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Mississippian Pottery Trowels

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 21:50:00 GMT

Pottery trowels were made and used in ancient times across the globe. These fired ceramic artifacts are usually “mushroom shaped” with cylindrical handles (also called the stem) and convex bases (also called the head or bell). They are widely thought to have been used in the production of pottery vessels to smooth the clay coils used to construct the vessel prior to firing. In the Midwest and Southeastern United States, pottery trowels were commonly found on Mississippian sites from the Mississippi River valley in Missouri and Arkansas southeast to Georgia but were rarely if ever found on Caddo or Quapaw (Tunican) sites. This is interesting, since the Caddo and Quapaw also made vast amounts of pottery, so if they didn’t utilize pottery trowels, but instead used smooth stones or other implements, why did the Mississippians go to the trouble of manufacturing pottery trowels?

Pottery trowels have not historically been a major focus of Mississippian archaeological research, with their mention in archaeological reports usually being relegated to an “Other Pottery Artifacts” section with little to no analysis. One exception was when archaeologists at Angel Mounds in Indiana in 2006 excavated what they referred to as the “Potter’s House,” where pottery tools including trowels, prepared unfired clay, mussel shells and masses of slightly fired clay pieces were found in one unit, suggesting that craft production was a specialization conducted by a few individuals at Angel, in specific areas for the broader community.

From the compilation and analysis of the trowels found at Angel Mounds, McGill (2012, 2013, 2014) described the first categorization of different Mississippian pottery trowel types. After examining 188 examples, he categorized them into three handle top types (single, bifurcated and trifurcated), which described how many lobes were attached to the stem top. For those with single-topped handles, there were four different top shapes (round, thick, tapered and knob). For those with bifurcated handle tops, there were also four different top shapes (deep V, and shallow V, out-flaring V, and out-flaring T). Bases were categorized as whether the area where the handle affixed to the base was either concave with respect to the handle (referred to as indented) or convex (referred to as tapered). The bases were further characterized as to whether their edges were rounded or squared.

Since these categorizations by McGill were developed using pottery trowel examples from just one site (Angel Mounds), it isn’t surprising that different variations exist when looking at pottery trowels from across the Midwest and Southeast. Just from the author’s collection, there are two trowel types that don’t fit within McGill’s defined categories.

This concave style was described by Dethrow (1988) as a being found mostly in Kentucky. Indeed, the left example is marked as being from Kentucky, with the righthand example’s provenance being more specifically from Ballard County, Kentucky. Dethrow suggested that the concave reservoirs in trowels like these were used to hold water to aid in smoothing wet clay. It seems doubtful to the author that this would be practical when an ancient potter could just as easily have an entire vessel of water nearby for the same purpose that wouldn’t need constant refilling. However, no alternative function for the reservoirs is readily apparent to the author, either. Dethrow also showed examples of bifurcated and trifurcated trowels in his 1988 Central States Archaeological Society article, although he didn’t use that nomenclature. All the pottery trowels featured in Dethrow’s article are now in the collection of the author.

Another trowel variation not covered by McGill’s study is one where eyes were incised into the top of trifurcated trowels while the clay was still wet to create an animal effigy top shape. In these cases, two of the lobes become ears and the third becomes the snout of the animal effigy.

It has always been the opinion of the author that pottery trowels could have been used for a different purpose than only smoothing pottery vessels, since most pottery trowels are too big to fit inside and be used to smooth out the average sized pottery vessel. It seems plausible that the largest of these could have been used to smooth out the clay used for Mississippian wattle and daub house wall construction instead.

In researching references for this article, it was found that this proposed use was not unique to the author, as it was first suggested by Thruston (1890) and Holmes (1903). McGill (2012) also suggested that “some large trowels have extremely flat bells and heavy indications of use, perhaps suggesting they were instead plastering trowels.”

Figures 7a and 7b show two views of the same trowel, which is the largest in the author’s collection (4 5/8″ diameter base). It has a bifurcated shallow-V top and an indented and rounded base, and is from Henry County, Tennessee. Unlike the bases of smaller examples, there is significantly more wear on the bottom of its base, like those described by McGill. Therefore, perhaps this example was used for plastering and not smoothing pottery vessels.

The firing temperature was hotter than that used to create greyware ceramics, thus making the trowel harder. A harder trowel would presumably better withstand prolonged use as a smoothing tool than a softer greyware example.

Pottery trowels continue to be an underappreciated artifact type to both archaeologists and collectors. Hopefully further research can be done on existing examples in the future to better understand the specific uses of these artifacts.

References

1) McGill, D.E., “Insights from the Analysis of 100+ Pottery Trowels from Angel Mounds (12Vg1),” poster presented at the 2012 Midwest Archaeological Conference.

2) McGill, D.E., “Social Organization and Pottery Production at Angel Mounds, a Mississippian Archaeological Site,” unpublished dissertation, Indiana University, Oct. 2013, 614 pages.

3) McGill, D.E., “Insights from the analysis of Angel Mounds pottery trowels,” Southeastern Archaeology, 33(2), 2014, p. 189-205.

4) McGill, D.E., “Questioning Craft Production at Angel Mounds Analysis of the 2006-2009 Angel Mounds Field-Schools,” Midcont. J. of Arch., 38(2), 2013, p. 205-218.

5) Dethrow, J.M., Central States Archaeological Journal, 35, No. 3 (July 1988), p. 161-164.

6) Thruston, G.P., “The Antiquities of Tennessee and Adjacent States,” Robert Clarke Co., Cincinnati, OH, 1890.

7) Holmes, W.H., “Aboriginal Pottery of the Eastern United States,” Twentieth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1898-99, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1903.

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The Paleoindian Database of the Americas | SAAJ .089

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 18:54:00 GMT

The team welcomes renowned southeastern archaeologist David G. Anderson to discuss the Paleoindian Database of the Americas (PIDBA).

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The Archaeology Whistleblower: Scott Ashcraft | SAAJ 88

Sat, 16 May 2026 13:07:00 GMT

In this episode, the team discusses a new paper on why Clovis hunter/gatherers selected certain types of stone for their points and blades. Then the team welcomes archaeologist Scott Ashcraft to discuss his complex federal whistleblower case against the U.S. Forest Service.

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Miniature Mississippian Monolithic Axe Pendants

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 23:55:00 GMT

By Dr. Sandy B. Carter Jr, Big Canoe, Georgia

A pre-contact Native American monolithic axe refers to an axe made from a single type of material,
typically stone. and is a ritual or symbolic weapon rather than a utilitarian object. Several articles in the archaeological literature haw summarized the proveniences and provenances of traditional/standard monolithic axes ranging in size from 9-16 .. in length (Refs. 1-3) and this anicle documents the transition from standard size to miniature size. Dr. Kevin Smith documents the size eYolution o,·er time of Mississippian maces from large [AD 1050-1150] to small [AD 1300-1500] (Refs. 4-5): Bro”n and Kelly (Ref. 6) and Brain and Phillips (Ref. 7) describe the evolution from long handle spatulate celts [AD 950-1150] to short handle spatulate celts [AD 1400-1650]: Dr. David Dye feels the same principle applies to monolithic axes decreasing in size from AD 1300 to AD 1650 (Ref. 8).

