“A Good Deal of an Archaeological Romance”
A History of the Discovery and Excavation of the Lamoka Lake Site, Part 1
T. Cregg Madrigal ©2014
The story of the job which the Rochester Municipal Museum is carrying on in an oat field between Lakes Waneta and Lamoka is a good deal of an archaeological romance, made possible by the belief that museum research of this type is a proper educational function. (The Evening Leader 1928)
In 1932 William Ritchie published his report on the Lamoka Lake site, which led to the adoption of the term “Archaic” to refer to non-ceramic using hunter-gatherer cultures throughout North America. Therefore, the Lamoka Lake site is often considered to be the type site of the Archaic Period. In his 1962 book The Archaeology of New York State, Ritchie provided more information on both the Lamoka Lake site and the Lamoka culture. Beyond these two accounts, relatively little has been written about the discovery, excavation, and interpretation of Lamoka Lake. The history of research at Lamoka Lake spans virtually the entire Twentieth Century. In addition to the archaeological importance of the site itself, the history of research at Lamoka also provides a valuable perspective on the history of archaeological method and theory. A close reading of history is informative about the cultural context in which knowledge is attained and ideas develop.
Location and Description
The Lamoka Lake site, a National Historic Landmark, is located in Tyrone Township, Schuyler County, New York State, at an elevation of 335 m, on the eastern shore of a small unnamed stream (sometimes referred to as the Waneta outlet) about 1.13 km long that connects two small, shallow, weedy lakes: Waneta Lake (formerly known as Little Lake) and Lamoka Lake (formerly known as Mud Lake) to the south. The channel is crossed by Schuyler County Route 23.
Part of the site is managed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. The rest of the site is owned by the Archaeological Conservancy, a private organization that purchases and preserves significant archaeological sites. No collecting of artifacts or digging is allowed on any part of the site without a permit.
Waneta Lake, which is about three miles long, drains south through the stream to Lamoka Lake, which is about one mile long. The outlet of Lamoka Lake, Mud Creek, flows south. At Bradford, about two miles south of the Lamoka outlet, a dam (first constructed at the end of the 18th century) has widened Mud Creek, which is sometimes labeled Mill Pond on maps.
In 1928 an outlet was cut from the north end of Waneta northwest to Keuka Lake as part of a water power project. Only when the water level of the lakes is above 335 m (1,099 feet) does water spill over the old, southern outlet. Because of the artificial outlet, Lamoka and Waneta, once among the farthest reaches of the southern-draining Susquehanna River watershed, have now become part of the Finger Lakes system, which drain by way of the Seneca River and Oswego River into Lake Ontario and thence northeast into the St. Lawrence River.
The stream between Waneta and Lamoka has been modified over the years. The construction of the original Bradford dam at the southern outlet of Lamoka Lake around 1793 resulted in a rise in the lake level that flooded much of the flats on either side of the Waneta outlet (Evert and Ensign 1879:678). In the nineteenth century, one could see the areas along the shore “now covered with mud, bushes, and water-where, in an early day, was the gravelly beach of Lake Lamoka.” (Evert and Ensign 1879:678)
A cider mill was located on the east side of the stream in the 19th century. In 1881, the outlet was relatively open and free flowing, but by 1911, it was described as a “narrow, tortuous and shallow channel” (State Department of Health 1912:853) jammed with drift wood and other debris. The southwestern shore of Waneta Lake, which is currently above water, was a swamp and residents petitioned the state to dredge the outlet (State Department of Health 1912:853-856). It seems likely this happened, as conditions were improved by the 1920s, as the former swamp was now described as “the meadows of the old lake bottom” (Follett 1928b:1), but “parallel to the outlet on both sides the land is exceedingly swampy, and low, there being only a fall of six feet between the two lakes” (Follett 1928b:1).
Construction of the hydroelectric project beginning in 1928 resulted in additional changes, and the stream has likely been dredged or modified several times since. By 1938, submerged tree stumps were reported in the north end of Lamoka Lake and the south end of Waneta Lake indicating a relatively recent increase in the water level (McVaugh 1938), presumably due to the raising of the level of Lamoka Lake for the hydroelectric power project.
