USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Bristol > Bristol, Connecticut : "in the olden time New Cambridge", which includes Forestville > Part 8
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* Since articles were illustrated for these papers the writer has read Prof. O. T. Mason's "Origin of Inventions." On page 58, we read speaking of clay jars, "but ninety and nine were made in nets, or baskets, or bags. In such examples the markings are on the outside." In fig. 2a, is shown the inside face of a potsherd from Plainville, which is ex- actly similarly ornamented on both outside and inside faces.
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Plainville; few prettier bowls exist in the East. Fig. 4 shows a small drinking bowl from East Bristol. Fig. 5, one third natural size, is a cooking dish from Burlington, black with grease and smoke. There is also a banner stone in Terryville, and a unique, but unfortunately im- perfect, bird amulet, belongs to the writer. Imperfect dishes and frag- ments are quite numerous. Some are found showing holes where they have been mended. Fig. 6.
The trap talus extending along the old valley from Southington north to the Massachusetts line, furnished the angular fragments from which were made the implements used in working soapstone. In com- paring a collection of the implements with a collection of unworked stones it would seem as though nature had placed the models ready to the hand of man. The stones flake off into thin narrow pieces, often with such acute points that only a very little change is needed to produce the required tool. These tools are found on every village site from Southington to Congamond Lake in Massachusetts. And some have been found at Nepaug which retained the lustre of the powdered steatite. These implements were of four general types. Those rudely blocked out as axes and grooved, for helving. Of these some cut straight with the edge as our axes, some cut towards one like an adze, while others were pointed and acted more like a pick-axe. Examples of each are given. figs. 7, 8, 9. The second type is the most generally distributed; they are found from four to twelve inches long and all agree in having the worked edge beveled off to the left. They do not form very sharp points but nearly all show the polish of long use. If a number are placed in a row the general trend of the bevel will all be alike. Fig. 10.
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IMPLEMENTS FOR WORKING STENTITF
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The third type are smaller and more robust, rudely wedge shape except that the point is always acute. The blunt end is roughly shaped to fit the hand and take pressure from its palm. They seem to have been used as picks and gouges, being akin to the modern tool of the wood graver; figs. 11, 12, 13. They may also have been driven into the rock after the manner of wedges.
The fourth type resembles the third on its working point, but they are made of thin flakes of stone and often have a cutting point on both ends; fig. 14. It is not contended that these tools were used exclusively for working soapstone, but that soapstone was worked with them.
In attempting a description of the general remains of the Stone Age Art of the Tunxis Valley, a few explanatory remarks seem justifiable. European Archæologists divide their specimens into Paleolithic or ancient stone age, all the objects of which are chipped, and Neolithic, or newer stone age, in which many objects are polished. No such classification can be made applicable to American Archeology .* The writer would rather divide his description into domestic tools, largely used by women; implements of warfare and chase; religious or ceremonial, and ornamen- tal. The prehistoric Indian himself may never have conceived. that he possessed an art. Nature could never have seemed to him the kind and lavish mother that she does to us today. To him she was the stern and miserly controller of his destinies, from whom he only wrested, through strenuous and unceasing toil, those meagre gifts that neyer gave repletion. Therefore as one who strove hand to hand with nature on all sides, he walked closer to her nakedness than we. But his com- panionship was as that of a child who cannot wander far from the maternal font of being. He knew better than we how to read the external features of her presence; such secrets as she vouchsafed to him the knowledge, he learned with ready wit. But, unlike us of today, never having pene- trated within the arcana of her mysteries, he could not stand aloof from
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HAMMER STONES.
* As far as can now be seen the separation of a paleolithic from a later Indian tool in America is a question of its geological location. The writer inclines to accept the evidences of glacial man in America.
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her as we may and make of those mysteries the ready slaves to work his will.
HAMMER AND PIT STONES.