This paper documents six miniature monolithic axes that were worn as pendants. It is observed that each pendant was suspended with the end of the axe’s handle in an -Upside down .. position. Dr. Michael Gramly notes that “the orientation of symbols as a key for interpreting their meaning cannot be overemphasized.” He feels the inverted position of a suspended figurine -might have commemorated a dead ancestor” (Ref. 9). Perhaps an inverted monolithic axe pendant celebrated an elite ancestor interred with a large ceremonial monolithic axe.

Figure I shows a limestone pendant (2¾”) that was found on a Middle Mississippian site in Colbert County, Alabama near the Tennessee Jtiver (Refs. 10- 13 ). It was found by A.W. Beinlich, Jr. in 1956. Adjacent sites in Colbert County have evidence of the Moundville culture (Ref. 13) and ii is reasonable to assume the wearer of this miniature pendant was venerating an ancestor interred with a larger traditional monolithic axe I 25 miles south at Moundville (Figure 2).

Figure 3 shows a red jasper monolithic axe pendant (3 ¼”) that was found by Paul Weirich near Stewman Creek and the Tennessee River in Decatur County, Tennessee. Figure 4 shows a stone engraved monolithic axe pendant (2.4 .. ) found by J.H. Polhemus in 1956-57 on the Late Mississippian (AD 1450-1600) Dallas culture Chilhowee site (408t7) on the Little Tennessee River in Blount County. Tennessee; it was pictured in 1957 (Ref. 14). Figure 5 shows a pendant (2.25 .. ) from Moundville, Hale County, Tennessee and it was pictured in 2016 (Ref. 5).

An even smaller monolithic axe pendant is pictured in Figure 6 which shows a mussel shell pendant (I 1/,”) that was found in Washington County, Virginia.

lncidentaly. in addition to monolithic axe pendants, another miniature monolithic axe effigy artifact that has evolved from the early Mississippian large monolithic axe is the monolithic axe pipe. These pipes date to the Late Mississippian Dallas Period (AD 1450-1600) and are made of ceramic material or stone. Figure 7 shows a ceramic pipe (2 w· L) from Bradley County. Tennessee and Figure 8 shows a dolostone pipe (2 ‘”,•” L) from Murray County, Georgia.

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Undrilled Bird Effigy Pipes: Intentional?

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 22:28:00 GMT

by Steven R. Cooper, EIC

January 2011 Central States Archaeological Journal

Recently I passed by a collector’s table at a show. Resting on it was a very fine pipe. I asked if I could pick it up, and he handed it to me. Carefully I looked it over. The pipe (Figure 1) was an effigy portraying a flying bird, possibly an eagle. It was made of highly polished green steatite. The collector told me it was found in 1965 by his father, R.D. Ewton, in a plowed field in Roane County, Tennessee. It has extensive plow damage. While the bowl is finished, the pipe remains undrilled and could not be smoked. I asked if I could take some pictures, thanked him and moved on to enjoy the show.

When I returned home I recalled another similar pipe (Figure 2) featured in a Journal article years ago. This smaller (4 ½ inches long), but very similar pipe was found on a Mississippian site on the Harpeth River in Davidson County, Tennessee. This find was reported and pictured in the CSAJ (Volume 17, #3, 134–135) in 1971. What surprised me was this pipe too was undrilled in exactly the same way as the other pipe! Coincidence?

I then looked at the bible of pipes, the huge two volume Tobacco Pipes and Smoking Customs of the American Indians by George West to see some further examples. I was surprised when I discovered just one example (Figure 3), and it too, was unfinished. Why make such a fine pipe which required hours of effort and then not finish it? Perhaps they were utilized for some other purpose rather than smoking? I am sure there is a reason, but it is lost in time.

References:
West, George A.
1934 Tobacco, Pipes, and Smoking Customs of the American Indians Reprinted by Hart Publishers 2001

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Seven Ages Podcast-Adena: Moundbuilders of the Ohio Valley

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 14:07:00 GMT

In this episode, the team talks with Jason Pentrail about his new two-volume set, Adena: Moundbuilders of the Ohio Valley.

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Collector Spotlight- Gary Varient

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 10:32:00 GMT

March 2026

Hello everybody, my real name, as you might have guessed, is Gary. I was born in Dallas, TX and have lived there most all my life. I worked in the engineering field my whole career, but now I am retired. I started going fishing at a young age and hunting when I was a teenager. I also have hobbies of playing my guitar and restoring my ’85 El Camino. Some of my more recent fishing catches I have posted on the forum, some of you may have seen those when I went trout fishing in the Ozarks.

My journey into artifacts all started when I was just a little 10-year-old kid and I saw my very first frame of points. I wish I could have gone and found some at that time. But it didn’t happen until my brother-in-law took me artifact hunting about 12 years ago. We were up in N. E. Arkansas at my wife’s folks house for Thanksgiving that year. We went out to the field and my brother-in-law’s cousin also came along. We had a fun time and everybody found points that day. I found a Table Rock point made out of Burlington chert, but I didn’t know what kind of point it was or what it was made out of at the time. That started my education into point typology and material identification. I have to give my brother-in-law a lot of credit for showing me the ropes as I knew very little about artifacts when I first started out. Several years later we moved up to N. E. Arkansas and I am able to go artifact hunting quite a bit now. In my area, having the St. Francis river close by makes this area such a good location for artifacts with the significant number of sites that are here. Although I have found Paleo and early Archaic period points, most of my finds are late Archaic to early Woodland period. I have also been able to find a few Mississippian period points as well.

The forum has plenty of friendly people with lots of knowledge of artifacts. I can always get an answer to my question about an artifact. For that, I say thanks and I truly do appreciate the honor of being selected for the Member of the Month.

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ANCIENT ARROWHEADS or MODERN REPRODUCTIONS? – Don’t Get Fooled

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 19:55:00 GMT

Looking to purchase an arrowhead? It’s important to remember that you have a choice between
authentic prehistoric examples and those made in modern times that have been artificially treated
to look old. Arrowheads.com asked Joseph Mattingly, respected authenticator and owner of the
Indian Artifact Grading Authority (IAGA) to weigh in.

Regardless of their age, projectile points are produced by a lithic reduction process known as
flintknapping. Prehistoric Native Americans sourced and crafted arrowheads from locally
available sedimentary stone material suitable for knapping using region-specific lithic traditions.
While modern reproductions are made from those same materials and in a similar fashion, subtle
differences in patination, use-wear patterns, flaking styles, and the absence of mineral deposits
can give them away.

And as with any type of collectible that has value, unscrupulous individuals often referred to as
fakers, go to great lengths to make their arrowheads look authentic and sell them as such. In
recent years, fakers have routinely employed several methods of artificial aging to give their
arrowheads the appearance of antiquity.

Some of these include:

Chemical Treatments: Subjecting arrowheads to various acids, stains, or other compounds to
give them a weathered look.

Abrasion and Tumbling: Rubbing pieces with abrasive materials or putting them in rock
tumblers to mimic wear patterns found on authentic examples.

Artificial Coatings: Covering the surface of arrowheads with a foreign substance to give the
appearance of natural patination and cloak visible evidence of modern tooling.

Intentional Damage: Creating deliberate breaks, chips, rework, or other imperfections to give
the illusion of ancient use.

However, a knowledgeable expert or authenticator can differentiate between authentic and
reproduction with a high degree of certainty through microscopic analysis accompanied by
decades of experience and comparative study.

