The American Indian/Chapter 7

by Clark Wissler

CHAPTER VII

WORK IN STONE AND METALS

It is frequently said that the whole of the New World was at the time of discovery still in the stone age. This is an unjust estimate of the metallurgic development in Mexico and Peru, but is true in a certain sense, since some stone tools were still in use even at the most advanced metallic centers. Outside the region of high culture the characterization holds and, even at the present moment, stone-age culture survives among a few outlying remnants of the aboriginal population. The gradual displacement of stone tools by trade gave opportunities for the actual observation of their fabrication paralleled in no part of the continental Old World. For, although we have from western Europe a remarkable chronological series of stone implements in which it is believed the several steps in their development can be differentiated, it is practically impossible to tell exactly how the work was done. Since we find in America somewhat analogous forms made from similar materials, the tendency has been to interpret European specimens by American data.

In Europe we find one distinction not at all applicable to our subject. Stone work there is clearly divided into two successive periods, that in which chipping alone occurs and that in which polishing predominates; while in practically all parts of the New World we find the two processes in simultaneous use. In the main, the stone industry of every social group comprises the following different methods: chipping, or flaking; abrading, or pecking; grinding and polishing; sawing and drilling.

The process used is dependent upon the materials. Thus any stone like flint, which has the property of conchoidal fracture, is flaked. While the precise manipulations seem to differ according to locality, the essential procedure is everywhere the same. A pebble is first brought to a generalized or blank form, by striking with a hammerstone. From this the desired implement is worked out, the fine chipping being by hand pressure with an antler or bone blunt-pointed tool. Holmes,^[1] our leading experimental archæologist, has worked out in his laboratory many of the necessary processes, which, in the main, agree with those observed among living peoples.^[2]

Fig. 55. Pebbles Showing the Process of Abrading, or Pecking.
Boas, 1909. I

For pecking, our best data are from the Nootka of Vancouver Island, who occasionally resorted to it as late as twenty-five years ago.^[3] As shown in the figure, parallel grooves were battered in the pebble to be shaped, then the intervening ridges pecked away, and so on. The battering tool was a long, oval pebble of tough, hard stone. When the approximate shape of the desired implement had been attained, it was finished by grinding on suitable stones.

This seems to have been the method employed wherever polished tools of similar materials have been found. But nephrite, the fine, green, jade-like stone found on the North Pacific Coast and in Central America, cannot be worked in this way. It can only be cut and ground. Again, our best data are from Canada and Alaska. The Eskimo successfully sawed off pieces of the required shape by the use of thongs and sand and water; in short, the same principle as is employed in modern stone cutting. From unfinished pieces in collections and the fine examples unearthed by Smith,^[4] it appears that the final separation of the block was by fracture produced by wedging.

As to drilling and perforating, our data are less complete. Soft stones, like slate, were drilled with stone points. By experimental

Fig. 56. Pieces of Nephrite Showing the Method of Cutting and Breaking. Smith, H. I., 1899. I

methods Rau^[5] has reconstructed the process of drilling with a hollow reed and sand, which accounts for the unfinished borings with attached cores we sometimes find in museums. Again, the Nootka^[6] made large perforations by pecking. First, a pit was formed in the stone to be perforated, into which a hard pebble was laid and pounded upon until the hole reached the middle; then the stone was inverted and the process repeated.

The fine sculptures of the Maya were executed with stone tools. We can safely assume, therefore, that all the stone work of the New World belongs strictly to a stone age and was such as could, and in the main was, accomplished without the use of metal tools.

TYPES OF ARTIFACTS

Our next task is to enumerate the most distinctive types of stone artifacts and their respective distributions. The most universal is the arrow-head, which, though of many varieties, tends to take the generalized triangular form. The notched head is found in both continents, but is strikingly absent from Eskimo collections. By paying minute regard to size, secondary form, and materials, it has been possible to draw some distinctions between the arrow-heads from different parts of the two continents, but such study has not advanced to a point where a summary can be made.^[7] The fact is that the difficulties of observing consistent distinctions are so great as to be discouraging. Nor do we find any great divergence from the arrow-heads of the Old World, for somewhat similar notched forms are common in Neolithic deposits. On the other hand, the fact that they do not occur in Paleolithic culture may have a significant bearing upon the history of our continent.

