. Bulletin. Ethnology. are associated with burials in mounds, 1 )ut in some cases they seem mereh' to have been buried in the ground or hidden among rocks. The largest deposit re- corded contained upward of 8,000 flint disks (^Nloorehead), a few exceed 5,000, .while those containing a smaller number are very numerous. It is probable that many of these caches of flaked stones are accumula- tions of incipient im- plements roughed out at the quarries and car- ried away for further specialization and use. But their occurrence with burials, the uni- formity of their shape, and the absence of more t
. Bulletin. Ethnology. are associated with burials in mounds, 1 )ut in some cases they seem mereh' to have been buried in the ground or hidden among rocks. The largest deposit re- corded contained upward of 8,000 flint disks (^Nloorehead), a few exceed 5,000, .while those containing a smaller number are very numerous. It is probable that many of these caches of flaked stones are accumula- tions of incipient im- plements roughed out at the quarries and car- ried away for further specialization and use. But their occurrence with burials, the uni- formity of their shape, and the absence of more than the mostmeager traces of their utilization as implements or for the maki ng of implements, give rise to the conjecture thatthey were assembled and deposited for reasons dictated by superstition, that they were intended as memorials of important events, as monuments to departed chief- tains, as provision for requirements in the future world, or as offerings to the mys- terious powers or gods requiring this par- ticular kind of sacrifice. If in the nature of a sacrifice thev certainlv fulfilled all re- DiscoiDAL Flint Blade From A Cache of no specimens; [LLINOIS. (i-e). CACHE OF LANCEOLATE FLINT BLADES quirements, for only those familiar with such work can know the vast labor in- volved in quarrying the stone from the massive strata, in shaping the refractory material, and in transporting the prod- uct to far distant points. In the Hope- well mound in Ohio large numbers of beautiful blades of obsidian, ob- tained i^robably from Mexico, had been cast upon a sacrificial altar and partially destroyed ]jy the great heat; usually, however, the deposits do not seem to have been subjected to the altar fires. See Mines and Quarries, Prohlexiatical ob- jects, Stone-vork. Consult Holmes in 15th Rep. B. A. E., 1897; Moorehead (1) Primitive Man in Ohio, pp. 190, 192, 1892, (2) in The Anti- quarian, I, 158, 1897; Seever, ibid., 142; Smith, ibid., 30; Snvder (1) in Smithson. Rep 1876, 1877
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