Buyer Beware! The idea of obtaining an outstanding prehistoric arrowhead for a fraction of its
market value is undeniably alluring for collectors. In reality, however, valuable authentic
artifacts rarely sell for far below their worth. Keep in mind that the marketplace is saturated with
reproductions being marketed as genuine authentic examples. Buyers should exercise abundant
caution when confronted with a deal that seems exceptional. The well-known phrase “too good
to be true” certainly exists for a reason. Be sure to purchase from a trusted resource and have
your arrowheads evaluated by a qualified expert if authenticity is important to you.

Which is better Authentic or Reproduction? Some people prefer reproduction arrowheads
because of the significantly lower cost to obtain them versus prehistoric examples that have
survived in the ground for thousands of years. Responsible modern flintknappers also sign their
works with ink or a diamond scribe creating their own collectible category. Others who buy
modern points may be trying to avoid purchasing prehistoric examples that were illegally
obtained. However, reputable artifact resources don’t buy or sell that type of material in order to
stay compliant with established collecting laws.

For traditional collectors, however, the significant history and fascination associated with
authentic prehistoric arrowheads cannot be replaced. These artifacts are sought after and
treasured because of their rarity and deep connection with the past. Authentic arrowheads have
also proven to be much better long-term investments than modern replicas.

What’s the Bottom Line? Native American Arrowhead enthusiasts can ensure that their
collections contain only authentic prehistoric examples through diligence, education, and
engaging expert evaluation resources. They can also elect to collect modern reproductions.
Ultimately, the choice is theirs.

Arrowheads.com interviewed Joseph Mattingly, professional artifact authenticator, Indian Artifact Grading
Authority –
Joseph Mattingly (IAGA)
www.artifactgrading.com
502-741-3335
Arrowheads.com
www.arrowheads.com
buyer@arrowheads.com

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Perhaps the Rarest Artifact?

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 16:13:00 GMT

by Steven R. Cooper, E.I.C.

Central States Archaeological Journal October 2009

Several weeks ago I was attending a show in Indiana. Someone approached me and asked if I had examined the dugout canoe that was recently found in the Ohio River. They told me it was outside on the grass. When I arrived they had loaded it back in the truck and were preparing to leave. I asked if it would be possible to allow me a few pictures. It seems a tugboat operator had spied it and salvaged it. Since its discovery it has been sealed so that it wouldn’t further deteriorate. At one time there were thousands of these on the waterways of North America. Very few have survived. The pictures tell the story. Notice the shape of the bow, and the odd hole on the side. You just never know what will turn up at a show.

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PaleoAmerican Odyssey | SAAJ 86

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 18:00:00 GMT

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Michael Waters to discuss the 2026 PaleoAmerican Odyssey Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico, along with several other incredible archaeological subjects.

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Archaeology and Heritage with ‘The Bluff Dweller’ | SAAJ 85

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 22:33:00 GMT

The team is joined by archaeological content creator Paul Lee from the popular Facebook and TikTok channels, “The Bluff Dweller.”

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Collector Spotlight- John Davis

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 11:29:00 GMT

December 2025

My name is John Davis. I am 72 years along, I’ve been married for 50 years, I have 3 children, 2 daughters and a son. I was raised in South Carolina on a farm for the first 10 years of my life before I was uprooted and moved to Mandan ND, my mother and grandparents hometown, my grandmother had come to North Dakota in a covered wagon when she was a baby., crazy.

I always enjoyed hearing all the exciting tales of Custer and the Indians. It wasn’t long before my grandfather took me to an earthlodge site.

I didn’t get completely hooked until I was in my mid 20s and found a besant site so full of artifacts it was crazy. My record for a one day outing was 25 points and 50 thumb scrapers, Now I was bit hard by the bug.
In the eighties my shotguns got dusty and I started getting a lot of guff from my hunting friends and some grief from the other half when most of my free time was spent out searching for artifacts.
I started observing some interesting areas while commuting to work at the power plants near Knife River. This led me to go visiting with the farmers and landowners in that area. I met many other interesting folks who also had a love for artifact hunting. We often shared our philosophies and stories of our finds as well as introducing them to even more enthusiasts. Decades later this network of ” head hunters” had spread not only North and South Dakota but throughout the country, many of which I am still in contact with. I have learned so much about Indian and Paleo artifacts by endless reading of books and maps, hours and miles walking the fields and my associations with all the many individuals that have found pleasure in this great pastime of artifact hunting and collecting.

For the last 10 years I have been lucky enough to have my daughter to go out with and we have had some great finds.

One of the most memorable of our hunting days was when my daughter and I came across a newly exposed woodland site where we picked up 50 points,100 thumb scrapers, numerous knives and other artifacts. beating the previous record by quite a lot.

That was one day my daughter and I will never forget. A few of the things I have found are pictured above. Some of my collection is featured in the 2007 Lar Hothem “Rare and Unusual Indian Artifacts” Identification and value guide.

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An Ultra Rare Disc Pipe Surfaces

Tue, 09 Dec 2025 01:59:00 GMT

by Steven R. Cooper, Kingston Springs, Tennessee

When the Old World discovered the New World, included amongst the many new discoveries was the custom of smoking plants through pipes. While there is some minor evidence of a few individuals smoking hemp and inhaling such herbs as lavender for medicinal purposes in European prehistory, pipe smoking was virtually nonexistent. Of the four main plants introduced to the Old World (potatoes, maize, tomatoes, and tobacco), only tobacco spread to nearly every corner of the world. In a short time, large tobacco plantations were producing huge quantities that were transported across the ocean into the markets of Europe and beyond. Clay pipes were mass produced and smoking beyond a popular pastime. Tobacco was also chewed and utilized as snuff (the original tobacco was much stronger than that which is smoked today). This lust for tobacco fueled the slave trade, with massive amounts of labor required to make these pre-industrial operations viable.

While smoking has been popular in the Old World since the mid-1500s, the New World had a smoking culture for thousands of years that combined pleasure, religion and medicine into a myriad of uses that utilized thousands of pipes. In North America the pipe evolved from simple tubes to elaborate enhanced designs that are truly remarkable in their form. Some were made to be utilized in shared communal events. Many were very small versions for personal smoking. These forms spread throughout the continent. The Midwest saw the development of many pipes into an art form, with a high degree of sophistication in style and manufacture. Each culture (i.e., Hopewell, Adena, Mississippian) produced pipes that epitomize a level of craftsmanship that reflects the degree to the development of that society. It is possible through the examination of pipes, including their designs, materials along with how widespread they were utilized, to develop a realistic picture of the past when perishable items are nonexistent. The purpose of this paper is to focus on one pipe style, and indeed, one pipe itself.

One style that spans the prehistoric and historic periods is known as the disc pipe. This is a multi-level pipe design that has on top a disc with a central hole that is placed above an elongated keel base in which the stem hole is drilled. The disc is elevated from the keel in prehistoric examples. Some historic examples have the disc sitting directly on the keel. The majority are made from catlinite, which with use develops a deep dark patina. There is a subset made from white limestone and some examples are made from other materials, but these are few in number. Pipe size usually ranges from 1–4 inches in length, but there are a few that exceed 9 inches in length. Once this form was adopted, it seems to have spread rapidly, and these have been found throughout a wide area (Wisconsin to Georgia and the Great Plains to New York). Nearly all have a high degree of polish, and some examples have engraving as well as other design details, including extended bases, notched prongs and in rare cases, animal effigies. The pipes were handheld with a long stem inserted. Many examples retain evidence of being smoked.

