Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/606

 dawned upon the mind of some bright Lenâpé then, he could have gathered, as the antiquities of his own country, objects bearing the same relationship to him that his own axe and arrows do to



us. The Indian of 1600 was, at least in some respects, the degenerate descendant of the aborigine of 1000, or later.

If, then, it may be asked, the Delaware Indians produced, in prehistoric times, objects exhibiting a more advanced culture than did their descendants in historic times or just preceding them, where are such objects now? Has tangible evidence of this assertion been produced? In the Delaware Valley I think it has. There have occasionally been found in single graves, or lying in or on the ground, unassociated articles, clearly of Indian origin, and



yet not similar to the ordinary "finds" characteristic of Indian village sites. For instance, there have been burial-places examined in this river valley, from which scores of skeletons have been taken, and with them only the most commonplace objects were found,