Lance heads and even knives are often indistinguishable from arrow-heads except as to size. Another closely related instrument is the drill. If we add to these, scrapers and a few gravers, we about exhaust the list of analogous tools.

Chipping, in particular, lends itself to fanciful productions and we often find in our collections from both continents many unusual objects. This work has been greatly stimulated by the modern tourist trade.

While the celt and the gouge from America cannot readily be distinguished from those of Neolithic Europe, or any other part of the world, the grooved ax (Fig. 77) is so far unique, though a single specimen has been found in China.^[8] Yet its distribution in the New World is rather restricted, even if we include all implements hafted by a groove. For we find this grooved ax to be rare in South America, so far having been reported only for Ecuador. In North America the grooved ax is not found on the Pacific side, but is first met with among the Pueblos and bison-hunting tribes, though with the latter it is usually a hammer that is grooved. In the eastern maize area it is frequently met with. In Mexico and Central America it is relatively infrequent, and in the Greater Antilles is not found at all. On the other hand, neither the Eskimo nor the Siberians seem to make use of this principle of hafting.

Fig. 57. Common Types of Arrow-Head

The highly developed tribes of the North Pacific Coast use a grooved hammer, but in some cases a transverse hole is made, through which the binding is run. The important principle in hafting here is the holding of the flat face of the tool against a similar surface on the end of the handle, as in the adze. Curiously enough, this method has a distribution not quite the same as that of grooved tools. In Siberia, Alaska, and on the North Pacific Coast, where the adze is common, hammers are hafted in this same way, but in the Pueblo and Plains regions the tendency is to twine the handle around the entire tool. Then, in the eastern maize area the grooved ax again bears the hafting shoulder, as also seems to be the case in Ecuador.

That east of the Mississippi, celts were hafted and used as axes is clear from a few specimens found in swamps.^[9] In these cases, the wedge-shaped top of the celt is put in a hole through the wooden handle.

The other most important group of tools is that passing under the name of knife. From the Eskimo, particularly in Alaska, we have a knife for carving formed by setting a small flake in the lower edge of a bone handle. Similar knives have been found along the Upper Missouri,^[10] the significance of which is not clear. Among the Eskimo on the North Pacific Coast, and in the northern part of the eastern maize area, we find knives of slate, a material which takes a very keen edge, but does not wear well. The semilunar knife of the Eskimo is usually of slate and is found in the St. Lawrence Valley as well. In Peru, we find the same form in copper and bronze. Chipped blades were used as knives in all parts of both continents. The large, fine, obsidian blades of Mexico are the most famous.

An implement of unique character is the pitted hammerstone, the precise distribution of which cannot be stated.^[11] The stone pestle is essentially a hand hammer, and is found in all parts of the northern continent, except possibly in the heart of the bison and caribou areas. Detached stone mortars are a feature of the Pacific Coast, though in California they are usually mere holes in large boulders. In the interior and the east stone mortars are rare. Both in the Plains and in California, we find flat stones with skin and basketry hoppers, respectively. In the eastern maize area the mortars were usually of wood, as also in eastern South America.

A particularly characteristic object in the culture of the New World is the stone pipe, the forms and distributions of which have been extensively treated by McGuire.^[12] In the main, there are two types of stone pipe, the common or elbow form, and the tubular pipe. The former has a wide distribution over the eastern half of the United States, extending into Canada and northwestward to the Pacific. It does not occur with any frequency in the West Indies and northern South America, but is fairly abundant in eastern Brazil and Argentina. The tubular stone pipe, on the other hand, is found in the western part of the United States and is the exclusive form in the highland region from British Columbia to the Rio Grande; it is even occasionally met with in the Mississippi Valley. However, in Arizona and New Mexico, it begins to give way to the tube of cane which prevails in Mexico and Central America (Fig. 8). The center of development for highly carved stone pipes is the eastern half of the Mississippi drainage.

Of special and frequently problematical stone objects we have a long list. In North America, the bannerstone (Fig. 81) and the discoidal (Fig. 82) are common on the Atlantic side. The Columbia River Valley also presents a large number of curiosities, such as stone weights, tool handles, monkey heads,

Fig. 58. Knives of Copper from the Eskimo of North America and the Inca of Peru, respectively

etc., perhaps a greater variety than any other region. In the Antilles we have large, curious rings or collars, and in Mexico, yokes. Central America yields carved jadeite celts and animal-shaped metates. From Ecuador come large stone seats and from Peru curious carvings in stone, suggesting appliances for a game of chance. The small area about Catamarca, Argentina, produces a curious mace-like object and in eastern South America we find a large, finely formed ax. The distribution of these forms presents many interesting problems for which the reader must turn to the special literature.