Yet in consequence of this very close connection with nature, what- ever he met with became a possible agent in his struggles with her for existence, and not having differentiated his arts, each tool may have had an hundred useful possibilities. Necessity is no more the mother of invention in tools than she is of variety in their uses. It must not then be expected that our names of his many implements, however useful to our study, always convey the Indian's conception of them. The simplest of all implements is the hammer stone. Wherever a brook rolled over the gravel beds, the Indian found it ready smoothed and shaped for his hand. On all his old camping grounds they may be collected in every sort of condition, from the plain stone showing no marks of usage, through various stages of elaborate working, down to those that have been pounded nearly to pieces. Wherever we find the spalls or cores of the arrow maker, we find the little "knockers" with which he worked his quartz or cherty pebbles; figs. 15, 16. In this locality the more common - 20 1/2 Size. hammers are made of a hard quartz and quartzite. Some of these have been carefully pecked all around their edges and brought into a round (fig. 17), or oval shape, (fig. 18), a much used hammer. Many are beautiful objects; fig. 19. A PIT STONE WITH THREE "PITS." (One opposite the two shown.) Others are made of a coarse but compact yellow quartzite and red sandstone. Irregular nodular stones of agatized material and quartz seem to have been prized for their great density and resistance to fracture.
Many of the objects in yellow sandstone, red sandstone and even compact quartzite are found with one or more little circular depressions or "pits." These pits are conical and usually about one quarter to one half of an inch deep.
Fig. 20 shows a rudely egg-shaped hammer of coarse red sandstone, in which the ingenious Indian, in addition to deep pits for thumb and middle finger, has made a third on the top of the stone for the index finger. This arrangement gives a firm hold. More commonly there is a pit upon the two flat faces of the hammer, opposite to each other. Sometimes there is only one pit, and again a stone may have five or more pits irregularly placed. Figure 21 shows a beautiful red sand- stone that has the indescribable polish of long handling, with one pit on its long face and the other on its smaller end. These stones are found all over the world and are usually called hammers. The writer thinks many of them show no signs of having been used upon other stones. Simple as they are they possess a sort of beauty which endears them to their possessor. Fig. 22 is a one pit stone or "anvil." Figs. 23. 24. are two pit stones or "hammers."
It is conceivable that these simplest of tools, as the Indian came to comprehend their possibilities, worked as great a change in separating him from his ferine associates, as the discovery of iron and steam worked in advancing mankind from the stone age conditions. From striking
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PIT STONES.
them together he may have gained his first conceptions of producing fire at his own pleasure. By striking them together he slowly discovered the different qualities of stones, the possibilities of the conchoidal frac- ture became manifest to him. From them he gradually evolved the whole art of chipping and pecking in stone. No thoughtful sudent can view these objects without emotion; their prototypes were the corner- stones of the portals of civilization; their discovery was the "open sesame" to those inventions to which man owes his present physical ameliorations. Whether it were apes or men that splintered the miocene flints of Thenay,* we can not doubt that when primitive man began to strike these stones together with a conscious purpose, he struck the blow that will be the ultimate death knell of all his savage animal asso- ciates, against which unarmed he waged an endless conflict.
POLISHERS. -
The Stone Age artisan had three general modes of fabricating his tools and ornaments. Having discovered a stone suitable for his pur- pose, often one having a natural shape similar to the object desired, a few well directed blows with his hammer would roughly complete its outlines. Now he might slowly reduce it to shape by light and repeated blows of his hammer, wearing it away in coarse dust. This was pecking,
*The Abbe Bourgeois showed split flints from the miocene at Brussels, in 1873.
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traces of which show upon nearly all large objects, except those made from flint or chert. Or he might grind it into shape by rubbing it upon a hard stationary stone of gritty nature, or by rubbing other gritty stones on it. This was polishing. Finally if the stone worked upon were of a proper nature to take the right cleavage, he might chip it away by direct blows from his hammer, or by sud- den impulsion upon its edges with a hard object, wear it down in little flakes. This was flaking and chipping. Often several or all of these actions might be 32 brought to bear successively upon one object. The little flakes 31 produced by the ancient chipper are among the most distinctive of his vestiges. The eye of the practiced "relic hunter" trails their fabricator by these little spalls, much as the red man trailed the objects of his chase. By observing their variety, con- dition and abundance, he is often enabled to ferret out old and productive village sites. It 33 34 1/3 Size. seems probable that flaking was the earliest of all his arts in stone. and yet it ultimately reached the highest place among them. Be- sides the hammers described there have come down to
FLESHERS.
