These comprise objects made from fresh-water shells as well as those made from ocean shells.
Among these are the following:—
Circular pearly ornaments like buttons, with a central aperture and four marginal notches at regular intervals. Large pearly shell rings thicker and wider on one side. (See Fig. 543, E.) Usually more than twenty of these rings have been found together near a human skull and in such a position that there seems no doubt they had formed the principal part of a necklace.
Oblong pearly pendants, notched near one end for the cord of attachment, and decorated with four or five notches on the other extremity. (See Fig. 528.)
Long beads made from the columella of shells of the ocean gasteropod, Fulgur perversa, of frequent occurrence also in the mounds of the Mississippi Valley. (See Fig. 543, D.)
Small shell beads made by grinding the ocean shells Nerita, Natica, and Marginella on the shoulder of the spire. (See Fig. 543, G.)
Scoop or spoon, made from a valve of the bivalve mollusc Unio, the common fresh-water mussel. This has a very short handle cut on it, and it is ornamented with a few notches on the margin.
Stone Objects
Sharpening-stones. Ovoid objects made of coarse sandstone and having a groove in the centre of one side. These were for sharpening bone awls and needles and probably for grinding shells and other articles into the desired shapes.
The stone mauls and hammers were plentiful in the southern portions of Dakota; but were absent from a large part of the Territory near the forty-ninth parallel. Most were grooved near the middle, and they varied considerably in size and shape. There were also some grooved stone axes, some of which possess a prominent ridge beside the furrow and upon the side between the furrow and the edge end of the axe.