This survey makes no pretension of being complete, but it is an adequate sampling of the fibers utilized by the Eastern Indians and illustrates their resourcefulness in exploiting the raw materials at hand. It is noticeable that they used a great variety of plants and that one of the determining properties or qualifications was the local abundance of a plant. There seems to have been a tendency to use the monocotyledonous plants and the bast from the trees for coarser work and the diocotyledonous herbaceous plants for the manufacture of finer cords and threads.

Several general points of interest are apparent from the comparative study of these prehistoric and historic plant materials.

1. The plant fibers used by the prehistoric people were rarely if ever treated before utilization, while among the modern Indians a high degree of skill has been attained in the preparation of the fibers before spinning.

2. There seems to have been some commercial interchange between the Northern and the Southern tribes, both in historic and prehistoric times. The occurrence of palmetto fibers in modern Mohawk and Potawatomi collections and the use of Nolina by the cave and rock-shelter people of Ohio, shows commerce.

3. It seems that most, if not all, of the materials utilized were wild plants for there was no discoverable evidence of the cultivation of these plants. Such evidence would be far from obvious since cultivation does not seem to improve the fibers in textile plants.

4. Among the prehistoric peoples the purposeful mixing of fibers was the rule. This is especially notable in the collections from Ohio and Arkansas. These mixtures of fibers occur both in the same strand and in the two-ply cords. It is not apparent why the fibers from different plants were mixed, but the combinations seem intentional, as nettle and milkweed, blue stem grass and pawpaw, nettle and yucca, basswood and nettle, and pawpaw and yucca. Yet, such intentional mixtures were rarely encountered in the historic collections examined.

5. It is apparent that the prehistoric peoples used such fibers as were adapted to their immediate purpose without previous treatment. They were stripped from the plant and twisted at once. This seems to account for the dominance of monocotyledonous fibers in prehistoric collections. The historic Indians, on the other hand, used a greater variety of species of fiber plants because they were able to prepare them properly before using. The determining factors seem to have been strength, fineness of fiber, and abundance of supply.

All the above observations are consistent with the assumption of a steady advance in textile skill and knowledge from prehistoric time to the present.