Recently the author was able to acquire a disc pipe that is made somewhat different than other examples in that it has a prominent “apron” in its design. Owning two other smaller examples, at first I did not think this added design was anything significant. But in researching disc pipes in George A. West’s classic Tobacco Pipes and Smoking Customs of the American Indians (1934), I was surprised to see several other nearly identical examples of this pipe. To those who are unfamiliar with the West book, it is a huge massive work that shows several thousand exhaustively researched pipes. It was at one time very scarce, but has been reprinted by Hart Publishers. It is a must-have for any artifact library.

What I discovered is that this style of disc pipe is referred to by West as the “Ceremonial or War Bundle Disc Pipe.” There are several examples shown in West’s publication, and he states:

West describes each pipe in detail and its origins. Interestingly, he discusses three Osage war bundles, two of which had never been opened. He and the director of the Milwaukee Public Museum then go about opening these bundles and describing the elements within. He notes these war-bundles probably came from Oklahoma.

The other examples he shows came from various locations, including Wisconsin, Illinois and even one from a mound in White County, Georgia, which he considered an intrusive burial as it was in the side of the mound (less than three feet underground). He notes some of the other examples were part of previously unwrapped war-bundles.

Of particular interest in regard to the pipe this article is referring to is another specimen from the same region. He states:

The pipe shown in Figures 1,2,3,5,6 was acquired by the author from Brandon Vanderver. How he acquired it is interesting. He stated that prior to the days of the internet, he used to advertise in the local papers of random small towns in Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois for Indian artifacts, utilizing the headline “I Buy Indian Artifacts.” According to Brandon, he acquired the pipe from Chris Jensen, whose grandfather had once owned the pipe. Brandon stated: “I got a lot of phone calls from those ads before the internet killed it. No other details on how it was found, just the very found and county was all he was able to tell me. And this was the only piece he had. He said he had kept the best piece and sold the rest of the collection when it was left to him, and that was 8–10 years before I got the pipe.”

Chris told Brandon it was found in 1917 by his grandfather in Lee County, Iowa. Lee County is at the far eastern side of the state, bordering the Mississippi River with Illinois just across the river and Missouri on its southern end. Brandon acquired the pipe from him in 2006.

The pipe measures 4 5/16 inches (110mm) in length, and is heavily polished. There is a small missing piece at the bottom of the keel at the opposite end of the stem hole, sometimes referred to as the “prongs” element of the design. Under microscopic examination, this break has patination, so it must have happened far in the past. The curved base of the pipe has a multitude of engraved “V”-shaped markings that almost appear to be cross-hatching. These appear intentional. There are also some marks on the bowl of the pipe, but I am not certain if these are just something that happened during its use or were intentionally added. The side perforation is drilled through in the exact same fashion (from each side) as the pipe George West describes from Iowa. If the pipe is viewed down the length of the top portion, the design resembles the “three-pronged” mace design so prevalent in Mississippian culture. The bowl has some evidence of smoking, retaining a black residue.

With so few examples known, and most in museums, I feel lucky to have acquired and added this rare and important pipe to my collection.

References (Text Only)

Hohfner, Larr
1999 Collector’s Guide to Indian Pipes. Collector Books, Paducah, Kentucky
McGuire, Joseph
1899 Pipes and Smoking Customs of the American Aborigines; Based on Material in the U.S. National Museum. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.
West, George A.
1934 Tobacco Pipes and Smoking Customs of the American Indians. Two Volumes. Reprinted by Hart Publishers 2001.

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NAGPRA: History of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act | SAAJ .084

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 20:32:00 GMT

The team welcomes Wyoming State Archaeologist Spencer Pelton and Professor Emeritus Robert Kelly, University of Wyoming, to discuss the details of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).

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A Brief Note on the Texas Early Triangle Type

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 03:03:00 GMT

Central States Archaeological Societies 2012 July Journal by Malcolm T. McLaughlin, Aurora CO.

Figure 1. Early triangles with triangular blades.

The Texas Early Triangle is an artifact type found predominantly in Central Texas and also occasionally in West Texas. These artifacts are dated to approximately 5700 years ago, placing them near the transition from the Early Archaic period to the Middle Archaic period in Central Texas. The Early Triangle type is described by Ellen S. Turner and Thomas R. Hester in A Field Guide to Stone Artifacts of Texas Indians. Early Triangles do not have stems or notches for hafting to an atlatl fore shaft, suggesting they were probably used as knives or cutting tools.

Early Triangles are fascinating artifacts, because they display traits that are considered highly desirable by many collectors. Specifically, most Early Triangles have a distinctive combination of basal fluting or thinning, steep bevel blade resharpening, and prominent serrations that appear along the blade edge throughout the life of the artifact. These characteristics are considered desirable by many collectors because they reflect techniques applied in the construction of projectile points from the Paleo and Early Archaic periods, and also because they provide great visual appeal.

Twelve Early Triangles were reviewed for this Note, eleven of the examples were found in Coryell, Hamilton and Bell Counties in Central Texas, and one example was found in West Texas. The studied examples vary in length from 52mm to 100mm, but have remarkably consistent basal widths between 33 and 38mm. This suggests that Early Triangles are often constructed with initial length to- width ratios of around 3:1. Over time, several of the examples were resharpened until they reached length to- width ratios of less than 2:1, creating steep bevels on the blade edges.

Early Triangles display two curious traits related to the resharpening process. First, the type can be separated into sub-groups, one representing resharpened examples with truly triangular blades (Figure 1) and the other representing examples with recurved blades (Figure 2). Most examples in both categories display basal fluting or thinning and prominent serrations. Second, the process of bevel resharpening is inconsistent across examples. Some are beveled on the right side of the blade, while others are beveled on the left side of the blade; some are even beveled on both sides of the blade. These traits highlight significant diversity within the point type.

References:
Turner, Ellen S., and Hester, Thomas R.
1993. A Field Guide to Stone Artifacts of Texas Indians, Gulf Publishing
Perttula, Timothy K.
2004. The Pre-History of Texas, Texas A&M University Publishing

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The Stones Are Speaking: The Gault Site | SAAJ 83

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 15:47:00 GMT

The team is joined by Olive Talley, director and producer of the new documentary film ‘The Stones Are Speaking’ about the famous Gault Site.

The post The Stones Are Speaking: The Gault Site | SAAJ 83 appeared first on Seven Ages .

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Collector Spotlight- Dave Penny

Sat, 20 Sep 2025 10:25:00 GMT

September 2025

Hi everyone. My name is Dave Penney. I’m about to turn 60 in a few months. I have enjoyed being a member of this forum and I’m still amazed with the amount of knowledge and experience the members have. I am honored to be selected member of the month.

I was born in Bad Godesburg, (West) Germany of American military parents. Being an army brat, I grew up all over. I lived in Maryland and again in Germany before settling in the St Louis area in 1979.

Both of my parents were well traveled and instilled the importance of travel in me. As a child, I traveled through much of Europe and a large portion of the United States. I served in the Army Reserve for 11 years, deploying to Bosnia and to Panama multiple times. I also got to see many Eastern European countries during my time in the military.

