Since we have examined these gorgets and ornaments from a historical point of view, let us now return to our archæological position and study them through the natural history method.
In 1906 Dr. Charles Peabody and myself published Bulletin II, “The So-Called ‘Gorgets.’” This pamphlet was the outcome of a great deal of study, correspondence, and travel. In that report we published a very technical description of gorgets, but omitted winged objects and the crescents and everything except flat and ridged objects with perforations at the centre or near the ends. None of our objects were perforated through their long diameter. The work on the gorgets is too technical to be reproduced here. We measured all of the gorgets in the Andover and Harvard and other collections, over six hundred, and gave the diameters in millimetres. This total embraces a number of specimens seen at Washington and elsewhere, as at Andover and Cambridge there were four hundred and eight specimens by count. These specimens were examined by means of a triple lens in every possible way. They were measured by the metric system, and the size of each one set down, the diameter of the perforation being given. In “The Stone Age,” I shall adopt the conclusions reached by Dr. Peabody and myself with some additions.
Broken and worked Gorgets
When one studies this class, one learns more than if one confined his observations to the perfect forms alone. I have presented several illustrations of broken gorgets, and it is well to comment upon them and the meaning they unquestionably convey.
Fig. 307 shows a group of these “doctored” gorgets. Each one tells an interesting story.
Fig. 321. (S. 1–1.) A beautiful specimen of unfinished problematical form. Material: dark blue slate. Phillips Academy collection. Secured by A. B. Winans, Battle Creek, Michigan. The ancient workman had not completed his pecking process, but had begun to cut and scrape the surfaces to some extent on either wing. He had left an elevation in the centre to strengthen that part through which the perforation must pass. The flint or sandstone cuttings on the surfaces of the specimen are well brought out in the half-tone.
In the centre, to the left, is a broken winged object—broken whether by accident or design one may not say. But having been broken, it was drilled through the centre by means of a reed drill, near the lateral perforation, and worn as an ornament. There are other specimens in the collection at Phillips Academy that have been broken and made use of as ornaments. It is probable that in not a few instances these specimens have been found by subsequent individuals, long afterwards, and made use of for a purpose entirely foreign to the original maker.
Fig. 322. (S. about 1–2.) This presents a stone in unfinished winged form, showing pecking. Material: close-grained sandstone. From the collection of E. Ralston Goldsborough, Frederick, Maryland.