Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society, Vol. 25, No. 3 ...

CO 'TRIBUTIOl\S TO THE ADVAl\CE OF NEW ENGLAl\D ARCHAEOLOGY 55
information, which indicates similar culture affiliation
of traits. Thus, with every new site that is
dug in which sequential culture traits appear the
same as those from former digs, that which at first
appeared as a probability, now seems closer to a
reality.
CHAPTER DIGS. In discussing Chapter operated
digs, it should be emphasized that from the
beginning they have led the way in scientific research,
and still do. It may be sufficient here to
briefly outline the most important ones, without
mentioning their various contributions in new discoveries;
these will be referred to further along
under an appropriate heading.
Possibly the first site excavated was by members
of the Warren K. Moorehead Chapter of Attleboro,
under the direction of Maurice Robbins. This
was the Faulkner Spring site, which was reported
in a special Society contribution. In those days,
knowledge about the cultural life and people who
made the excavated artifacts was in its infancy.
Excavational recording had not been reBned to
meet today's rigid requirements, so that conclusions
reached were somewhat sketchy and not as comprehensive
as might have been desired. This condiclition
was not unique in this area; it existed in
other parts of the country as well. Over the next
twenty-five years there would develop much enlightenment,
which with an exchange of ideas from
one end of the land to the other would lead researchers
much closer to the truths than was possible
at the start.
Soon after, the Ford site on Winneconnet Lake
in Norton, Massachusetts was excavated in 1945 by
the same group. A report of operations was published
in American Antiquity, Vol. 12, No.2. While
a number of creditable artifacts were recovered,
knowledge of their culture significance had not increased
sufficiently at that time to permit dependable
deductions. However, a correlation with
archaeological recoveries in outlying regions to the
west and south was attempted.
During these early years three steatite stone
bowl quarries were excavated by two Chapter
groups. The Connecticut Valley Chapter under the
direction of William S. Fowler spent three years
uncovering quarry remains at the Westfield quarry
- the first excavation of this site. Much valuable
information was gleaned as to the use of certain
tools in making the products of the quarry. Of
particular significance was the discovery of a
quartz tool quarry and workshop adjoining the
steatite workings. Here were located two import-
ant storage caches of over a hundred small tools,
ostensibly made for use in shaping the steatite
products. Reports of these operations appeared in
an early Society Bulletin, and in American Antiquity,
Vol. 11, r\o. 2.
This same Chapter group spent three more
years excavating the 'Vilbraham quarry - previously
explored superficially by several interested
groups, one headed by Dr. Putnam of Harvard University.
The work carried on by the Chapter was
concentrated in two large man-made craters, which
occupied areas formerly filled by large steatite
boulders rolled down from the mountains by the
glacier. These had been completely worked away
in most instances by the Stone Bowl Makers. Their
tools had been forgotten and left behind with
broken products of their industry, so that much was
learned as a result of this intensive research. A few
years later, the director of this dig conducted another
with Dr. Rouse of Yale University, in which
the Ragged Mountain quarry-rock shelter in Connecticut
was thoroughly excavated. Here for the
first time domestic implements of the quarriers
were found lying among their quarry tools, with
definite implications that they belonged to the same
people; their living abode was also their workshop,
since steatite veins outcropped within the rock
shelter. Because of this close association of implements,
certain domestic types have become well
established diagnostics of the Late Archaic. Another
important result of the Ragged Mountain
excavation was the definite separation of ceramics
from stone bowl making. Potsherds appeared at
the site, the remains of later people who used the
rock shelter as a hunting lodge, separated from the
lower level of stone bowl deposits by a sterile
layer of water-washed soil. This seemed to represent
a lapse of time, perhaps as much as a hundred
years or more, between the closing of the quarry
and the coming of the ceramic occupation.
During the early days of the Society, the Worcester
Chapter (more recently the W. Elmer
Ekblaw Chapter) under the direction of Ripley P.
Bullen spent one season excavating the Dolly Bond
quarry, which lies south of Worcester. A report of
operations appeared in an early Society Bulletin
number. This excavation turned up many tool
types similar to those of the Connecticut Valley
quarries. From this tool comparison a more or less
comprehensive picture began to take shape of the
probable plan of quarry operations once employed
at stone bowl quarries.
In about 1946, excavation of the Titicut site in
Bridgewater was commenced by the \Varren K.
Moorehead Chapter of Attleboro, under the direc-