History of the Area
The land of Tyrone Township was part of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase. The township itself was formed in 1822 (Gazette Company 1885:250) as part of Steuben County. Schuyler County was created in 1854 from parts of Steuben, Chemung, and Tompkins Counties (Gazette Company 1885:232). The two lakes were formerly known as Little Lake and Mud Lake (e.g., Child 1868:189-190) but had gained their modern names by 1879 (Everts and Ensign 1879:678; Gazette Company 1885:250). Waneta is still labeled “Little Lake” on the 1903 USGS topographic map. The small town of Weston is located east of the archaeological site, and Tyrone is farther south and east, along the same road.
Some Senecas were still in the area when the earliest settlers arrived, and they continued to spend winters along Lamoka Lake for several years afterward (Evert and Ensign 1879:678). One of these Seneca reportedly said that “when General Sullivan made his march into the Seneca country, in 1779, the Indians had quite an extensive corn-field along the inlet between Little Lake and Lake Lamoka.” (Evert and Ensign 1879:678)
The first settlers were near the Lamoka Lake site were Joshua and Elisha Wixon (or Wixson), who arrived around 1798 to farm the flats on the east side of the Waneta outlet. They stayed there only for a few years, leaving behind “a bark and brush shanty, and a patch of corn.” (Evert and Ensign 1879:678)
In 1800, the Bennett family “settled on both sides of the creek, between the two lakes. They took up a large tract of land, some 800 acres, which included the site of Weston Village.” (Evert and Ensign1879:678) Several other settlers came to the area around 1800, including Benjamin Harden, who lived “at the head of Lake Lamoka.” (Evert and Ensign1879:678) Some of the early settlers are buried in a small historic cemetery in the wooded area on top of the hill overlooking the Lamoka Lake site.
By the mid nineteenth century, Tyrone consisted of “two churches, a hotel, two saw-mills, two grist-mills, a tannery, half a dozen stores and several mechanic shops, and about 300 inhabitants” (Child 1868:189) and Weston was slightly smaller, with “two churches, a hotel, several stores and mechanic shops and about 250 inhabitants.” (Child 1868:190)
At the time of the earliest excavations, the Lamoka Lake site was owned by Frank Wood, but was also referred to as the old Alden VanLiew farm. S. Alden VanLiew was a farmer in Weston, who died sometime around 1916. His wife, Josephine (Heald) VanLiew, then moved to Dundee and died in 1920 (Penn Yan Democrat 1920).
Initial Discovery
At the end of the nineteenth century there are two intriguing statements about the Lamoka area. William Beauchamp, in his county by county survey of New York prehistory, had simply stated “Dr. S.H. Wright reports mounds at Lake Lamoka” (Beauchamp 1900:144). Only slightly less enigmatic was this statement: “Circular mounds appear about Lakes Lamoka and Waneta.” (Corbett 1898:79) No prehistoric mounds have since been identified at the Lamoka Lake site. There is no mention of the Lamoka area in Squier’s Aboriginal Monuments of New York (1851).
Professional archaeologists first became aware of the Lamoka Lake site proper in 1905, “when Arthur C. Parker, Archeologist of the [New York] State Museum, and his field assistant, Everett R. Burmaster, learned of plow disclosed objects from this area, of which, however, unpropitious circumstances permitted no examination.” (Ritchie 1932a:81) The site is listed in Parker’s survey of the archaeology of New York as a “large village site” (Parker 1922b:694; see also Parker 1925:138).
Collectors were aware of the site and “desultorily gleaned many arrowpoints, celts, mortars, and bone artifacts” (Ritchie 1932a:81). Follett names E.M. Wixon (possibly Edgar M. Wixson of Hammondsport) as having the “largest amount, and variety” (1928:3) of artifacts from the site. Ritchie visited the site as early as 1920 (Evening Leader 1950). A long blind stone ditch crossing part of the Lamoka Lake site (Follett 1928b:36 and other pages) is indicative of a nineteenth or early twentieth century attempt to drain the field. Undoubtedly artifacts would have been turned up when the ditch was being dug.
Professional excavation
In 1924, Henry Turnbull and Ellsworth C. Cowles were the first to dig at Lamoka Lake. In September of that year, they discovered an “Algonkin burial” on the sand knoll or hill to the east of the Lamoka Lake site proper (Evening Leader 1950; Ritchie 1932a:81)
Cowles, about 28 years old at the time and, like Turnbull, a resident of Elmira (and later, Corning), became a prominent local historian and amateur archaeologist. Turnbull, at least, returned to Lamoka the following year:
“Camping on Lake Keuka during the past few days, a party of lads with whom were Henry Turnbull of Elmira, and Winton Bennett of Bath, discovered a burying ground of the Algonquin Indians as indicated by the peculiar type of arrow-heads, and the pattern of stone hatchets unearthed. These were of the pattern used by the Algonquins.