quite a variety of tools used in these processes. In figs. 25, 26, 27, one third natural size, are shown grinders or polishers of gritty red sandstone and quartzite. Fig. 27 is a red sandstone "pit" stone made into a polisher. Other curiously worked stones, whose use remains problem- atical, may be seen in figs. 28, 27. Fig. 30 is a beautiful stone of a dark chocolate color, carefully, polished all over, which may have been used in perfecting the blades of axes and celts. The other tools are quartzite. All were found in Plainville or Farmington. The pitted stone, fig. 24, from Congamond Lake, has been used secondarily as a polisher.
FLESHERS.
Certain implements have been sparsely found around Farmington and Plainville which seem to have been made for removing skins from slain animals, and possibly bark from living trees, used in making basketry and mats. They all agree in being made from thin flakes of a very hard, dense and heavy stone. Roughly flaked out in chisel form they show no fine work except on one end. This end is always brought to a sharp edge from both faces, with the cutting edge prolonged in a curve to one side much like an old fashioned shoe knife. They all show the friction polish of long use, doubtless acquired from years of drudgery of the squaws. They are made from a silicious blue stone, but long weathering has made them a dull earth color, with a fine patina. In the Bristol Museum is one specimen with a straight blade resembling a chisel. We illustrate four specimens all from Farmington; figs. 31, 32, 33, 34.
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BRISTOL CONNECTICUT,
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POLISHERS.
THE SCRAPER.
The writer believes that the scraper and its brother the flaked knife followed next after the hammer stone in the tide of evolution. Whether his Tenvironment were stone, bone or shell, wherever prehistoric man has left his traces, these most useful of tools are found. Among such simple implements we cannot be surprised that along with specimens of the highest art should linger others as rude and simple as may be found among the earliest vestiges of man. Fig. 35 represents such an object in yellow Jasper from Granby, that seems the counterpart of specimens from prehistoric France. Made from various cherty or quartzite stones, some were simply more or less chipped on one edge as in figs. 36, 37; some resemble arrow points ground off to a blunt edge. Others are merely round pebbles, split through their centers and then worked to such an edge that when drawn towards one they will rasp or cut any soft material. Figs. 38, 39, are fine examples. Many of these tools show signs of very prolonged use by the exquisite polish upon their working surface, and these are not always the ones, that we would select for shape or beauty. Probably they were more used to soften skins and rub them flexible than for cutting; figs. 40, 41. Fig. 42, one half natural size, represents an uncommon form with unusual polish upon. it. A great many seem to have been used as our cobblers use a piece of glass for rasping wood, horn, bones and hides, and doubtless also in preparing food and removing meat from bones; fig. 43. Some were doubtless hafted in wooden handles, the handles being split open, the tool was
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partly inserted and seized on with threads made of sinews and vegetable fibres and perhaps cemented with glue or pitch. Fig. 45 (c), one half natural size, represents such a scraper from Southington, which we believe to have been also a skinning tool, and admirable for small animals. This form, of which we have seen several, seems to be undescribed. One face is al- ways flat while the other is raised into a triangular ridge along its center. It is stemmed like an arrow point and brought to a cutting edge all around; length 114 inches. In fig. 46 we give an ideal recon- struction of this tool. Upon careful study it will be seen that when it is used flat side down it becomes a lancet; with its curved back down it acts as a wedge or probe in separating the tissues or raising up the skin. . When pushed along arrow shape either edge becomes a good cutting knife, acting like one blade of a pair of shears.
When held with the flat face towards one it makes a serviceable knife. In skillful hands it could easily be used to extract arrow points from wounds. These tools are far from numerous. Fig. 47 shows a much larger one, with the back much less ridged, from Wolcott, which shows the polish of very great use. Fig. 48 gives another specimen. Fig. 50 gives a typi- cal scraper fit for working both wood and hides, whose reconstruction has been at- tempted in fig. 51. Other forms of scrap- ers are shown in figs. 52 and'53.
SCRAPERS.
