Handbook of Aboriginal American Antiquities: Part 1, Introductory, the Lithic Industries |
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Common terms and phrases
aborigines abrading ancient antiquity appear archeological Arctic argillite arrow arrowhead artifacts arts Bering Strait blade bone bowlder California carved catlinite caves celt chert chipped implements chisel clay coast continent culture Cuzco deposits depth diversified drill early employed especially evidence excavations explorers extensive feet figure flakes flint forms fracture fragments geological glacial period grooved ax groups hafted hammer hammerstone Hrdlička human Inca Indian knives manufacture material ments Mexico middle miles mines Mississippi mound builders mounds Nahua native northern novaculite observed obsidian occupied occur Ohio Old World origin ornaments Pacific Palenque paleolithic pestles pipestone pits Pleistocene prehistoric present primitive probably processes projectile points quarry quartz quartzite race recent record region relics remains remarkable ridge river rock sculpture sections shaping soapstone South America specimens stages stone implements surface Tertiary tion to-day traces tribes utensils Valley Valley of Mexico vast writer
Popular passages
Page 293 - ... right hand, between the thumb and two forefingers, places his chisel (or punch) on the point that is to be broken off; and a co-operator (a striker) sitting in front of him, with a mallet of very hard wood, strikes the chisel (or punch) on the upper end, flaking the flint off on the under side, below each projecting point that is struck. The flint is then turned and chipped in the same manner from the opposite side; and so turned and chipped until the required shape and dimensions are obtained,...
Page 293 - The master workman, seated on the ground, lays one of these flakes on the palm of his left hand, holding it firmly down with two or more fingers of the same hand, and with his right hand, between the thumb and two forefingers, places his chisel (or punch)' on the point that is to be broken off; and a co-operator (a striker) sitting in front of him, with a mallet of very hard wood, strikes the chisel (or punch) on the upper end, flaking the flint off on the under side, below each projecting point...
Page 322 - ... stone ; and the ingenuity which invented this art is much to be praised. They " are made and got out of the stone (if one can explain it) in this manner. One of "these Indian workmen sits down upon the ground, and takes a piece of this black " stone, which is like jet, and hard as flint, and is a stone which might be called pre...
Page 322 - They come out of the same shape as our barbers' lancets, except that they have a rib up the middle, and have a slight graceful curve toward the point. They will cut and shave the hair the first time they are used, at the first cut nearly as well as a steel razor, but they lose their edge at the second cut ; and so to finish shaving one's beard or hair, one after another has to be used; though indeed they are cheap, and spoiling them is of no consequence. Many...
Page 320 - Measures. These seams are mostly cracked or broken into blocks, that show the nature of the cross fracture, which is taken advantage of by the operators, who seemed to have reduced the art of flaking to almost an absolute science, with division of labor; one set of men being expert in quarrying and selecting the stone, others in preparing the blocks for the flaker.
Page 293 - The yielding elasticity of the palm of the hand enables the chip to come off without breaking the body of the flint, which would be the case if they were broken on a hard substance. These people have no metallic instruments to work with, and the instrument (pnnch) which they 'nse, I was told, was a piece of bone, but on examining it...
Page 273 - ... grit. The range extended a long distance, seemingly unconscious that stone enough had been taken from its sides to build a city. How the huge masses were transported over the irregular and broken surface we had crossed, and particularly how one of them was set up on the top of a mountain two thousand feet high, it was impossible to conjecture. In many places were blocks which had been quarried out and rejected for some defect...
Page 297 - ... thickness. Holding the piece against the anvil with the thumb and finger of his left hand, he commenced a series of continuous blows, every one of which chipped off fragments of the brittle substance. It gradually assumed the required shape. After finishing the base of the arrow-head, (the whole being only...
Page 320 - ... flaking, and who could decide at sight the best mode of working. Some of these pebbles would split into tolerably good flakes by quick and sharp blows striking on the same point ; others would break by a cross fracture into two or more pieces ; these were preferred, as good flakes could be split from their clean fractured surface by what Mr. Catlin called impulsive pressure...
Page 297 - seated himself on the floor, and, placing a stone anvil upon his knee, which was of compact talcose slate, with one blow of his agate chisel he separated the obsidian pebble into two parts, then giving another blow to the fractured side he split off a slab a fourth of an inch in thickness. Holding the piece against the anvil with the thumb and finger of his left hand, he commenced a series of continuous blows, every one of which chipped off fragments of the brittle substance. It gradually assumed...