In 1998, I moved across the Mississippi River to the Illinois side to become a police officer in Alton, Illinois. I retired from my career as a police officer in 2018 to take care of my mother who had dementia until her passing in 2021.

I’m a proud father and grandfather. Those are my greatest accomplishments in life.

I became interested in early American culture during my many hikes around Cahokia Mounds, a half hour drive from where I live. I would visit the museum and gaze at the artifacts in wonder. I was and still am amazed at the innovation and craftsmanship that went into stone tools. I began doing research and learning about the types of tools and the processes used to make them.

I started looking for artifacts on every property that I had access to. I spent my first 3 months finding nothing except a few flakes and a core. I discovered this forum and I received tons of encouragement from people to keep trying. I found my first point and was thrilled. I still recall the feeling of picking it up and realizing that I was the first person to touch this artifact since the last person who used it. To this day, it is the only point I have found in illinois.

I began doing research online about the various cultures that were in my area and refining where I would look for artifacts. I actually started finding things. I was finding things where I had been hundreds of times, but never actually looked before. I have always been active outdoors and this hobby has given me an excuse to continue that. I love nature photography and just being away from civilization.

I have now amassed a collection of about 150 points and two celts that I have found. I still get the same thrill every time I find an artifact, whether it’s complete or just a tip or base. I have a bucket list of points that I would like to find and if I ever find them all, I will just add more on to that list. I would love to find a Graham Cave point and a Folsom point. I still haven’t found any pottery sherds, but they are on my list too.

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A Few Kentucky Rockshelter Treasures

Thu, 11 Sep 2025 03:45:00 GMT

by Steven R. Cooper, Editor Central States archaeological Society

Hugh Dossett (right) and Dennis Vesper (left) exploring the entrance to the Mud River Rock Shelter in Logan County, Kentucky, in the early 1960s.

There was a time when those with an interest, left no stone unturned in the pursuit of Indian artifacts. In Kentucky, this meant not only field and creek hunting, but also caves and rock shelters. Caves were usually occupied in prehistoric times at their entrances, with the “trash” of those who had lived there buried in the dust of centuries. These dry caves (signifying the absence of running water) were able to preserve many perishable objects, and have been a significant source of these rarest of artifacts. Cane weaving, clothing, baskets and other objects made from plants are among the things found. Sometimes objects were deposited in the cracks and crevices of the cave walls for unknown reasons. Objects were buried on purpose. Some ended up in trash piles at the sides or backs of the caves. As time passed, these became buried, and in a few cases, such as Glover’s Cave, the floor literally held the debris of thousands of years of occupation.

Today, it is illegal to disturb a cave environment in Kentucky in any manner, which includes hunting for artifacts. While this article shows some interesting finds from many years ago, the author does not suggest or condone this activity today.

A small comb made from cane. This was found in a burned basket within Watts Cave in Christian County around 1900. Collection of Charles S. Wagers, Fairfield, Ohio.

V ase pipes are not perishable or unusual. Many have been found made from limestone but due to the nature of the stone, they rapidly deteriorate and the surface defoliates.However, this one retains its original luster and polish. It was found in a rock shelter in Pulaski County, Kentucky in the 1960s. Collection of Charles and Mary Barker.

The above flax woven plant fiber moccasin was part of a cache of 22 found by Hugh Dossett during the week of March 16th, 1964. These were discovered in the Mud River Rock Shelter in Logan County, Kentucky. Collection of Charles S. Wagers, Fairfield, Ohio.

More perishable items found by Hugh Dossett in 1964 in the Mud River Rock Shelter in Logan County, Kentucky. Rope, weavings, leaather, fabric, corn, seeds and nuts are among the items shown. Collection of Charles S. Wagers, Fairfield, Ohio.

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BAR AMULETS FROM NORTH MISSISSIPPI

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 19:44:00 GMT

By: Rob O’Dell

This subject is best begun by definition of the “bar amulet” and its temporal position
in relation to other polished hardstone artifacts. Bar amulets (also called “bar weights”) were
created by extensive pecking, grinding, and polishing of fine grained hardstones into various
elongated symmetrical forms. They are generally very finely crafted and are prized by
collectors of Indian artifacts, although less so than their “cousins” the perforated
bannerstones.
The reel bannerstone has now been recognized as the first polished hardstone object,
being slightly older than the earliest full groove axes. The reel, which has distribution into
North Mississippi, is commonly made of Siltstone/Claystone (also called Limonite). Reels
have been found associated with Kirk (Stemmed) points dating to more than 8,100 BP.
Despite being a simpler form, bar amulets first appear more than two thousand years later in
the Middle Archaic period.
The foremost expert on bannerstones and related stone artifacts is David L. Lutz,
author of The Archaic Bannerstone – Its Chronological History and Purpose From 6000 BC
to 1000 BC, (2,000). His insights on bar amulets (which he has called “Bar Atlatl Weights”)
are the first to be based upon comprehensive archaeological investigation. Lutz states:
At the Middle Archaic Black Earth site [Illinois], two crudely made Bar
Weights were discovered with Godar points in [a] burial… At a site in Chickasaw
County, Mississippi flat trapezoidal shaped bars made of limonite were found in a
high status Benton burial… The Bar Weight is found throughout the Late Archaic
period in a generally flat, rectangular form. Then, upon entering the Woodland
Period, it acquired a totally new appearance which features a rounded body and
flat base called the “Ellipsiodal” Type. Id at p. 363.
It is important to put Lutz’s identification of bar amulets as Bar Atlatl Weights into
context. That nomenclature should be considered in light of his belief that the purpose of
bannerstones is ceremonial in nature, as is their relation to the atlatl. Lutz also espouses a
belief that (consistent with their common mortuary associations) a “ceremonial atlatl” was
awarded to high status individuals in a symbolic ritual upon their death. Id. p 87. I find Lutz’s
opinions to be well reasoned and consistent with my own study of hardstone artifacts.
Lutz’s views explain how bar amulets, gorgets, boatstones, and similar stone objects
can be considered to be forms of bannerstones. These foundations also support inclusion of
the “Duck Bills” found in Mississippi Benton caches into the bar amulet/weight category.
(Both Duck Bills and perforated [tube and Benton Phase oval] bannerstones have been found
in Benton mortuary caches).

Photo 1

Photo 1 shows a fine bar amulet/weight made from black Siderite, an iron carbonate
stone found in Mississippi River gravels. It is from Washington County, Mississippi, and is
extremely smoothly polished, marked only by light plow scars. Its likely context is Late
Archaic; as the case with those pictured in Photos 2-4.

Photo 2

Photo 2 depicts two humped bars from Washington County made from Mississippi River gravels. The
one on the left has a slightly dished out flat base, making it related to boatstones.

Photo 3

Photo 3 shows two (Late Archaic) humped bars from Washington County, although the one at center is more of an elongated cone made from heat treated local chert. The one at left appears to be a type of granite that was also probably from the Mississippi River gravels. The humped bar on the right is high grade hematite. It was found in Scott County, Virginia in association with a true cone of the same material. The question is raised whether cones also belong in the bannerstone class.

Photo 4

Photo 4 is a heavy limonite (or claystone) bar, or possibly a bannerstone preform.
Since bannerstones were generally drilled/perforated well before completion, it is most likely
a thick bar weight.

