The surface series consist of well-made axes and hatchets of various patterns and knives and arrow-heads of flints. One of the characteristic utensils of this region is the broad, flat, and smooth baking-stone on which the natives cook their cassava bread. This is still in use, and is very highly prized.
The axes and hatchets are rarely grooved in the same manner as those commonly found in the United States (see p. 71); more frequently they have a notch cut on the opposite sides close to the heavier extremity. This served to fasten them firmly by a cord to the helve (p1. 8, fig. 14; comp. pi. 6, figs. 12, 13).
Stone Implements of 13ra.;i1.-13razil presents few typical forms of stone implements, although it is probable that it is the only country on the continent where tribes are yet living in the undisturbed conditions of the Stone Age. Several such were encountered by the engineer Von den Steinen in 1884, while exploring the head-waters of the Shingku River in the department of Matto Grosso.
We must not omit to mention, however, the celebrated so-called "Amazon stones"—in the native tongue, These are orna ments made of intensely hard crystalline rock, generally jade, feldspathic stone, or quartz. They have various forms: sometimes they are rough imitations of birds or beasts; often they are cylindrical beads two or three inches long and pierced with holes longitudinally. Similar ornaments are still made by some of the Indians of the Upper Rio Negro, where whole lifetimes are said to be employed in their preparation. On the main stream of the Amazon these stones are now rare, and the Indians, not understanding their manufacture, attribute to them a divine origin. Others say that they are formed of a stone which can be cut beneath the water, but which hardens the moment it is exposed to the air. They are valued curiosities in archzeological collections from Brazil.
La Plata and the the water-shed of the La Plata and throughout the Pampas there are abundant remains in stone which testify to the long residence of a population which depended on this material for the larger portion of its weapons and tools. Suitable stone was indeed scarce in many places, but wood was even scarcer on those boundless Pampas, and the aboriginal tribes must have made long journeys to col lect the flint, agate, chalcedony, marble, and similar materials which they employed. In numerous localities the quantities of flint chips which
the plough turns up testify to the site of some ancient workshop.
Forms of weapons the arrow-head is the most abundant. Its types are various: many specimens were worked by secondary chipping (see p. 31) on one side only, while the other remained in its natural state. This mode was a survival of that prevalent in the epoch of Moustier of the Paleolithic Period. It is no indication of a lack of skill in the ancient workmen, as there are also plenty of specimens which have both sides chipped, and even serrated, in a manner which would be creditable any where in the Neolithic Age.
Next to arrow-points, knives occur most freely. They also present all the usual shapes—semilunar, semicircular, leaf- and dagger-shaped, etc.—as well as some odd forms not easily paralleled elsewhere. Axes and hatchets, on the other hand, are rare. We may explain this by the scarcity of wood on the Pampas, and the rarity of the occasions for working this material which would be presented to the natives. Equally rare are mortars and pestles. The Pampean Indians were grain-raisers to a very moderate extent and only in limited localities: hence they had no need for agricul tural implements.
Utensils and which appear to have been employed in cleaning and preparing skins are numerous. Such are the scrapers, oblong, circular, triangular, and of other contours; the polishers, stones of a size convenient to hold in the hand, one or both sides of which have been artificially smoothed and show signs of long attrition; and the punches and awls, from the simple sharp spicula of flint up to the delicately-chipped drill with a broad handle, designed for boring holes in the dressed hides and for joining them into garments.
Perforated stones, such as we have described (p. 98) from Peru, are not infrequent, though not so numerous as on the Pacific slope. Many are rough or simply rounded, while occasionally they are elaborately worked into the shape of a star.