In this burying ground, the lads unearthed the skeleton of an Indian, buried in sitting posture. The skull was broken, as though by a blow from an axe or hatchet. This burying ground was discovered near Lake Lamoka in the town of Wayne, the lads keeping the exact location a secret, as they desire to lease the plot, so that they may continue their investigations at leisure. (Evening Leader of Corning 1925)
Although the newspaper makes it sound like this was a newly discovered site, it seems almost certain this is the same site, and in the summer of 1925, Turnbull was digging again at the Lamoka Lake site:
Henry Turnbull, who had a camp near the spot, began to investigate it early in the summer, reporting numerous pits and many specimens. He sought out Commissioner Alvin H. Dewey, of the [Rochester] Municipal Museum, and after a conference with Director Parker, the expedition was sent out. (Rochester Democrat and Chronicle 1925)
The person in charge of the expedition was William Augustus Ritchie. Born in 1903, as a high school student he volunteered at the Rochester Municipal Museum (Kraft 1992:9), before being offered a paid position in 1924 as Museum Librarian and Assistant in Archaeology. Ritchie, who quickly became a curator at the museum, began work at the site in the autumn of 1925, returned for three weeks in 1926, and then, joined by Harrison Follett, who became responsible for most of the digging, had longer field seasons in 1927 and 1928.
Turnbull and Ritchie dug at the site from October 8 to November 25, 1925 (Ritchie 1925; Ritchie 1932a:83; Rochester Democrat and Chronicle 1925). This brief excavation focused, at least initially, on the top of the hill, where they discovered what was described as an “Iroquois fishing camp” including at least three brass artifacts and possibly dating to the late eighteenth century A.D. Work closer to the stream was more productive, and resulted in at least 1,000 pounds of artifacts being returned to the Rochester Museum (Rochester Democrat and Chronicle 1925). Ritchie reports that between October 8 and November 25 of 1925, he and H.A. Turnbull excavated over 505 artifacts from the Lamoka Lake site, including antler, bone, and stone tools (Ritchie 1925). The discrepancy in numbers between Ritchie’s report and the newspaper title may be just an error based on estimates made in the field, or may possibly include counts of unmodified animal bones.
The following year, 1926, the Museum returned to Lamoka Lake and excavated for three weeks, beginning on October 3 (Ritchie 1932a:83). Ritchie apparently excavated five trenches. Later maps by Follett label these R1-R5, and he refers to them in the 1928 field report as being dug in 1926 (Follett 1928:4).
Ritchie mentions that “The first discovery of human remains on the site was made by the writer, who in October 1926, uncovered in a refuse pit at a depth of only one foot, two young adult male skeletons” (Ritchie 1932a:124). These are burials AP75 and AP76 (Ritchie 1932a:114, Plate XIV; technically, these are not the first human remains recovered from the site; as mentioned previously, a more recent human burial was found on the hill to the east in 1924); other human remains have lower museum catalog (AP) numbers, but these numbers may not reflect the order in which they were excavated. AP49, a male skeleton, for example, was excavated in May 1927 (Ritchie 1932a:117).
He then presents an extended quote from “the Field Journal” (Ritchie 1932a:124) describing this unusual burial. This journal was not found in the RMSC archives when I looked for documents, although maps of the site drawn in association with the 1927 and 1928 seasons show five trenches (R1-R5) previously excavated by Ritchie.
Longer field seasons “with very limited assistance and between crops” (Ritchie 1969:36) were held in 1927 and 1928. The earliest excavations, in the spring of 1927, were conducted by Ritchie with the assistance of James M. Hamilton, Walter H. Swan, and at least two other workers (Henry L. and Barton F. M. [last names unreadable in the newspaper copy] Rochester Democrat and Chronicle 1927). Field reports (Follett 1928a,b,c,d) and contemporary newspaper accounts indicate that Harrison C. Follett was in charge of excavations in autumn of 1927 and all of 1928 (Geneva Daily Times 1927).