Photo 5

Photo 5 is a large (Middle Archaic) Benton Duck Bill (with modest
restoration) that was found in three pieces on the surface in Pontotoc County. This example is
shaped more like a duck’s bill than are most. Narrow trapezoids are more common.

Photo 6

Photo 6 is of a Woodland period ellipsoidal bar or atlatl weight made from banded
greenstone slate. It is flat on the bottom. Most of these have a central longitudinal groove, but
this one has only light indentations at the edges of the flat bottom. The form shown here
could possibly have adorned an atlatl handle, at least in a cermonial role, although its
Wodland age makes that less likely. These have been called “pick banerstones”, however the
true Woodland (Intrusive Mound) pick is more round in cross-section and is certainly not a
functional atlatl weight. I found this one and number 4 many years ago in Lafayette County.
I find that I appreciate bar amulets (and boatstones, duck bills, and gorgets) all the
more in consideration of their “ceremonial” context and relationship to bannerstones as
defined and illustrated by Lutz in his 565 page masterwork. I recommend his book to anyone
who is interested in these amazing and mysterious objects.

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Collectors Spotlight- Joser

Fri, 20 Jun 2025 10:22:00 GMT

June 2025

Hey everyone, I appreciate the opportunity to be this month’s MOTM! I am a newcomer to collecting artifacts, only artifact hunting for about a year and a half now. I was born and raised in Northeast MA. As a kid, I was always enthralled with history and marine science and that has certainly helped shape me as an adult. I always wanted to be an archaeologist though as a kid, that meant dinosaurs, which this area isn’t especially known for. The stories of the Native Americans in History class really called out to me and the thought of finding “arrowheads” was a dream, though I never even thought it was possible to find artifacts near me.

Fast forward to a couple winters ago when I got to speaking to a friend about how I always want to find an “arrowhead” and was informed it was a possibility and that he has an extensive collection of local personal finds. My interest in fishing turned out to be a boon in my new passion. Well down the rabbit hole I went, and I spent hours watching videos, reading books and buying the Northeast Typology book though MAS. Shortly after, I made my first find in a spot that I have fished many times before!

I have amassed some very good spots, and am trying to cross off common local point types and lithics. Over the last year and a half, I have found many points, a lot of heartbreakers and quite a few tools of various lithics. I hope to keep this passion going and eventually get my young children (1 in the oven) into this passion.

I hope over time, as I build experience, that I can contribute a fraction of what a lot of the members here do. There is a wealth of knowledge to tap into!

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Do You Know The Difference?

Tue, 10 Jun 2025 01:22:00 GMT

by Steven R. Cooper, EIC

Any collector of the Paleo period is well aware of the problem with reproductions. Walk into any show and there is an abundance of Paleo points on display as well as being offered for sale. Many of these points command high prices. The high prices are due to the rarity of these points. I discussed this in depth several years ago in my article The meaning of the word rare, the Paleo connection (CSAJ Volume 53:4 Pg 197).

Most dealers and collectors don’t sell reproductions on purpose. Many times these reproductions have been studied with the belief that they are real. Once modern characteristics are deemed to be ancient, the collector will be fooled over and over by the reproduction.

I was told once by a knowledgeable collector that when he first acquired a microscope he examined every piece in his collection over and over. After a few weeks he was baffled, as he didn’t know what to look for. Then he went out and bought some reproductions and everything changed! Once you compare the real with the not real it’s easy to discover what to look for. It would help every collector to own some known fraudulent artifacts so they can examine the difference.

Most modern flint knappers do so because they enjoy the skill and the art form. But there are a few whose sole purpose is to fool and enrich themselves. They study what they desire to reproduce, create it and then apply an artificial-patina to their work. I examined a piece of pottery at a recent show that was being sold in the parking lot as a reproduction. Owning a very similar real piece, I was shocked at how good the reproduction was. I asked the seller how the paint was given an aged look. He readily replied “sandblasting.” Real ancient pottery is aged by weather and time.

Knowledge is power, and once you gain it, your collecting experience will never again be troubled with doubt, worry or insecurity.

Caption under image:
**At top: Two fine Cumberland style points that were recently photographed by author. The owner was especially proud of them. He mentioned that he had been offered more than a thousand dollars for one of them. This he found especially interesting since he informed the potential buyer that neither of these points were older than a few months and that he had made them! The buyer didn’t mind and still wanted to purchase. Wisely, the owner/knapper retained them and didn’t allow them into the marketplace. The larger point is nearly four inches. The author recently attended a show where a dealer was offering excellent reproduction Clovis style points for $40, three for $100. Some said that with a little effort these points could be turned into multi-thousand dollar specimens. Paleo points are the most highly reproduced points, and if you are acquiring one for your collection great care should be taken. It is interesting to note that a collector who is a friend of the maker of these two reproductions pointed out that 10,000 years from now these two reproductions will be 10,000 years old! They will be old then, but they still won’t be real.

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My Thanksgiving Bird

Thu, 15 May 2025 01:14:00 GMT

Central States Archaeological Societies January 1999 Journal

Robert Whitehead Kentwood, Michigan

Birdstone found by Robert Whitehead in Randolph County, Indiana.

In 1964 at Thanksgiving I took my family from Grand Rapids, Michigan, to Randolph County, Indiana, to visit my elderly father and mother. They lived on a farm with a four- or five-acre pond near the middle of the east 49 acres. The pond had a high ridge on the east side and a lower ridge on the north side. Since childhood, when we moved to this farm, I had found artifacts in every field. As a grown man I still continued to search the best areas. The best area was the east ridge. Second best was the north ridge.Thanksgiving day was cold and blustery, and other visiting family members kept me busy. I couldn’t get away to find arrowheads. Since I was running out of time, I decided to get up early on Friday morning. I awakened as daylight was breaking in the east. It was cold and raining, but I decided to put on extra clothes and my dad’s warm hunting cap and venture out to the east ridge. With wind blowing a gale and the cold and rain, it was very uncomfortable. My eyes watered so badly all I accomplished was to wipe away the tears. I thought to myself, “What am I doing out here at dawn with icicles forming on the bill of my cap? Only a nut arrowhead hunter like me would be here!” I began to head east over the ridge towards the house. I took about three steps and could not believe what I saw. It was a greenish banded Huronian slate birdstone. It was drilled at both ends, but had a chip gone from one side. I almost felt like pinching myself. It seemed like a dream. I grabbed the birdstone from the soybean row and with my heart singing headed for the warm house. I was on a high that lasted for days. The moral of the story – sometimes it pays to be a nut arrowhead hunter.

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A Rare North Carolina Boatstone

Wed, 30 Apr 2025 18:50:00 GMT

By Ron Harris North Carolina

Central States Archaeological Journal, volume 54, January 2007, Number1, Page 22

Matt Parker of Forest City, North Carolina was hunting arrowheads along the “old course” of the Broad River in Rutherford County, North Carolina in the early 1990’s when he discovered a very rare boatstone. The unique boatstone is shown in the accompanying triple view photo which illustrates the bottom, top and side view. This is arguably one of the finest boatstones ever found in the state.

When viewed from above the boatstone is elongated oval, three inches long with tally marks on each squared end. Oval suspension or attachment holes were gouged out rather than drilled near each end. The base is dished out. Gouge marks appear as “worm tracks” in the concavity. Outer surfaces are smooth and highly polished. The artifact is made of high grade brownish/black steatite.

