Archaeologia Nova Caesarea: 1907-1909 . problem if cer-tain rudely chipped stones found also in the gravel are notof Indian, but of human origin. This still mooted pointdraws nearer to a definite settlement as investigation pro-ceeds. The constantly accumulating evidence, as I viewthe matter, tends to- separate, and not associate the two. I have already (Archaeologia Nova Csesarea, No. I, p. 4,)called attention to Mr. Holmes statement to efifect thatchipped stones were abundant at the foot of the bluff facingthe river—he wrote this in 1893—and claimed they werepractically where the Indians lef
Archaeologia Nova Caesarea: 1907-1909 . problem if cer-tain rudely chipped stones found also in the gravel are notof Indian, but of human origin. This still mooted pointdraws nearer to a definite settlement as investigation pro-ceeds. The constantly accumulating evidence, as I viewthe matter, tends to- separate, and not associate the two. I have already (Archaeologia Nova Csesarea, No. I, p. 4,)called attention to Mr. Holmes statement to efifect thatchipped stones were abundant at the foot of the bluff facingthe river—he wrote this in 1893—and claimed they werepractically where the Indians left them, having tossed themaside as refractory, and gives them the name rejects. Thequestion arises, would Mr. Holmes have made quite thesame report had he visited the spot a century earlier, whenthe shore line was at least fifty feet river-ward or westwardof the present bluff. As the outline sketch shows, wherenow is nothing but the open air, there were storehouses andwharves back of them. Necessarily, no wild Indian i. c, 23 NW. ^. Dotted line, bluff in 1800. Continuous line, bluff in 1908. Dotted squares, store houses prior to 1850. Fig. I. 24 pre-colonial. ever saw the present bluff or Jersey shore ofthe river as it now is. What then of Mr. Holmes abundantrejects on the present bluff or at the foot of it? Thesemust either have fallen from the top, or from the crumblingface of the bluff, or been carried down stream by the evidence favors their coming from the gravel thatconstitutes the bani< of the stream at this point. Thesespecimens may have been discarded by ancient man, but theonly reject in the whole question is Mr. Holmes visionaryaccount of the conditions here and their archaeologicalsignificance. It was not so long ago, that while looking for palaeolithicimplements or other traces of ancient man, a friend pickedfrom the compact gravel of the face of the bluff, that thereconstituted the rivers bank, and at a significant depth, atooth of a mastodon,^
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