Page:The American Indian.djvu/166

122 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