Early Native American Remains Unearthed on Manhattan Island New York
History of West Chester County, New York 1900
In the immediate section of the country to which the County of Westchester belongs such traces of the ancient inhabitants as have been found are in no manner reducible to system. There are no venerable monumental ruins, nor are there any of the curious " mounds " of the west. Various sites of villages occupied by the Indians at the time of the arrival of the Europeans are known, as also of some of their forts and burial grounds. Great heaps of oyster and clam shells here and there on the coast remain as landmarks of their abiding places. Aside from such features, which belong to an ordinary historical association rather than to the department of archaeological knowledge, few noteworthy " finds " have been made. Several years ago much was made in the New York City newspaper press of certain excavations by Mr. Alexander C. Chenoweth, at Inwood, on Manhattan Island, a short distance below Spuyten Duyvil. Mr. Chenoweth unearthed a variety of interesting objects, including Indian skeletons, hearthstones blackened by fire, implements, and utensils. There can be no doubt that these remains were from a period antedating the European discovery. But they possessed no importance beyond that fact. With all the other traces of the most ancient inhabitants which have been found in this general region they show that hereabouts Indian conditions as known to history did not differ sharply, in the way either of improvement or of degeneration, from those which preceded the beginning of authentic records.
History of West Chester County, New York 1900
In the immediate section of the country to which the County of Westchester belongs such traces of the ancient inhabitants as have been found are in no manner reducible to system. There are no venerable monumental ruins, nor are there any of the curious " mounds " of the west. Various sites of villages occupied by the Indians at the time of the arrival of the Europeans are known, as also of some of their forts and burial grounds. Great heaps of oyster and clam shells here and there on the coast remain as landmarks of their abiding places. Aside from such features, which belong to an ordinary historical association rather than to the department of archaeological knowledge, few noteworthy " finds " have been made. Several years ago much was made in the New York City newspaper press of certain excavations by Mr. Alexander C. Chenoweth, at Inwood, on Manhattan Island, a short distance below Spuyten Duyvil. Mr. Chenoweth unearthed a variety of interesting objects, including Indian skeletons, hearthstones blackened by fire, implements, and utensils. There can be no doubt that these remains were from a period antedating the European discovery. But they possessed no importance beyond that fact. With all the other traces of the most ancient inhabitants which have been found in this general region they show that hereabouts Indian conditions as known to history did not differ sharply, in the way either of improvement or of degeneration, from those which preceded the beginning of authentic records.