Artifacts of this type are called boatstones because when viewed from the side they resemble the hull of a boat. It has not been determined their exact use or purpose including “tie-on” atlatl weights, talismans or charmstones.

None have been excavated. Why they were hollowed is a mystery. Perhaps some good luck charm was sealed within the cavity. It is postulated that boatstones were made during the Archaic to Woodland period 3000–1000 BP. They are always well made and show no signs of excessive usage; however, many are found damaged by modern farm implement contact.

Parker had been collecting arrowheads in the region for 2 1/2 decades and had amassed a nice lithic assemblage, along with pottery shards, all from the Archaic and Woodland periods in the Blue Ridge foothills of Western North Carolina. The boatstone was discovered on the Erwin Johnson farms off Clark Road near the Rutherford-Polk County line about 4 miles east of where the dam on Broad River backs up to Lake Lure. Parker found 3 other unusual artifacts including a yellow-quartz crescent or winged Bannerstone, a schist tallied trapezoidal pendant and a “bear claw” shaped steatite pipe bowl.

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Hopewell Platform Pipes, Tools of Magic, and Mystery

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 17:47:00 GMT

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VARIETY IN GROOVED AXES FOUND IN NORTHEASTERN OKLAHOMA

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 03:15:00 GMT

ROSE KING
Muskogee, Oklahoma
Central States Archaeological Journal Vol. 28, No. 3, JULY, 1981 pages 130 -133

Grooved axes are reported in the whole Mississippi Valley, Southeast and South-Central Canada, and the Southwest. Since they were primarily a wood working tool, they are predominantly found where trees are more abundant. They were evidently an item for trading from one area to another; perhaps this accounts for the variety we find along the Arkansas and Canadian Rivers.
The materials used seem to be selected for hardness and durability. Most are made of granite, a basaltic fine-grained material; hematite; gneiss, a very hard quartzitic sandstone; and/or a greenish hard material looking like limestone. They can be resharpened when a new cutting edge is needed.
The typical method of manufacture seems to have been to peck the axe to shape, then to grind and polish all or part of it. Some are very highly polished. After pecking to shape, the Indian used a sandstone slab with water to grind or polish the axe. Gregory Perino illustrates the manufacture of the axe in the Shell Oil Film, The Early Americans , filmed at the Koster Site in Kampsville, Illinois.
Both full-grooved and three-quarter grooved axes are found in northeastern Oklahoma. Rare anywhere, but particularly here, are the double-grooved axe and the half-grooved axe.
The double-grooved axe (Figure 1-2) was found in Muskogee County in a plowed field. It is made of a greenish-gray fine-grained granite, pecked to shape and ground smooth. The two grooves are above the center of the axe, 4 ¾ inches wide and 3/16 inch deep. The axe is 5 ¼ inches long, 3 ¼ inches wide, and 1 ¼ inches thick. It weighs 1 ½ pounds. The blade tapers gradually to the bit. The poll shows slight damage by use, battering, or possibly both.
The half-grooved axe (Figure 1-1) is ovate and is pecked and ground smooth. It is made of a dark gray, fine-grained quartzite material. The grooves are only on the flat surface of the axe. Each groove is 3 ¼ inches wide and 5/16 inch deep. It is 3 7/8 inches long, 2 5/8 inches wide, and 1 ½ inches thick. It weighs 1 1/8 pounds. Half-grooved axes are usually the Keokuk variety; however, this axe is not listed as Keokuk axes. This axe was found in a usual manner in a plowed field in Muskogee County, Oklahoma. This site has been plundered by many relic hunters and has been unusual in that it has yielded a grooved maul, a full-grooved axe, a celt, a plummet-pendant (flattened pendant?), Dalton points and the usual mixture of dart points including Garies and Maude arrow points. Quite a variety in time span!
The full-grooved axe of Figure 1-3 has a wide groove which takes a third of the total length of the axe. It is made of a polished fine-grained, greenish-gray granite, and is unblemished by the plow. Found in Muskogee County, it is 6 ½ inches long, 2 ½ inches wide and 1 3/8 inches thick and weighs 1 3/8 pounds.
The axe in Figure 1-4 is made of fine-grained gray material. The poll is rounded and the blade is thin. The protruding flanges on either side of the groove is the unusual feature for Oklahoma axes. The poll is 1 ½ inches tall, the flanges extend 7/16 of an inch above the groove, and the poll is approximately 1 ½ inches wide. The axe is 5 ⅞ inches long and 3 7/16 inches wide at the flanges. It weighs 1 ¾ pounds and has a sharp blade with moderate use-battering. It was also found in Muskogee County.
Figure 1-5 is a deeply grooved axe with high flanges on either side of the groove. It is of dark fine-grained igneous rock, pecked and ground, with the bit end polished slick. It weighs 3 pounds and is 7 ⅝ inches long, 3 ⅝ inches wide, and 1 7/8 inches thick, with a ½-inch deep groove. The poll is rounded and smooth; the sides of the bit are rounded and sharp. Axes 4 and 5 were found in close proximity of each other, so perhaps could be in the same cultural association.
Another flanged axe, Figure 1-6, has a knobbed projection on the poll. The groove is wider and shallower than either number 4 or 5. It is made of a very fine-grained igneous material, gray where it is not so highly polished. The bit end is very highly polished (from use?). It weighs 2 ⅞ pounds, and is 6 ¾ inches long and 3 ½ inches wide. The groove is 1 ½ inches wide and ½ inch deep. It came from an Adair County plowed field.
The axe in Figure 1-7 is made of a most unusual material which looks like marble. The other unusual feature is the two parallel lines cut into the blade on each surface. It is a small, short full-grooved axe. It either took a lot of pounding on the poll or was purposely left unfinished there. It is 3 ¾ inches long and 2 ¼ inches wide and weighs ¾ of a pound. The groove is 1 inch wide by ⅛ inch deep. It was found in a Muskogee County plowed field. The axe closely resembles pictures of axes in the Southwest made of fibrilite material.
The red oolitic hematite and the squat broad shape of axe Number 8 are the unusual features. The poll shows much abuse. It was found in a soybean row in Muskogee County. Some of the most elite artifacts we have came from the same vicinity in the field as this axe. It weighs 2 ⅞ pounds and is 5 inches long, 4 ¼ inches wide and 1 ¾ inches thick. The groove is 1 inch wide and ⅜ inch deep.
Figure 1-9 is made of a very hard sandstone. It is a full-grooved axe showing ground finish over all except for the shallow, narrow groove. The shape is very different from the full-grooved axes that we normally see. It weighs 5 pounds and is 8 ½ inches long, 4 ¼ inches wide, and 2 ¼ inches thick. The rounded poll extends 2 1/2 inches above the groove. It was found in a freshly plowed field in Adair County.
The tannish-gray, fine-grained axe in Figure 1-10 is well polished. The top of the poll is flattened and extends 1 1/4 inches above the groove. The weight is 3 1/2 pounds; length, 8 1/2 inches; width, 3 3/4 inches; thickness, 2 1/8 inches. It is from a plowed field in Adair County.
Figure 11 is an odd one! It is flattened on one side like an adz, and the other side is rounded and tapering toward the bit. Made of a fine-grained granitic material, it weighs 2 5/8 pounds. The length is 6 1/4 inches; width, 3 1/2 inches; depth, 2 inches tapering to 1 1/8 inches. It was found in Adair County in a plowed field in what is probably a continuation of a very large site.
Figure 1-12 was found in a field that is probably a continuation of the field where number 11 was found. The unusual features of this beautiful well-polished axe are the string groove that extends from the bit around the poll and down the opposite blade side to the bit and the polished broken place in the bit. It is a thin axe, a very fine-grained granitic material. Its length is 5 5/8 inches; width, 2 5/8 inches; thickness 3/4 inch. It weighs 1 1/4 pounds. Moorehead pictures a similar axe in Prehistoric Implements , page 132. Ours is 3/4 grooved.
Figure 1-13 came from LeFlore County in an associated Spiro Village site. Its unusual feature is the fine notches in the bit of the blade. Are they tally marks, or could the axe have been modified for use as a flesher? It is 4 1/2 inches long, 2 1/2 inches wide, and 1 1/8 inches thick and weighs 1 3/8 pounds. The material is a black fine-grained igneous rock. We saw some axes in Ben Thompson’s collection that were notched on the side of the blade with incised lines. Whatever the purpose, they are distinctively different.
Figure 1-14 is a grey-green granitic material, 3/4 grooved, with the bit end polished. Its unusual feature is the flared bit. Found in Adair County in a plowed field, it has a rounded poll that increases in size toward the bit. It weighs 1 3/4 pounds and is 5 1/2 inches long, 3 inches wide at the widest section at the bit end, and 1 1/4 inches in depth.
Figure 1-15 is a fine-grained granitic 3/4 grooved axe. It is tan-gray. The unusual feature of this axe is the wide longitudinal groove or depression, triangular in shape, on both the side of the poll and the side of the blade. It is from LeFlore County. It weighs 3 1/2 pounds and is 7 1/8 inches long, 2 3/4 inches wide, and 2 1/2 inches thick. The poll extends 2 1/4 inches above the groove, is flat on one side, and angles from the groove toward the top on the other three sides. The entire axe is ground smooth.
The boxy appearance in Figure 1-16 is unique for our area. It is greenish granite, with fine flanges on the side of the grooved axe. It is 8 3/8 inches long, 3 5/8 inches wide, and 3 1/4 inches thick and weighs 3 3/4 pounds. It was found in Muskogee County.
Also found in Muskogee County, Figure 1-17 is a highly polished, black, fine-grained igneous axe. The narrowed top of the poll is unusual. This long-bladed axe weighs 4 1/4 pounds and is 8 inches long, 4 inches wide, and 2 1/4 inches thick. The blade is 5 1/4 inches long.
The gray granite, well-ground and polished axe in Figure 1-18 is from Tenkiller Lake in Cherokee County. Weighing 6 pounds, it is one of the heavier axes in our collection. It is 7 inches long, 4 1/4 inches wide, and 2 1/8 inches thick.
The smallest axe in our collection is well-polished, greenish, fine-grained igneous rock. Could it be a toy? It is 3 inches long, 1 3/4 inches wide and 1 1/4 inch thick and is three-quarter grooved. It was found in LeFlore County on a Caddoan site.
Two axes in our collection not pictured are made of gneiss, which is very unusual for Oklahoma. They are full grooved, almost identically made, and are from the same site in Adair County. They are 4 1/2 inches long and 3 inches wide. They are the typical full-grooved axe so often found here.
The purpose of each individual variety or form of grooved axe is open to speculation. Certain types seem to be more prevalent in some areas than in others, and some seem to overlap into nearby areas. Some axes are so different in appearance that they would seem to have been made on a whim of the maker.
Materials from which these axes were made vary so greatly that it would seem that the material could have been transported great distances. However, the most common material is the hard sandstone and granite.
Numerous varieties have received special attention and been given definite names in other states, such as the Trophy axe, Wisconsin Fluted, Noded, Michigan Barbed, Notched, Pocket, Double-bitted and the Vertical-Longitudinal grooved axe. None of these are reported for Oklahoma, although they may turn up in the future. In Eastern Oklahoma, the small full-grooved axe predominates.