Ritchie himself lists the excavators as Donald L. Ritchie, Harrison C. Follett, and himself, with Arthur C. Parker making “repeated visits” (Ritchie 1932a:83). The same crew of archaeologists, joined by George B. Selden, also excavated the Levanna Site in 1927 (Ritchie 1928:6; Follett 1957). , and it is possible that Ritchie took the lead at Levanna while Follett did much of the work at Lamoka.
Ritchie states that “The first [human burial] find was made in May 1927 when the writer exhumed a mature male skeleton (AP49) …. A thin arrowpoint (AR691), minus the stem, was found in the thoracic cavity…” (Ritchie 1932a:117). These accession numbers are not on Follett’s list of finds from 1927 (AP numbers from Trench 1 began at AP51; Follett 1928a:5). Field notes from Ritchie’s excavations in May 1927 were not identified at the RMSC when I requested them. Possibly they are present there, or at the NYSM or NY State Archives, but these repositories have not been checked.
Ritchie’s account is corroborated by a contemporary newspaper report:
The skeleton of an Algonquin Indian who died 2,000 years ago from a wound inflicted by an arrowhead, which still reposed between the fourth and fifth ribs of the skeleton when it was found, is the latest archaeological trophy added to the collection of Indian relics at the Rochester Municipal Museum. It was dug up two weeks ago [i.e., around May 8] near Lake Lamoka…by a group of men interested in archaeology under the direction of William A. Ritchie, assistant curator of the museum. (Rochester Democrat and Chronicle 1927)
Ritchie later mentions a second burial, AP50, found in the fall of 1927 and “carefully removed by Dr. Parker and conveyed to the museum where it was treated and restored by the writer” (Ritchie 1932a:120). As mentioned, AP50 is not included in Follett’s handwritten report, although he does refer to a skeleton with beads and worked deer bone (1928a:61), possibly same as AP50, as Fig 2 in Ritchie 1932a shows AP50 with shell beads and “bone object” – deer atlas).
In October of 1927, Follett began excavation of his Trench 1, located, somewhat confusingly, in “the northern end of what was considered the south part of the site.” (Follett 1928b:3) Section 1, a square measuring 18 x 18 feet, was located roughly in the center of Trench 1. Sections 2 to 4 are located progressively north of section 1, and sections 5 through 8 are south of section 1. Sections 9 and 10 are much smaller and border sections 8 and 7 on the east. Sections 11 and 12 are irregularly shaped and are north of section 4. The total area of Trench 1 is approximately 3,952 square feet. Excavations for the year ended on November 23.
Much interest is being felt here over the excavation work being done on the Frank Wood farm at Weston, by men under the direction of H. C. Follett, of Rochester, for the Rochester Museum, for Indian relics….The other day they unearthed a fine specimen of pottery in shape of a large bowl. It is gray in color, but breaks easily when it was exposed to the air and has been put in plaster paris to keep it from breaking.
So far there have been seven skeletons unearthed, one of those was of a child. … The men are working very carefully, taking up the dirt and sifting it for closer examination. The fields where they are excavating were planted to beans and grains this summer, the soil being of gravel formation… As fast as the relics are found they are boxed and put on trucks for the run to Rochester. Two trucks left here this past week. (Geneva Daily Times 1927)
The site became something of a tourist attraction. Among the visitors to the site that year were a young Charles Wray, who would later become a prominent expert on western New York archaeology, his uncle, and Alvin H. Dewey (Saunders 1992).
He was not the only visitor to view the excavations. Roger Ellison, who owned a farm adjacent to the Lamoka Lake site, recounted that Wood’s sons remembered visiting the archaeologist (presumably Follett) at his camp near the historic cemetery, where he would cook them pancakes. Another local resident recounted:
One of my favorite pastimes as a young person was Indian artifact hunting. There was a favorite hunting area near Wayne where the road now passes between Waneta and Lamoka lakes. A little stream runs between the two lakes, and an ancient Indian village was located along the stream in an area more recently known as Wood’s farm. A Rochester museum conducted a dig at this site for two or three years, and I would get my father to take me there on weekends to watch the activities. I also hunted the plowed fields in this area for many hours, finding some nice projectile points, many broken ones, stone hammers, fishnet sinkers, skinning stones, throwing stones and many flint chips from the manufacture of projectile points. (Wilkin, n.d.)
