Fig. 214. (S. 1–1.) Drill. Spears. Dr. H. M. Whelpley’s collection. Presented as beautiful examples of American art in flint.
The number of flint implements in the State of Pennsylvania is surprising. The range is greater than that found in any other section of the country. Pennsylvania types are shown in Figs. 82, 83, 94, and 114.
Professor E. H. Williams, Jr., has called my attention to the broad distribution of quartzite and argillite and to the fact that many shades in color and variation of texture are to be observed in these two materials.
I regret that it is not possible to present a series of colored plates illustrating the various color shades of the same material. By that means I would emphasize what I wish to convey to readers of “The Stone Age.”
We cross the Alleghenies, passing through West Virginia into Ohio, where quartz has disappeared (save an occasional stray), and we find yellow and brown chert along the Ohio River, where Eastern and Southern tribes often traveled. Rude implements are more numerous along the Ohio River, on both sides, than in the interior in the states bordering that stream. (See Fig. 50.) But the presence of Flint Ridge enabled the natives to employ as fine material for their implements as is to be found in America. The rude types of the East and the South, save as stated above, have disappeared and the beautiful handiwork of the most skillful manipulators of flint and chalcedony are to be found everywhere. (See Figs. 101, 115, 116, 129, and 200.)
On crossing the Ohio River and passing through Kentucky and Tennessee, one encounters yet another section wherein the implements may be separated from those of elsewhere. Less quarry flint is in use, and more of nodular flint, both brown and gray, black and blue, was made use of by the prehistoric tribes. (See Figs. 74, 137, and 179.) In this region large problematical forms, commonly called “swords” and “daggers,” also flint effigies and remarkable leaf-shaped implements, slightly notched, are to be found. (See Figs. 159, 160, and 161, 162.) A few of the latter have strayed into Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan, but they are, as a rule, Tennessee-Kentucky types. Such forms are no more a resemblance to New England types than is the leaf of the pawpaw tree like that of the maple.
South of Tennessee the chipped implements of Georgia, Louisiana (see Figs. 59, 87, 112, and 140), Arkansas, and western Mississippi are jasper, yellow chert, quartz, and peculiar milk-colored quartzite, often variegated with blood-red veins; also ferruginous chert. Most of these types are small. East, along the Gulf, in Florida and South Carolina, the implements are ruder, of larger size, and usually of a rough chert. The finer spears and knives are made of a beautiful translucent yellow flint. Where this is found I am unable to state. Stone of suitable kind is rare in Florida. The Florida, the lower Mississippi, and Tennessee regions are separate and distinct as to their chipped implements. Of course, there are duplications of types, as in any section of the country, but speaking broadly each section is to be differentiated from the others, and any man who maintains the contrary has not studied the subject in all its details, which, by the way, are multitudinous.
In the far North, in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan (see Figs. 72, 96, and 131), there is a quarry of peculiar granulated quartzite commonly known as “sugar quartz,” of which many implements are made. There is also a beautiful milk-colored variation of quartzite. The implements are of all sizes and types, the spear-heads being broad and of delicate finish.
Mr. Charles E. Brown, chief of the Wisconsin Historical Society Museum, says of the types in the Superior-Michigan country:—
“The flint implements of this region embrace nearly all of the numerous forms common to the Ohio Valley and the Upper Mississippi Valley States. In beauty of material and workmanship they are the equal of any produced elsewhere. Many thousands of arrow- and spear-points, knives, perforators, and scrapers have been collected from the fields, workshop- and village-sites of the state. A small number of hammer-stones, saws, spades, hoes, celts, and objects of unknown use have also been obtained. Flint blanks, discs, and unfinished, broken, and rejected articles may be collected from every local workshop-site. Caches or hoards of blanks, or of finished implements, or of a mixture of both, have been unearthed in many localities. These contain from a few to several hundred specimens. They have been recovered from peat-bogs, the margins of springs, the banks of streams and lakes, beneath the roots of trees, beneath rocks, and in other places. Large numbers of flint implements have occasionally been found with burials in mounds or graves.