SHETRONE] CULTURE PROBLEM IN OHIO ARCHAEOLOGY 147
them protection against their deadly foes did they venture to turn back toward the east. 1
If the writer may presume to interpret the Iroquoian Conquest in its relation to Ohio aboriginal occupancy, his conclusions are as follows :
The historic record of the event affords the only specific record of a native Ohio tribe the Eries, or Cat nation and directs atten- tion to their archaeological remains in the territory which they occupied.
It offers an explanation of the fact that the greater part of the Ohio area remained for practically a century an uninhabited country and incidentally, perhaps, throws some light on the cause of the early disappearance of the mound-building trait in the territory.
It suggests the authorship of a group of Ohio archaeological sites and artifacts hitherto unidentified, and which the writer ventures to designate as Algonquian.
The first-named of these three items may be considered as the only direct historic record of importance bearing upon the native or prehistoric tribes of the state, and with its consideration we may pass from the realm of history to that of archaeology. The line of demarcation, even here, is not sharply defined ; for while the evidence itself is historic, the Erie nation, with which it has to do, might almost as well be considered as prehistoric, since so little actually is known of them. While the literature pertaining to the Erie is not entirely confined to the narration of the Iroquoian Conquest, that event, in its larger aspect, and as recorded in the Jesuit Rela- tions, 2 may be considered as the original source of information.
From the Relations it is learned that the Erie occupied the territory south of and adjacent to the great lake which bears their name, extending roughly from its western watershed eastward across northern Ohio and Pennsylvania to the vicinity of the Genessee valley, in New York. They are described as a powerful, warlike group of the Iroquoian family, fairly populous and mainly
1 Mooney and Thomas: under Algonquian family.
2 Relation of 1655-56, Chapter xi, and scattering.
�� �
