FOR NEWS WANT ADS DIAL 6441 17/7/38 THE BANGOR DAILY NEWS, BANGOR, MAINE, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1938 3 "RED PAINT SITE" DISCOVERED ON INDIAN ISLAND Relics of Red Paint People Discovered on Indian Island W.P.A. Road Project Excavation Reveals Large De- posit of Implements and Weapons Once Used by Maine Aborigines (Special to The Bangor Daily News) is a specimen of a burned in material. There are plummets of OLD TOWN, Dec. 16-More evi- several materials, including some of dence that the Red Paint people metal, but all have the coating of once lived in Maine was brought to red paint. These pear shaped ob- light this week when excavations jects have a perfect groove around the slightly enlarged smaller end on a new road project on the There is one crescent with a drilled Penobscot reservation. Indian hole, and several other relics have Island, revealed several hundred drilled holes. There are some very relics, with perhaps more to be long slate spearpoints, and some found. relics of flint Howard M. Ranco, supervisor of Cemeteries such as this have the W.PA project on the island, and been recorded in Maine, So far his men have found some ancient bu ials of this kind have not been articles such as have been found in discovered outside of Maine. Those previous years on the river banks found in Maine were in Howland of several communities in Maine. Eddington, Hampden, Milford The discovery was made near land Swanville, Bradley, Bucksport, Old of Thomas Francis. Town, Passadumkeag, Orland, Oak- These enduring objects, that ap- land, Waterville, Winslow, Warren. pear to have been buried for cen- Union, Ellsworth, Bristol, and The photo at upper left shows a group of workmen on a turies, have been discovered in Bluehill. road project on Indian Island, with relics of the Red Paint groups and are termed by scientists Since the discovery of the God- people which they have just dug up. Left to right are How- cemeteries or "red paint sites." frey cemetery here in Old Town This recent discovery appeared some 20 or more years ago very ard Ranco, supervisor, Nicholas Ranco, Francis Tomer, Alex similar to those of other cemeteries little has been learned about these Sapiel, and Chester Dana. At upper right are a group of chil- but perhaps larger. The mass of mysterious relics, dren, Eleanor, Bob and Mary Tomer, and Edwina Neptune, in red cchre is much in evidence, as Many theories have been given, a field where many of the early weapons and implements were though the stone relics had been and C. C. Willoughby excavated buried therein, and described several red paint found. In the lower photo, Chester Dana, Horace Nicola, The relics are of different cemeteries in Maine in 1892 and Nicholas Ranco, and Alexander Sapiel display some of the material and include tools or im- 1894. Prof. Warren K. Moorehead relics dug up during the past week. (Photos by Staff Photog- plements, such as arrowheads, of Andover, Mass., began archaeo- spearheads, gouges, hafchets, blades rapher). logical work in Maine in 1912, con- and plummets. Several spearheads tinuing until 1920. He has written are of some translucent material or an illustrated book, "Archaelogy of quartzite and are very beautiful. Maine." Walter Brown Smith of One lot of long blades includes Bar Harbor has also written an il- one with short horizontal lines of lustrated bulletin called "The Lost very fine workmanship. Another Red Paint People of Maine."