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Some Notes on the Manufacture of Wampum Prior to 1654

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

James D. Burggraf*
Affiliation:
Trailside Museum, Bear Mountain, New York

Extract

The coast of Long Island is dotted with shellheaps, both large and small, of which all but a few are true kitchen middens of the pre-white contact period. This is particularly true of the region investigated by the writer, from the New York City line to Stony Brook on the North Shore. In only one heap examined prior to 1936 did a single artifact of European origin present itself. In that instance, a badly corroded triangular arrow of iron was found in a pit surrounded by deep deposits of shell and other refuse that contained not one fragment of metal, glass, or crockery. In this heap the majority of arrow points were of local quartz, and triangular in pattern. The pottery was abundant, and though most sherds were of typical Long Island Algonkin vessels, there was a fair amount of definitely Iroquoian ware including a small, nearly complete, square-collared pot that cannot be distinguished from a Mohawk Valley specimen.

Type
Facts and Comments
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1938

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References

24 Wampum and Shell Articles, No. 44, Vol. VIII, N. Y. State Museum, Albany, 1901.

25 Parker, A. C., The Archaeological History of New York, Part 1, N. Y. State Museum Bull. 235, pp. 346–8, Albany, 1920.