Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/306

 294 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [N. s. f 22, 1920

Iroquoian culture deep refuse heaps; abundance of articles made of bone and antler; the general use of small triangular arrowpoints; well made round bottomed pots decorated with bands of triangles filled in with parallel lines, making a sort of chevron design; and the absence of large notched points, and of polished slate articles.

Judged from these constants Mr. Langford's site is easily identified as Iroquoian. Its numerous triangular chert arrowpoints, its relatively numerous bone and antler artifacts; its chevron designs and its deep refuse heaps can be attributed only to some Iroquoian people; and there can be little doubt that this site on the Kankakee river far from the abodes of any Iroquoian nation during historic time is the site of a village of some nation of Iroquoian stock.

Although it is simple to establish the identity of this site as Iroquoian, it is far from easy to identify the particular nation which occupied it, or to explain its location so far from territory usually ascribed to the Iroquoian nations. There are two theories to account for the location, both sound, and one of these might identify the nation which occupied it.

During the first years of contact between the French and the most western member of the Iroquoian family, the "Neutral Nation," the French described the wars which at that time were being waged by these "Neuters" on nations of non-Iroquoian stock to the westward, the Mascoutins, and the triumphant return of Neuter war parties in 1638 and in 1643 with long trains of prisoners. It is entirely possible that during one of these wars a large Neuter war party established a camp in the enemy country and there persisted for a period long enough to lay down a deep refuse deposit; and it may be that the Kankakee site is such a camp.

It might be urged that the distance between the villages of the Neu- ters in Canada and the Kankakee river is too great for such a possibility. In 1651 when they were driven from their country by their fierce kindred, the Five Nations of New York, they were seated in the Canadian penin- sula north of Lake Erie between the Grand river and the Niagara, with an advanced band of a few villages east of the Niagara. Nearly all these village sites are of post-European age, therefore long post-dating the site on the Kankakee river which is pre-European. But the Stone Age sites of the Neuters are much farther west, nearly every site of pre- European age being west of the Grand river and extending westward practically to the Detroit. From the Stone Age Neuter sites near St. Thomas and London to the Kankakee river the distance is nearly three hundred miles, a long distance for a war party to operate through hostile

�� �