| On the map (Fig. 18), these tribes are shown together with the Long Island and other neighboring tribes as indicated by Beauchamp in the map accompanying his "Aboriginal Occupation of New York," New York State Museum, Bulletin 32, Albany, 1900. |
This area was inhabited during historic times by the following tribes:
The. remains of aboriginal life nosy to be found, consist of shell heaps, occurring at every convenient point along the coast, on the rivers, and, more rarely, inland; shell, refuse, and fire pits; camp, village and burial sites; and rock and cave shelters. With one prominent exception (Burial Ridge, Tottenvilie, Staten island) few or no relics have been found in graves. The typical interment was of the flexed variety, but bone burials are not infrequent.
Dog skeletons complete and intact, bearing the appearance of having been laid out, are sometimes found buried in separate graves. Some writers have supposed that these individual dog burials are the remains of "white dog feasts" or kindred practices, because the Iroquois even up to the present day hold such ceremonies. The white dog is entirely cremated by the Iroquois, and so far as we have been able to find out, there is no record of such occurrences among the coastal Algonkin; hence, there seems no reason to attribute this custom to them since other Iroquois traits were so infrequent. It seems more probable that such burials are simply those of pet animals, interred as we to-day honor a faithful dog.
Occasionally, the skeletons of dogs and rarely of other animals have been found in graves associated with human bones. The finding of arrow-heads among the ribs of some of these, and other circumstances, seem to point to a practice of killing a favorite animal on the death of its owner to accompany or protect the spirit of its master on the journey to the hereafter.
From their appearance and position, many graves seem to indicate that the dead may sometimes have been buried under the lodge, especially in time of winter, when the ground outside was frozen too hard to permit grave digging. Others under the same circumstances seem to have been buried in refuse pits. The remains further indicate that "feasts of the dead," were also held at the time of the interment, judging by the quantity of oyster shells and animal bones in and near the graves. Some graves have rows or layers of oyster shells, with the sharp cutting edge upward, placed above the bodies as if to prevent wild animals from disinterring and devouring the dead. An interesting fact, brought to light by the rock-shelter work of Messrs. Schrabisch and Harrington in their explorations in New Jersey and Westchester County, New York, is that in the lowest and oldest refuse layers of these shelters pottery does not occur. It would be ill advised to infer from this that the earliest occupants were peoples of another culture from the surrounding village dwellers, as the other artifacts found are quite similar to the implements of the latter. Many reasons for this lack of pottery, such as the more easy transportation of vessels of bark or wood through the mountains and hills, suggest themselves, though they are more or less nullified by the presence of pottery in the upper layers. The upper layer, however, may have been made during the period when the natives were being displaced by Europeans and at the same time subjected to Iroquoian raids, when the villages would naturally be abandoned from time to time, for refuge among the cliffs and caves of the mountain fastnesses.
It has been suggested that the rock and cave shelters are remains of an older occupation by people with or without the same culture as the later known savages. The nature of the finds does not support this view, for the specimens obtained are often of as good workmanship as the best to be found in the villages and cemeteries of the latter, while pottery, on the other hand, occurs on the oldest known Algonkian sites. It seems most probable to the writer that, like the shell heaps, the rock and cave shelters form but a component part, or phase, of the local culture, perhaps a little specialized from usage and environment, but contemporary with the villages, shell heaps and cemeteries of the lowlands.
Mounds and earthworks do not occur in the region under consideration, nor does it appear that most of the Indian villages here were fortified, unless they were slightly stockaded. A number of instances of this are known historically, however, and a few earthworks occur just beyond this area. (An earthwork at Croton Point on the Hudson has been excavated by Mr. M.R. Harrington for the American Museum.)
The remains found do not bear any appearance of very great geological antiquity. In a few instances, rock-shelters, shell heaps and village sites seem to possess a relative antiquity; but the oldest known remains, in every case, may be placed as Algonkian with considerable certainty. No paleoliths have been reported, and it would seem from the comparative lack of antiquity of the remains that the natives could not have lived in this region for many centuries before the advent of the whites. The accounts of contemporary writers prove conclusively that these archaeological remains, if not those left by Indians found here by the early Dutch and English settler, must have been from people of very similar culture. In culture, the local Indians were not as high as the Iroquois, nor perhaps as the Lenape or Delaware proper from whom they sprang; but they compare very favorably with the New England tribes. Absence and scarcity of certain artifacts such as steatite vessels, the long stone pestle, the gouge, adze and plummet, and the abundance and character of bone and pottery articles show them to have been intermediate in character between the Lenape on the south and west, and the New England tribes on the east and north; and consultations of the old European contemporaries show that this was the case linguistically as well as culturally. Examination of the remains also shows that the influence of the Lenape on the west, and of the New England peoples on the east, was most strongly felt near their respective borders. Iroquoian influence was strong, as evinced by the pottery, and there is also documentary evidence to this effect. Finally, as is frequent throughout most of eastern North America, the archeological remains may be definitely placed as belonging to the native Indian tribes who held the country at the time of its discovery or to their immediate ancestors.
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