Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/231

 DELABARRE AND WILDER] INDIAN CORN-HILLS 2K)

As for the corn-fields, however, their location could have been only in one general region, along the north and west side of the elevation. The land drops precipitously almost alongside the street, and the lower level extends a long distance as a rather nar- row meadow, enclosed within the loop, and of very easy access to the high land. On the east and south of the high land, on the other hand, the meadows were cut off from the settlement by the loop of the river, and in addition to this the meadows were fre- quently flooded, previous to 1720 when the river was put into a new channel.

It is precisely upon this northern and western meadow, practi- cally within this river loop, that there are situated the remains of the Indian corn-field which is the subject of this portion of the paper. It lies in a somewhat sunken meadow, shut off on one side by a railroad embankment and on the other by the bluff leading up to the high land of South street. About a hundred years ago a canal was constructed between Northampton and New Haven, which ran immediately at the foot of the bluff, as still shown on the map of 1831, and naturally this part of the field is free from all traces of cultivation. But between the old canal bed and the railroad embankment, which here runs parallel to it, extend some three thousand elevated mounds in nearly perfect rows, presenting the general appearance of the accompanying photographs.

One first gains access to this field (fig. 13, i), which is low and sunken, by crossing over the railway, and coming down to it upon a long narrow mound, clearly visible in the foreground, and giving at first much the appearance of an intentionally constructed driveway. A moment's study of the land back of this, and upon the other side of the railway, shows it to be nothing but the end of a natural slope, the result of glacial action and due wholly to natural causes. When the observer has stepped wholly off this mound and stands upon the lower level (fig. 13, 2 and 3) he stands among the corn- hills and sees them in very good parallel rows, in a general NE.-SW. direction. The houses upon the bluff in front are placed along the road, South St., which traverses the bluff lengthwise, and are here situated where the bluff is very narrow, scarcely wider than the

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