Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 01.djvu/860

use of stone for cutting, etc., though the^y employ natural pebbles, so eleft as to give sharp edges, for certain purposes ; while the 8eri Indians of Tiburon Island use wave-worn cobbles for break- ing up green turtles, large game animals, etc., and gradually reduce them by wear to synmietrie form and well-polished condition, yet eschew them with horror if accidentally broken in such a manner as to form sharp edges.

CELT. ROUGHLY CUT BY CHIITING, A.Nn FINIBHKD BY GRIND- ING. FROM ALEXANDER COUNTY, ILL.

The various types of stone implements, both prehistoric and modern, grade in some respects into implements of shell, tooth, bone, and wood; and the method of interpretation in terms of primitive thought, affords a means of classifying the entire series of implements in simple and in- structive fashion. Thus it is found that the lowest peoples give preference to tooth and bone, to chitinous beak and claw, to sharp-edged sliell and piscine spine, as material for tool and weapon, and, moreover, that they prefer to use these materials in a manner mimetic of the actual or imputed motions of their zoic tute- laries; so that this stage of culture has been re- garded as primal, and defined as zoiimimic. It is found also that the somewhat more advanced savages give preference to stone used in natural forms, to which zoic attributes are iniptited (as when pebbles are designated as teeth), and grad- ually shape and polish these by the wear of use. vithout antecedent design; and this stage of de- signless stonework is defined as protolithic. In like manner it is found that the more advanced tribes shape their iinplements first by a com- bination of wear like that of the previous stage, later by battering and chipping, and last of all Ijy rtaking. in accordance with preconceived de- signs ; and the implements so produced, and the culture-stage which they represent, have been defined as technolithic. This classification is set forth elsewhere (Man, Science of) in some de- tail; but it is desirable to note that the classi- fication is based largely on prehistoric material, while, conversely, it illumines in useful fashion a considerable part of the course of cultural de- velopment on the Western Hemisphere. Metai. Prodi'CTS. Large numbers of metallic artifacts have been found in the mounds of the eastern United States, in the cemeteries of the arid region, in the crypts of Mexico, and in the linacas of South America. The prevailing ma- terial, especially in North America, is copper, evidently found native and wrought cold, or at low heat, with implements of stone, deer horn, etc. Most of the copper objects are implements evidently designed in imitation of stone celts, a.xes (tomahawks), spear-heads, knives, etc.; while many objects, usually wrought from sheets, were evidently decorative or ceremonial, some of the largest pieces from the moinids being zoic images, or effigies, evidently of totemic charac- ter. In the Pueblo region, and thencc southward through Mexico to Bolivia and Peru, silver and gold were used in considerable quantity, ordina- rily for decorative or symbolic purposes; these metals, too, were undoubtedly found native, and wrought (usually) at low temperatures; but a few interesting types of gold ornaments, de- scribed by Holmes, were evidently produced by partial fusing of slender bars or wires, while some objects seem to have been produced by a sort of casting, in which the metal must have been fused, at least to a moderately fluent con- dition. Some of the mounds have yielded or- namental pieces of iron, evidently of meteoric origin, and wrought cold or at low temperature ; their preservation being due to the resistance of .':iderite to oxidation, and their .shapement de- pending on the fact that this material is "hot- short," yet malleable at low temperatures. There are a few examples (including one brought to light in the neighborhood of C'asa Grande, Arizo- na, in 1808) of the aboriginal use of heavy mas.ses of iron ; the Casa Grande specimen was a circu- lar plate of fairly synunetrieal form, some two feet in diameter, and nearly two inches in thick- ness: the material was greatly oxidized and dis- integrated, but bore some appearance of meteoric origin. On the whole, the metallic artifacts of prehistoric America indicate that the aborigines never mastered smelting, and that most of their standards of metal-working were borrowed from their more characteristic stone craft. Fictile Ware. Next in abundance to stone implements among the relies of ancient America is pottery; it may be fovmd in sherds and smaller fragments in every commonwealth, if not in every county of the United States, in every State, if not every district, of Mexico, and in equal abun- dance throughout most of Central America and South America, as well as in some abundance over much of Canada. In general, the prevalence of fictile ware in the domestic economy of the