NYSAA Bulletin No. 26 — Croton Point Midden Excavation — Passage 4 (part 8)

[Louis A. Brennan et al. (1962)] At the Archery Range site, an unmodified stone of duck like form, partly polished as if by handling, was recovered from a feast pit adjacent to a burial at- 6 THE BULLETIN tributed to the florescent Bowmans Brook stage of the East River Aspect (Smith, 1950~ pp. 152-3). At Tottenville, Staten Island, New York, a zoomorphic limonite concretion was recovered from a beach embankment shell deposit in association with early Bowmans Brook material. Indian cultures of the southwest, particularly the Zuni of New Mexico, owned and highly valued stones and concretions, resembling birds or animals. These fetishes or "Pray Gods" were often altered by incision and abrasion to elaborate and accentuate physical details such as eyes and tails.

Many of these objects, handed down through generations, are believed to be fetishes of the Hunters Society (Fazzini, 1935, p. 81). Another, as yet, undocumented site on land of the Morris Estate Community Club in Bronx County yielded several unmodified stones and a scraper containing fossil mollusks and fragments of shale holding trilobites. At Grassy Sprain reservoir , Yonkers, New York, an ovoid, drilled pendant of fossiliferous limestone was surfacecollected in association with projectile points of Poplar Island and Orient Fishtail type culturally affiliated with the late Archaic period, (Ritchie, 1961, pp. 39, 44-5). Further north, natural stone concretions among grave goods are noted at the Frontenac Island Site, (Ritchie, 1944, p. 386).