapes, are also of frequent occurrence. Their unusual shapes are probably in part due to the chance fracture of the flint-flakes, specimens of which abound in the pits on Flint Ridge, frequently requiring little manipulation to convert them into cutting implements. Fig. 14 is a small knife of this class, selected from several in the collection of Dr. Hill. It is made of yellow chert, and has a keen cutting edge. But there is another class of flint-knives not unfamiliar to European archæologists, of which interesting examples occur. A good American specimen of the flint-core, such as has been found in Kent’s Cavern, and elsewhere on British sites, and is common among the neolithic relics of Denmark, is now in my possession. It was picked up in the Granville valley, Licking county, Ohio, not far from the famous Alligator Mound; and shows the facets from which long curved flakes have been struck off. The curved form which the flake naturally assumes is frequently retained in the finished implements, along with three facets, forming an acute triangular blade, coming to a sharp edge.
Fig. 15.—Flint Razor, Kentucky.
The Mexican obsidian is characterised by the same fracture; and some of the early Spanish writers enlarge on the keenness of the edge of the obsidian razors, as scarcely inferior to those of steel, though they speedily lose their edge. A good example of the flint razor is shown in Fig. 15, from the collection of Mr. James Pierce of Mayville, Kentucky. It is one of the outer flakes of the core, coming to a good edge on the one side, and chipped to a broad back. Fitted with a wooden haft, it would form a convenient cutting implement for many purposes. It is shown here nearly 5-6ths of the original size. The natural cleavage of the flint, thus controlling the forms which the fractured nodules assume, has tended to beget certain classes of implements common to all the stone periods of which we have any trace, from the palæolithic era of the drift and cave-men to that of the flint-workers among savage tribes of our own day. Horse-shoe, pear-shaped, oval, discoidal, and other scrapers abound among the more familiar implements of the old American flint-workers, reproducing all the forms common to the early stone periods of Europe, and which have been minutely illustrated by Mr. Evans.[[38]] But there is another type of scraper, of a more finished character,
Fig. 16-17.—Flint Scrapers, Ohio.
which frequently occurs among American flint implements, of which I am not aware that any example has hitherto been noted in Europe. In its more common form it might be mistaken at the first glance for a broken arrow-head. But the repeated occurrence of examples of this type, with the well-finished edge invariably inclining, with a curve, to the one side, leaves no room for doubt as to its purpose as a scraper, designed to be fastened to a haft, and used for fashioning needles, bodkins, lance-heads, and other implements of ivory, bone, or horn. This type is shown in Fig. 16, picked up in the neighbourhood of Newark. Fig. 17 is another common form, with the edge wrought to one side, but with slighter curve, or inclination otherwise to the side. Both of these are figured the full size; but many specimens occur of larger sizes, and varying curves of the blade, from a long horse-shoe to a broad crescent shape. There are also arrow-heads of analogous forms, but with no curve in the blade. Similar arrow-heads are now made by the Blackfeet Indians out of iron hoops obtained from the Hudson Bay fur traders, and it is said that with those a skilful marksman will behead a bird on the wing. Others of the rarer forms of flint implements include foliated, flamboyant, or fantastically-shaped arrow-heads, and the like implements, of which an example is shown in Fig. 18, and for which it is difficult to assign any specific use. Some of them, indeed, look like the sports of an ingenious workman tempted by chance forms of the fractured flint to try his hand at some fanciful knife, arrow-head, or other implement of unwonted design.