“Long narrow chisel-shaped celts occur in many Wisconsin collections. They are square, oval, or circular in section. Some are nine or more inches in length.”
CHAPTER XVI
GROUND STONE
THE ADZE AND THE GOUGE
The adze and the gouge are peculiar to New England and northeastern Canada. The adze is also found in British Columbia and in the Northwest.
Fig. 235. (S. 1–6.) To the right is a beautiful celt with straight sides, one surface convex, the other flat—Class D under celts. The next specimen is a celt very slightly grooved, and marks the beginning of the gouge (Class II, A). The next specimen to the left is a broader gouge, while the one to the extreme left is ridged and slightly hollowed on the reverse side. All from Maine, except the one to the left. From A. E. Mark’s collection, Yarmouth, Maine.
The New England specimens seem to be more properly hafted celts than plain celts. Of course there are multitudes of grooved axes found in New England, but as a rule they may be distinguished from the axes west of the Allegheny Mountains. The New England celt is like the Western celt, but there are few New England celts, and the native in New England not only made use of axes, but he put on his celt a knob, or a ridge, or two ridges, or two knobs, thereby distinguishing it from the average celt.
In the Ohio Valley there are none of the gouges or ridged celts, and aboriginal man was content with simple forms. Yet he worked his simple forms into high-grade tools, as we shall see. This emphasizes the development of given types in certain localities rather than that man first employed an oval pebble which he edged and then developed the gouge, the specialized celt, or a grooved axe. Were this not true, should we not find gouges and ridged celts in the Ohio Valley? Certain art forms were developed in certain localities if not elsewhere. The progress was not along the same lines, or, I am persuaded, of the same time period in all places.
As to the above specimens, I quote from Henry A. Crosby, who wrote about the triangular stone adze in the Wisconsin Archeologist, vol. II, no. 4, July, 1903:—
“Among the several interesting and well established classes of aboriginal pecked stone implements which it may be claimed with more or less truth are especially characteristic of Wisconsin archæological districts, may be mentioned the so-called triangular stone adzes.