Among questions of wider interest is that of steatite work. The making of steatite vessels was a prominent industry on the Atlantic side of North America. In New England and Virginia, as well as elsewhere, aboriginal quarries are found, together with tools and vessels in all stages of completion, giving us a complete view of the industry. The art is also highly developed among the Eskimo of the east. The apparent former southern extension of the Eskimo into New England raises the question as to a possible historical relation between them and their Indian (Algonkin) neighbors, which, while not altogether probable, deserves study. Again, on the Pacific Coast, especially in California, we find large, globular vessels and other forms.

In closing, it may be noted that in the New World is the place where we get the most complete data as to the methods of hafting stone tools. While in Neolithic Europe axes were perforated, as is still the case with us, no such method was known here. It is true that a few South American forms were drilled, but not in a way to permit of similar hafting. Even the metal-using aborigines of Mexico and Peru simply set the blade into a mortise in the handle, suggesting that the hafted celt was the original and most fundamental New World ax form.

When we examine the total distribution of the stone objects we have discussed, we find them not particularly numerous in the caribou and bison areas of the North and the guanaco and Amazon areas of the South. This may, in part, be due to lack of systematic collecting, especially in the Amazon country, but in the remaining regions we have the great hunting areas of the New World where bone is the prevailing tool material. For example, the Déné tribes of Canada seem to have used stone very rarely, even their arrows were tipped with bone. Likewise, antler-tipped arrows were very common in the North Atlantic states. Among the bison hunters, bone points were also in general use, though stone was not unknown. The use of bone awls, wedges, drills, knives, and even celts was common in all these hunting areas.

Collections from excavations in Alaska and from the vicinity of New York Bay give us sufficient samples of unfinished bone and antler objects to indicate the processes by which these materials were worked. These processes were about the same in the two areas: linear pieces were removed by grooving and breaking; cutting was by sawing or hacking deep notches, then breaking. On the whole, the art seems most intense among the Eskimo, and in comparison with North America, the southern continent appears rather weaker in bone work, particularly in the simpler culture of Tierra del Fuego. Again, in the Antilles we find the thick parts of shells used for making celts and other tools.

Of ornaments, pendants, and beads, there are great varieties of various materials from both continents. Even pearl beads were extensively used by the Ohio mound builders.

MINES AND QUARRIES

Under the general head of materials dug from the earth, we have an important series of archæological topics. Notwithstanding that many of these aboriginal mining operations must have survived well down into the period of colonization, none was carefully observed by explorers. In the United States and Canada, copper, cinnabar, ocher, salt, alum, clay, steatite, flint and other flakable stones, catlinite, turquoise, coal (for making ornaments), and mica were dug out. Practically all such operations were confined to the eastern maize area and the Pueblo habitat. South of the Rio Grande, gold, silver, and copper, and in the Andean region, gold, copper, tin, silver, and platinum were worked. Here also, stone-quarrying operations were extensive, but outside of the Andean highlands we have practically no evidence of mining or quarrying in South America.

Archæological interest centers chiefly in flint workings and copper mining. In the case of the former, we have sites where a large part of the surface has been dug over for quartzite and other nodular forms. Of such sites the best known is that studied by Holmes at Washington, District of Columbia.^[13] The most extensive diggings seem to be those explored by Smith in Wyoming, which appear as part of a chain reaching into Oklahoma. Other noted sites are Flint Ridge, Ohio; Mill Creek, Illinois; Hot Springs, Arkansas; and two in Pennsylvania. In some of these the pits reach a depth of twenty feet. The natives usually worked out the "blanks" on the spot, leaving behind a great mass of chips among which the archæologist finds many rejects and abandoned forms.

Some fairly successful attempts have been made to trace the materials of which stone implements are made to particular known diggings, from which it appears that the natives made long journeys for this purpose. The method has, however, not been carried far enough to bring definite results. Some recent studies for the lower Hudson show that we have here a very important method from which much may be expected in the future.