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BUNTS.
Something like the last described scraper only not having the edges sharp or bevelled, but always blunt, are many pointless arrow heads. They are thought to have been used to kill small game without breaking the skin. "Jones says that crescent shaped arrows were used by the southern Indians for shoot- ing off birds' heads."* We show several examples of these so-called bunts or bunters;
figs. 54, 55, 56. In figs. 57, 58, 59, are the arrow points presumably used for shooting off birds' heads. Fig. 59 represents a chisel shaped quartz arrow point from Compounce, with very sharp edge, which is of great in- terest. Fig. 60, an argillite specimen from Farmington.
PERFORATORS.
Next in frequency to arrow and spear points upon our old village sites, we find per forators or drills. The Indian made two gen- eral typesof perforations in stone. When he wished to bore thick objects, as pipes or ban- ner stones and beads, he made a cylindrical bore usually of the same diameter all through the object. These bores are thought to have
SCRAPERS.
* "Fowkes" Stone Art. 13th Annual Report Bureau Ethnology, p. 168.
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BUNTS.
been made with hollow horns or cane and reed stems with the aid of sharp sand. Concentric rings may be seen in many such perforations. Again, unfinished objects often have incomplete perforations whose condition shows that the drill was a solid tool. Many pipes seem to have been gouged out, but by what tool we cannot say. The most common form of perforation, however, is a conical bore which usually is made from both sides of the stone being worked. These holes meet at an angle about the center of the stone, and the opening is usually near one side of the perforation, showing that the drill was worked in obliquely from each side. In more carefully finished objects the center of the hole is later widened so that the whole diameter is more nearly equal, but only in a few does the peculiar conical appearance of the bore disap- Some tools show a conical bore made entirely through from one
pear. side. Some investigators have doubted the possibility of drilling hard stones with such drills as have come down to us. For many of them are of such fragile material as red sandstone, shale and slate. Dr. Ab- bott pictures a sandstone object of which he says: "By the aid of two stone drills we completed the perforation; accomplishing it after eleven hours of not difficult but rather tiresome labor." Two drills were used. one of jasper and one of slate. "The drill is of slate and comparatively soft, but it did not wear away more rapidly than the jasper specimen. We illustrate a number of typical forms from our valley. Fig. 61, one half natural size, is a double drill made from a moss agate. It seems al- most incredible that such a tool could have been made from so hard a stone. It is one of the most beautiful objects we possess. Found in Farmington: Figs. 62, 63, 64, 65, represent drills with wide arrow like bases. Fig. 66 is a perforator made by rubbing. Figs. 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, slender spear like tools, which were doubtless used as needles and awls as well as drills. Figs. 73, 74, represent large based perforators. Fig. 75, a small, very hard drill, resembling those from the Pacific coast. Some of these drills show the peculiar attrition polish that we noticed upon scrapers. and were doubtless used to perforate skins. They may have been hafted. Fig. 76 (c), one half natural size, presents a drill shaped tool that the writer believes to have been hafted and used as an awl to unravel stitches in skin robes, or possibly in fabricating baskets. It is not straight enough for a drill. Certain flaked tools of much larger size, whose edges are bevelled off sharply in opposite directions have been called reamers. When these were revolved to the left they would cut with both edges in succession, but the writer cannot understand what they were intended to cut, Fig. 77, shows a very fine example from Farmington.
KNIVES.
We find a large variety of implements which differentiate from scrapers and spears on one side and tomahawks, celts and fleshers on the other. Of the chipped class much the finer specimens were doubt less men's weapons, but in the polished types the highest evolution was in
t Stone Age in New Jersey, p. 326. Fig. 159, Smithsonian Pub., 394.
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PERFORATORS.
