5/17/2023 0 Comments Garret mountain tanksSmall wonder, then, that the valley of the Passaic, but more especially its lower portion, should have been greatly favored by the redskins in fact, almost as much as the valleys of such rivers as the Hudson and Delaware.Īccordingly, in the district here under review, i.e., from the Falls of the Passaic to the City of Passaic, both banks of the river exhibited abundant traces of prehistoric abodes, invariably occupying the glacial terraces, that skirt it for miles, as well as the knolls and ridges along its effluents for some distance from their mouth. In the second place, most valleys are well adapted to human habitation, being less exposed to the extreme rigors of the climate and offering, moreover, no end of ideal camp sites, added to which advantages they were the natural avenues of communication, facilitating travel both by land and water. In the first place, the river was a source of potential food supply in the shape of fish, most welcome as supplementing a monotonous meat diet or as a substitute for such when the game was scarce. Yet, even now, the old camping grounds so far as they still exist, have not quite become depleted of their treasures, as is evidenced by the fact that fresh ones are being turned up after each ploughing, though, it is true, at an ever-decreasing rate.įrom earliest times man has been attracted by river valleys and that for weighty reasons. In those days and for a long time afterwards the writer was the sole investigator of the archaeology of the region, and as for collecting he found within a few years, more than 4,000 specimens of various types, affording a fairly complete conception of the character of the material culture attained by these genuine Americans prior to the advent of the white interloper. The work of reconnaissance, which covered both the land adjoining the river and the territory stretching away from it for miles, was practically completed by 1906, with the result that very few if any additional sites have since been discovered by others. In the course of a survey, begun as far back as the year 1900 and continued for a decade, the writer located no less than 200 Indian lodge or camp sites along with six large settlements or villages, scattered thru Passaic River Valley from Horseneck Bridge to Passaic. Today, however, many of these interesting spots have been effaced or become all but unrecognizable either in consequence of a thoroughgoing disturbance of the original surface features or because of the multifarious objects of primitive industry, once serving to identify them, have for the most part been gobbled up by curio hunters. Not so long ago, it was replete with the cultural products of the people of the vanished race so that it was an easy task to determine by means of these remains, not only the localities they once frequented, but also to ascertain, from their character and relative abundance, whether they indicated campsites or villages. To the student of North Jersey prehistory, the tract of land comprising the City of Paterson and its environs is of considerable significance. Abundance of Prehistoric Relics Along Passaic River
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