Excerpt from Point Au Pelee Island: A Historical Sketch of and an Account of the McCormick Family, Who Were the First White Owners on the Island

There are indisputable evidences that the Island was inhabited long before it was known to the white man. There are to be found upon the Island numerous burial mounds of prehistoric origin, containing human bones, and human skeletons, in good perservation, have been found where burial had been made. In the clefts of the rock. These numerous graves would indicate that the Island was once. Thickly populated, or that these ancient inhabitants had made their home here for a long time. Upon some of these burial mounds large trees have been found growing, that had evidently taken root'and'grown up years after the mounds were made, and some of these trees indicate a growth of hundreds of years. Some suppose that these burial places were made by a p'eople known as the ancient mound builders, or Aztecs, before their migration south to Mexico and Central America. But there is but little evidence to substantiate this theory, as implements of war or of domestic use have been. Found in the graves. A few pieces of broken pottery, broken stone pipes and flint arrow heads are all that is known to have been found with the bones in the mounds, but many flint arrow heads and stone hatchets or hammers have been found in the fields and roadways. These stone hatchets, made of the hardest flint stones have a remarkably smooth surface and sharp edge, but for what use they were intended is uncertain. They may have been used as instruments of war or for killing game; but it is supposed by some that the sharp smooth ones were more probably used for dressing skins for clothing.

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