Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1903-07-25
AN ABORIGINAL KITCHEN.
Huge Salt Pans, Part of the Enuip.
ment, Used for Evaporating
and Cooking.

That the aboriginal Indians of North
America did considerable cooking in
their time has been made evident by the
discovery in various parts Of the United
States of numbers Of earthenware YES
sells known as "salt pans,' but whose
chief use was apparently the prepara-
ton of food, says the New Haven Regis
ter These yessels-called salt pans by
the archaeologist, because their main
purpose seemed at first to have been
the evaporation of salt from the salt
springs near which the Indians estab-
lished so many of their villages are the
largest known specimens of native
North American pottery. The largest
one ever found has recently come into
the possession of the Peabody museum
at Harvard. 1t measures some 81 inches
in diameter by II inches deep. In APP
pearance, therefore, it is very much like
a big, shallow punch bowl. 1t was dis
covered not long ago by an archaeology
cal expedition under the joint auspices
of the Peabody museum and the Uni
versity of California, and is an impOr-
tant part Of the instructive spoil taken
from what IS now farm near the meet
ing Of the little Maramac and the big
Mississippi rivers in Jefferson county,
Missouri, once the site of a small Indian
village
This big salt pan, in which the Indians
not only evaporated salt from the water
of salt ticks, which sthl exist in the i'm
mediate vicinity, but doubtless cooked
their elk meat or venison, is only one OF
a gOOdly number of similar but smaller
utensils found in the same locality. The
larger pans were all sunk in the clay
bottom upon which the encampmeAt had
rested, and were therefore as permanent
as any modern stove or oven. The diff
ference was that fire, instead Of being
built under or against the oven, was
brought to it in tie shape of heated
stones, some Of which, stin showing
evidence Of the many heatings to which
the Indians had subjected them, still re-
NAMED in the salt pans recovered by the
Harvard and California archaeologists.
Near the salt pans. or native cooking
apparatus, still remained portions of the
ancient freplaces in which the stones
had been heated, together with the bones
of several kinds of animals which
formed part Of the Indian bill of fare
about 20 years ago. These remains in
Guided elk, beaver, deer, fox and turkey;
but there were no traces of the buffalo,
although buffalo remains are often
found among the relics Of the Indians
who once roamed the more western
prairies.
The big salt pan and it's smaller COM
panion pieces of aboriginal kitchen and
dining room economy were, naturally,
not the only evidence of early Indian
life found in the old village so long hid
den under the plowed burrows of modern
agriculture. The excavation, not yet
fully completed, has already revealed
cemetery, as web as a village, the Gene
terry differing from most OF the Indian
burial places already found and opened
in various parts of the United States, in
that 1t was very much smaller than was
usually the case. Although occasional
isolated graves have been discovered,
the experience of previous archaeology
cal Investigations would have led, nat
urally, to the expectation of finding
either very small group of graves, each
containing one SHELTON or several skele-
tons, or very large one embracing hun
dreds of burials. In this case only twen-
ty-seven graves were discovered, al
though this number represented the
burial of several times as many Indians