Outside the regions of high culture the only important copper workings were those of Lake Superior. Free copper was gathered in many places, particularly west of Hudson Bay and in Alaska, but no evidences of extensive mining have come to hand for these sections. As just stated, very extensive workings have been noted at Lake Superior, from which stone hammers to the weight of twenty-six pounds have been collected in the ancient pits; in one instance a wooden shovel, a bowl, and a ladder were recovered. The aboriginal method of taking out the virgin copper seems to have been cracking by heat, breaking, and wedging. In one pit twenty-six feet deep a six-ton piece of copper had been worked out and raised five feet on an incline of logs by wedging; most of the supporting timbers and wedges were still in place.^[14]

Some copper may have been mined in the Pueblo region before Spanish days, but we have no data as to methods. Our knowledge of operations in Mexico and Peru are equally vague, though here they must have been prosecuted on a far larger and more systematic scale.

METAL WORK

Lake Superior copper needed but to be beaten into shape and was, therefore, an ideal primitive metal. Particularly in Wisconsin we find copper duplicates of the most important stone tools, which are less intensively distributed over the whole of the eastern maize area. However, in the immediate vicinity of the mines, we encounter a few departures from stone tool models, suggesting that the copper-working art had begun a development of its own. The most curious of these is a socketed ax reminding one of certain bronze axes found in Europe^[15] (Fig. 83).

No satisfactory evidence of casting or even beating in dies has been found for regions north of Mexico. Ingenious experiments by Cushing^[16] and others have demonstrated the possibility of making all the objects so far found here with the most primitive tools. Stefánsson^[17] collected specimens from Coronation Gulf, showing long, slender rods fashioned by beating together thin sheets of copper.

A very important problem is that of tracing out the distribution of Lake Superior copper. It is generally believed that most of the copper objects found in Ohio and eastward came from this source, but the source of supply for the Gulf states is not so clear, since some copper was to be found in the Appalachian chain.

Now turning to the region of higher culture, we have the best data from Peru, where ore was smelted in small pottery furnaces into which the operator blew through copper tubes. However, some ores, particularly silver, required greater heat and for such, large hopper-like pottery furnaces were set up on high hills where the wind would create a draft. At the various intakes to these furnaces, fires were placed to heat the air, a mechanism employed by some Old World smelters.

Another question of great interest is the use of bronze in the New World. The fact that implements contain tin, but in varying quantities, has led to the theory that the appearance of bronze is merely accidental or due to the natural mixtures in the ore. This view has received its strongest support from analytic studies of Peruvian copper tools, which reveal a lack of any consistent correlation between the amount of tin contained and the use for which the object was designed. Still, the investigations of Mead^[18] have shown that the percentage of tin is often too great to be attributed to natural mixtures in the ore, and those of Mathewson^[19] suggest that there is a correlation between the difficulty of casting tools of different forms and the amount of tin they contain. According to this view, the amount of tin added was an index of the casting process and was not added to harden the tool. Microscopic studies of typical tools also show that the combination of tin and copper was often made in the melting pot and not in the smelter. We may, therefore, consider it as settled that the art of making bronze was known in the New World, though the real purpose of the process may have been the facilitation of casting.

In both Mexico and the Andean countries of South America, gold and silver were skilfully worked by casting, soldering, hammering, and inlaying. The graves and sacred lakes of the Andes still yield very fine examples of this art, most of which are melted down to be sold as bullion. From Ecuador, we have a few examples of gold objects overlaid with platinum, which shows how truly meritorious were the aboriginal metal working arts of the New World.

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1. Holmes, 1897. I.
2. Spencer and Gillen, 1899. I.
3. Boas, 1909. I.
4. Smith, H. I., 1900. I.
5. Rau, 1873. I.
6. Boas, 1909. I.
7. Moorehead, 1910. I.
8. Laufer, 1912. I.
9. Skinner, 1909. I.
10. Brower, 1904. I.
11. Moorehead, 1910. I.
12. McGuire, 1899. I.
13. Holmes, 1897. I.
14. Holmes, 1901. I.
15. Moorehead, 1910. I.
16. Cushing, 1895. I.
17. Stefánsson, 1914. I.
18. Mead, 1915. I.
19. Mathewson, 1915. I.