“Specimens like those in row M have been found in La Fayette, Jefferson, Waukesha, Winnebago, and several other counties.
“A small number of small perforated stone ornaments, known to local collectors as ‘pendants,’ have also been found on Wisconsin camp- or village-sites. These are often circular, oval, or triangular in shape. A few are in the shape of small animals. These are made of catlinite.”
CHAPTER XX
GROUND STONE
WINGED PROBLEMATICAL FORMS
This remarkable class of unknown objects will be studied first in the unfinished form. Previous to this page, in Figs. 320 to 328; and subsequently in Figs. 331 and 356, I have presented nearly all the steps or stages of process of manufacture in problematical forms. It would appear to readers that the accumulation of these types is an easy matter; it is not, but requires much time and patience and an endless correspondence. I was more than ten years in accumulating a hundred unfinished problematical forms. These all vary according to locality and material. There are local cultures, developed in this form of object as in flint or other types.
There are some sites in this country where shale or slate occur; notably at Martin’s Creek, Pennsylvania, where we obtained many unfinished butterfly and winged stones of Pennsylvania form. These materials are not as hard as granite, but they are not always soft. So far as I can ascertain, aboriginal man visited such places and secured masses of material. He reduced this by pecking or pointing with stone hammers or round blocks of flint (for a flint pebble makes a better hammer than other stones).
I have, under each of these figures mentioned, stated at some length what stages of workmanship the objects represent. Reference to these in conjunction with reading the following paragraphs will acquaint readers with the essential facts.
After pecking with stone hammers the surfaces and sides of the slate or shale until he had reduced it to desired shape, the worker then began to grind the stone. The scratches on several of these specimens indicate that they were ground vigorously with other gritty stones, or rubbed back and forth on the edges of larger stones. There is no other way to account for the scratches on the surfaces.
Fig. 330. (S. 1–2.) From the collection of Stephen Van Rensselaer. Found near Orange, New Jersey. These are typical New Jersey types of ornaments or problematical forms, and very interesting specimens. The materials are red and gray slate.