Fieldwork summaries in the American Anthropologist state that in 1927,
Intensive work was done at two stations: one at Levanna, Cayuga county, and one at Lamoka, Schuyler county….In a trench 28 feet wide and 225 feet long more than five thousand specimens were taken out this year. The deposits, which were stratified, were nearly 6 feet deep, the original layer being directly upon the original valley floor….The Lamoka occupation began as one of non-pottery users. Its first inhabitants were thin-skulled dolichocephalic people who occupied the site as a fishing station, and evidences seem to indicate that here they dried fish and eels in enormous quantities. When they had built up refuse layers of more than 4 feet, another people came in and destroyed the first occupants. The newcomers were a brachycephalic people who brought with them marine shells and olivella beads. They seem to have tortured, burned, and eaten the original inhabitants. The roundheads continued the occupation of the site and were pottery makers….The date of this occupation seems quite remote. The culture converges at the point where the archaic and intermediate (ceramic) periods meet. The site is from 2000 to 4000 years old in the opinion of those who have worked upon it and know the characteristics of the New York occupations. (Parker 1928:515-516).
Follett began the 1928 excavations on April 24th (Follett 1928b:4). His assistants included Charles Kraus (The Evening Leader 1928). Excavation began with Trench 2, which started at the south end of Trench 1 and extended south for eight sections or 144 feet (Follett 1928b:4). Trench 3, west of and parallel to Trench 2, is on the border of the slope to the creek bank to the west (Follett 1928b:24). Separated from Trench 2 by a baulk about six feet wide, Section 4, the northernmost section of Trench 3, “reached contact with the southern extremity of Wm. Ritchie, trench 5 of 1926” (Follett 1928b:4), contained no artifacts, and may have been previously excavated.
After completion of Trench 3, oats were sown on the southern part of the site and Follett began excavation of Trench 4 on and around the north end of Trench 1 (Follett 1928d). Trench 4 is a very large and irregularly shaped excavation area consisting of 97 sections totaling approximately 10,067 square feet.
During or after the excavation of Trench 4, Follett paused excavations at the Lamoka site proper, and conducted tests of several other areas in the vicinity (Follett 1928b, 1928d). Many of these sites contained pottery sherds, triangular points, and other artifacts, but none came close to the richness of the Lamoka Lake site proper, and Follett considered these unproductive.
After the oat crop was harvested, he returned to the Lamoka site, and excavated several more trenches (Follett 1928d). Trench 5 was located to the west of Trench 4 and contained three sections. Trench 6 was located to the east of Trench 4 and contained six sections. Trench 7, comprising three sections, was north of Trench 5.
Trench 8, west of Trench 5 was described as being “…on the slope of the bank to the creek. A large area of disturbed refuse earth here did not contain any artifacts, near the west side the stump of an apple tree nearly all decayed was encountered and its existence probably accounts for the disturbed earth surrounding it to a depth of two and one half feet” (Follett 1928:132).
Trench 9 contains 33 sections and was placed to the west of Trench 1 from the 1927 excavation and “within about 12 feet of the creek bank” (Follett 1928:132). About 3,897 square feet were excavated. Ritchie’s R4 trench from 1926 was identified within Trench 9 during excavation. Section 12, located farther south, was also labeled as previously excavated. Trench 10 contains two sections and is located east of Trench 1 and south of Trench 4. Trench 11 also contains two sections and is east of Trench 4. Finally, Trench 12 contains two sections and is located east of Trench 1.
In summarizing the museum’s work, Parker wrote
The year 1928 has been an especially successful one for the Rochester Municipal Museum, especially in archaeology, which is only one of its five divisions. The Lamoka Lake station has yielded a rather unusual lot of early implements, all from a preceramic culture….Charts of the floor, surface, and cross-sections were taken at frequent intervals, an important detail of method when cultures are mixed. We also noted the implement depths for every foot of the layers, some of which were six feet in depth. (Parker 1929:352-353).
Visitors, including a group of teachers from Steuben County who motored out to the site in September (Steuben Farmers’ Advocate 1928), continued to come to view the excavations. Follett stated to the Rochester Museum that he had “given considerable time to prominent visitors from all parts of the United States and delivered two talks of an hour each to two groups of Boy Scouts composed of 24 each.” (Follett 1928c)
In August of 1928, the Steuben Farmers’ Advocate sent their in house “humorist”, Ben Field to visit Follett at the site. He described the field camp:
we found the tent where Mr. Follett spends the summer. It was on the other side of the cornfield, and close beside the old cemetery. ..Then he has another tent,-sort of a lean-to to the main dining hall, and this small tent is almost full of skeletons of Indians. …He has an assistant named Bill who does the digging for him while he directs operations; although I am told by eyewitnesses that Mr. Follett has been known to use the pick and shovel himself. Bill seemed to be enjoying himself too. But then you can’t judge much by appearances, and he was on his way to dinner when I saw him coming through Corn Boulevard.
