The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (17972397618)

Title: The American Museum journal

Identifier: americanmuseumjo14amer (find matches)

Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)

Authors: American Museum of Natural History

Subjects: Natural history

Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History

Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library

Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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THE CHARLES S. MASON COLLECTION By Alanson Skinner DURING recent years few acces- sions in archaeology have rivaled in interest the Mason collection from Tennessee, donated to the Museum in the summer of 1913 by Mr. J. P. Morgan. The material is the fruit of many years of painstaking work by Mr. Charles S. Mason and is of added value to students in that it was gathered within one general lo- cality, the vicinity of Jonesboro, Tennessee. Many of the specimens come from an old ab- original cemetery on the Nolachucky River, and may be examples of Cherokee handicraft. The collection con- tains two of the rare engraved shell gorgets so typical of the archse- ology of southeastern United States. They are made of the shell of one of the large conchs found both in the Gulf of Mexico and along the southern coast and traded inland. Ex- amples of a similar sort have been discovered in the mound area of the Ohio Valley. With the gorgets are included a number of massive shell beads, such as are found especially with skele- tons exhumed from'the stone-lined graves of Tennessee, and several interesting pins of shell I ,11 mi Arrow points are also notable. There serrated edge are also in the collection a number of perforated bear's teeth and a trade copper gorget. A remarkable series of steatite pend- ants of all imaginable forms was brought together by Mr. Mason. These include a number of miniature grooved axes, some seemingly suspended by a thong tied about the groo^^e, others perforated

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flaked into a great variety of forms, several with 157

bear products the american museum journal 1914 the american museum journal anthropology book illustrations natural history american museum of natural history handcraft handicraft images from internet archive

1914

American Museum of Natural History Library

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