Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/176

 164 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [N. s., 22, 1920

is clear that they are Iroquoian, and that they hold the key to the archaeology of the area in question.

Exploration of this field, planned by the Ohio Archaeological and Historical society for the near future, doubtless will result in clearly defining the archaeology of Iroquoian occupation of the state and the differentiation of the various groups responsible

therefor.

GLACIAL KAME BURIALS

In considering the "Glacial Kame culture," suggested by Moore- head in "A Study of Primitive Culture in Ohio," * it should be noted that his observations are confined to southern and central Ohio, while the present study aims to comprise the state as a whole. Moorehead classes the people or tribe to whom the glacial Kame burials pertain as representing a culture distinct from the recognized Hopewell and Fort Ancient groups, and thinks it possible, though improbable, that they later became the carriers of the Fort Ancient culture. As typical artifacts of these burials he cites "tubular pipes, cannel coal ornaments, long slender union-shell gorgets, tubes of slate and hematite plummets." He very plausibly believes that glacial knolls suggested themselves to early man as burial places, owing to their prominence and the minimum of labor required in excavating graves, and, later, the construction of artificial mounds.

Supplementing Moorehead 's observations with more recent data, and considering the state as a whole, the evidence appears about as follows :

Burial in gravel deposits and knolls occurs generally throughout the state where such elevations exist, but more particularly in the western part, notably in the glaciated sections lying west and north from its center.

These burials appear to pertain to any or all of the several cultures of the state, thus indicating that this form of interment cannot be taken as a trait peculiar to any one, but rather as a practice so natural as to be common to all. However, many of those observed by the writer appear to pertain to the Algonquian tribes which inhabited the region.

1 Moorehead (3).

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