I should have liked to stayed to dinner with Follett. He is his own cook and gave us sample of his cake. The cake was very good, and I’ll bet that Harrison C. Follett makes a good cup of coffee too, but we were forced to hurry along. (Steuben Farmers’ Advocate, 1928a)
1928 was the last year of excavations for the Rochester Museum, in large part because so much of the site had by now been dug up, but also because worked on the Lamoka Power Project which was eventually expected to flood the site, had begun in August of 1928, while archaeologists from the Rochester Museum were still in the field.
The numerous artifacts uncovered at Lamoka were brought back to the Rochester Museum at regular intervals for analysis. Some sections of the excavation were removed intact to the museum for display, including a 30 inch by 50 inch section with 17 discrete soil layers. Features identified in the field included refuse pits up to seven feet wide, fire beds (ash deposits with charcoal and hearths) over 55 feet long, lodge sites (possible house floors) and hearths, often found in the bottom of pits, containing a mass of charcoal frequently overlain by a stone slab.
Artifacts were described in detail in Ritchie’s 1932 report and his later book, the Archaeology of New York State (1969), both of which also include photos of some representative examples. These include over 6,000 netsinkers, over 1,000 awls made of animal bone, and over 800 flake stone tools, including types Ritchie called arrowpoints, javelinheads, spearheads, and knives. The majority of these are now called Lamoka points. There are also stone pestles, mortars, metates, and mullers; sandstone choppers, hammerstones, and anvilstones; and celts and beveled adzes. Other items made of bone include knives, fish hooks, and small bipointed bones called gorges. Over 500 pounds of unmodified animal bone and shell (mussel [Unio complanatus, now known as Elliptio complanata] and snail) were also recovered from the site. Some of the human burials at Lamoka also contained remnants of shell bead necklaces.
Rarer items include four possible bone whistles and several other bones that had been pierced, grooved, or otherwise worked. There are also numerous antler “pendants” that have been notched or otherwise worked and decorated with ochre.
Over a dozen human burials were also uncovered, as well as isolated human bone fragments in midden deposits. Ritchie argued that two types of people were found at the site: dolichocranial, or long-headed people, and brachycranial people. He postulated that the dolichocranial people were the original inhabitants of the site, who were invaded by brachycephalic people (Ritchie 1932a). This reflects thinking prevalent at the time that has since been mostly abandoned. Suffice to say, a new study of the Lamoka human remains, utilizing advances made in physical anthropology over the past eighty years, would undoubtedly yield new and valuable results.
One of the so-called dolichocranial burials at Lamoka, of an adult male, had a Lamoka projectile point in its thoracic cavity. Other evidence of violence at the site includes two young adult males, found together, who had their heads, hands, and feet removed. Each had a Lamoka point embedded in a vertebra, and one had an additional three points among his ribs (Ritchie 1932a).
The absence of pottery in Late Archaic deposits at Lamoka Lake was one of the most important defining characteristics of the site, and was essential to defining the Archaic Period (Ritchie 1932a). Less well known is that some ceramics were identified at the site from the beginning. Ritchie identified 90 sherds from top soil or “Associated with shell-accumulations in certain shallow pits and in the superior levels of a few deep refuse pits, nearly filled by the first inhabitants” (Ritchie 1932a:112).
In 1932, William Ritchie published The Lamoka Lake Site: The Type Station of the Archaic Algonkin Period in New York (1932a), which, along with an article in the American Anthropologist (1932b), introduced the concept of the Archaic to other archaeologists. The most diagnostic artifacts of this newly defined culture were “the beveled adze, narrow-bladed, notched arrowpoint, and the pendantlike antler objects.” (Ritchie 1932a:130). Equally important was the absence of pottery. The archaic inhabitants obtained food through hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants. Few other details of their lifeways were inferred.
Although a tremendous amount of earth had been moved at the site by the end of the 1920s, this did not mark the end of excavations at Lamoka Lake. The story will be continued in Part 2.