the
great variety of objects buried with the pearls. It is evident from the
quantities discovered in some of the mounds that a very great number of
pearls, many of large size, must have been owned by these aborigines,
and they were evidently quite expert in the art of drilling them.
Pearls must have been freely used for ornamental purposes, and it is
clear that many rivers in this region must have produced them in great
numbers, when we consider that in all probability the mussels were
taken only as they were required for food or for bait in fishing, and
had probably reached their full growth.
It
is not unlikely that pearls were used on this continent for a long
period, and they may have been in use centuries before any employment
was made of them in Europe. In the age of the mound-builders there were
as many pearls in the possession of a single tribe of Indians as
existed in any European court. We have no means of ascertaining the
precise date of any of these burials, and there are no historical
records relating to this region, such as were kept in Mexico as well as
in Europe and Asia. No trace has been found of the employment of
pearls, either for decoration or ornament, by the aborigines of Europe
or Asia ; either they did not use them or else the pearls have entirely
passed away in the course of twenty or more centuries. We do know,
however, that neither pearls nor Unio shells were used by any of the
lake-dwellers of Switzerland or the adjacent countries.
Many
eminent archaeologists have investigated the finding and history of
the pearls of the mound-builders of Ohio and Alabama, especially
Squier and Davis, F. W. Putnam, Warren K. Moorehead, C. C. Jones, W. C.
Mills, and Clarence B. Moore. The discoveries made up to 1890 were
fully treated by one of the writers in several pamphlets (one of them,
"Gems and Precious Stones of North America").
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