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woman's sphere of tools. Reserving a description of the weapon class for another heading, we will here outline those forms
presumably domestic. The simplest of all were flakes struck off by one blow from a pebble, but the Tunxis Valley offers few suitable minerals for such flakes. We can only point to one object of a whitish opa- que quartz, which was taken by the writer from the side of an excavation about three feet deep, during the trenching for the Bristol reservoir; fig. 78. Its artificial character is plain and its location very singular. A good many rudely made knives have been found, chipped mostly on one edge, some of which seem to foreshadow the later polished skinning knives; figs. 79, 80. Fig. 81, represents a most beautiful example of artistic chipping. It is of "hornstone," and chipped only on the blade, but work upon it is as fine as many specimens of Scandinavian art. Prof. Mason* illustrates one of these knives showing us the "primitive form of grip" or handle which we imitate; fig. 82. In fig. 83, we give a knife from Farmington exactly like it. Fig. 84 illustrates appar- ently a very ancient example in red sand- stone. When one of these knives is held lengthwise, blade uppermost, along the hand, it will be seen to curve from one end to the other. When held properly the outlining of the edge sweeps from the
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KNIVES.
forefinger in a gentle curve inward to the thumb. But if the knife is reversed the curve is away from the thumb. It seems only possible to cut a straight line when the curve sweeps along the natural curve of the hand from the thumb to the index finger, so we think this shape is intentional, not accidental.
* O. T Mason, Primitive Industry, p. 46.
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CELTS.
In fig. 86, one third natural size, we give a very fine example of a skining knife made of green slate from Plainville. The reader will readily see how closely it resembles a New England hash knife. These knives seem to have been made by grinding only and are pre-eminently the woman's tool. Fig. 87, represents another fine example from Plain- ville. There is another beautiful one made of black slate in the Bristol Museum. A very large example is shown in the American Museum of Natural History, New York, from Bloomfield. Dr. Abbot among many thousand Įdiverse tools only found one in New Jersey. Fig. 89, is a singular if not unique little knife from Burlington. It was obviously made to be hafted and would have cut up cooked meat very readily. A well made knife blade of such a curious substance as red shaly sandstone is shown in fig. 90. Fig. 91, seems very old. Fig 92, is from Bristol.
* Abbott, Stone Age in New Jersey, p. 303.
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CELTS.
We now come to one of the most beautiful classes of all our Indian tools, the celt.} Upon these stones the ancient craftsman lavished some of his choicest skill. They are the most universal of all worked implements. A fine collection shows a wonderful variety of color and texture in stone, although all are made of heavy and tough mate- rials. They were first pecked into shape and then polished more or less completely. The more common forms of Connecticut are quiteround in outline, yet many are oval or nearly flat. All typical celts agree in having a sharp blade, worked
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axe-like equally from both sides, so as to be nearly symmetrical. So very seldom are they grooved that the writer recalls only one example, from Wisconsin. Some archaeolo- gists have denied that they were ever hafted, yet one is exhibited in the American Museum, N.Y., found in a brook some fifty years ago. It is driven about half way through a well made handle and may have been either a tool or a weapon. These tools are generally thought to have been used in working wood. Probably they were em- ployed also in rubbing down hard skins, as the Indian squaw doubtless used whatever tool came handy. As chisels they may have been pushed by the hand, but many show decided signs of having been vigorously pounded, as a joiner pounds his chisel. Working with no guide but his eye, no tool
į From celtis-a chisel.
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PESTLES
but a stone hammer, and no measure but his hand, one is amazed to see how perfect some of these objects have been made. Fig. 93, one fourth natural size, is a very perfect black celt from Burlington. Fig. 94 (r), from Farmington, is more flat with its sides squared and beau- tifully polished nearly all over. Fig. 95 is almost a twin to 93. Fig. 96 shows a wider celt with expanding blade, made of a very dense black stone from Granby. Age has given this a beautiful "patina" of mottled bluish-grey and white. Only where a plow nipped one corner can the true color be seen. The depth of the weathering, while the polish of the stone remains as perfect as when made, would seem to indicate a great age. Its blade has been used until the edge is well battered down. Fig. 97, found by the writer in Plainville, differs from the others, in being flat and very thin. While perfectly shaped by pecking, only
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two inches of the blade has been polished. One side is flat while the other is beveled off after the manner of a plane. It would be a very serviceable tool in working charred wood, and capable of taking a very sharp edge. Implements of this class have been found made of quartz and simply chipped out, the extreme edge only showing the polish of long use. All such stones should be carefully collected for further study
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