Fig. 289. (S. 1–1.) Perforated pebbles from near Menard mound, Arkansas County, Arkansas. The simplest form of ornament. Collection of C. B. Moore, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Fig. 290. (S. 1–1.) An object of jade, which was found on a village-site, on the banks of the Miami River, Miami County, Ohio. It is in the collection of J. A. Rayner.
Fig. 292, showing two hundred and twenty-one forms in this class, is followed by a list of figures illustrating each type. It was not required, therefore, that figures be appended to the Committee’s list—these outlines being sufficiently close to that arrangement to stand in its stead.
If one will reflect on the beginnings of human culture, it may seem to one that the earliest man picked up a flat bit of bright stone without irregular edges—perhaps it was oval—and drilled a little hole in the top, and wore it about his neck as an ornament. It is not to be supposed that man began with the specialized forms, or a ridged ornament, which must have been of later development. Whether by later, one means a few generations or a thousand years, is immaterial, for, as we have observed in other places in this book, some tribes progressed rapidly, while others did not. Among the latter, the period of development in ornamental stones would be practically nil, for there are no problematical forms among such Indians as the Seris, whom McGee found in the stone age as late as 1901.[[8]]
Fig. 291. (S. 1–2.) Peabody Museum, Harvard University, collection. Further development of the single-perforation stone ornament. The circular disc is seldom found, and was probably an ear-ring.
Fig. 292
Now, while such Indians as the Seris have not progressed, we must not imagine that the rate of progress among other tribes was always very low. It may have been rapid or it may have been retarded; no man can affirm with reference to this. But it is to be supposed that the progress was considerable, for the Indian is superior to most other tribes of barbarians.