REFERENCES
Hummell, Glenn R.
The Keokuk Axe , Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol. 24, #1, October, pages 180-181.
McPherson, Harry R.
1971 An Axe of a Very Distinctive Type , Central States Archaeological Journal, Jan. Vol. 18, #1, pages 85-89.
Moorehead, Warren K.
1900 Prehistoric Implements , American Indian Books, Union City, GA, page 132.
Perino, Gregory
1964 The Caddo Axes of Arkansas , Central States Archaeological Journal, Jan., Vol. 14, #1, pages 78-81.
Hummell, Glenn R.
1971 Grooved Axe Typology , Wisconsin Archaeologist, Mar.-Vol. 52, #1, (N.S.), pages 20-41.
Stephens, Roy
1969 Half-grooved Axes , Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol. 16, #3, July, pages 112-116.

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Collector Spotlight- Kris Rock

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 10:18:00 GMT

February 2025

I was Born and raised in the Silicon Valley in Ca, moved to Austin TX in 89, I have worked in the electronics manufacturing for most of my working life. Did not start collecting artifacts until 2010, found my first whole point and I was hooked. I searched the San Gabriel river valley around Liberty hill where I owned a pizza parlor. I bought my first camp in 2011, off the North San Gabriel river. 10 acres with a nice Bulverde Camp on it. I also traded pizzas to my customers who I delivered pizza to for dig time on their ranches along the creeks and springs in the area. I had some home less friends who would guard my dig spots from looters on my property, in exchange I gave them the run of the place and permission to dig, and then they would sell me their finds. I have found and or acquired over 700 complete finds from my local spots. Mostly San Gabriel river and Brushy and Sandy creek feeds. I am always looking for new areas in Central TX to find Artifacts legally. I have helped many property owners locate ancient camps on their own property. Currently looking for another camp on acreage. This is the most relaxing way to break your back for a reward that can be truly amazing! The feeling I get when I pick up a treasure that was last handled by it’s maker / owner right there where you found it…. they lost it, sometimes thousands of years ago…. that is what keeps me going back. Happy Hunting Y’all !

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Stunning Tennessee Flint

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 00:16:00 GMT

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HORSE CREEK CHERT ARTIFACTS

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 02:14:00 GMT

Charles E. Moore

Florence, Alabama

Central States Archaeological Journal

OCTOBER, 1998
VOLUME 45 NUMBER 4

Horse Creek chert is among the most beautiful flint types ever used by Native Americans. This red, yellow, and blue-gray chert is found sparingly on a few hill tops in south-central Tennessee and northern Mississippi. Probably a higher iron content in this chert than in other chert types causes the dramatic bright colors. When nodules are found, they are gray or brownish-gray in color on the exterior. When cracked open, the center of the nodule is brilliant red to red-orange surrounded by a yellow to yellow-white layer and finally the blue-gray exterior. This tri-colored chert is slightly heavier than other cherts and is very tough to work. It is sometimes referred to as Pickwick tricolor or Lost Quarry flint. Artifacts made from this material are found primarily along the Tennessee River Valley drainage area of northern Alabama, northern Mississippi, and southern Tennessee, though a few examples have been found as far away as Missouri. This material was used by all the Native American cultural periods from Paleo through Mississippian. There are nine fluted pieces made from Horse Creek chert known to this writer.

Above photo: Left: Hillsborough point found in Putnum County, Florida. Center: Hillsborough point from Dade County, Florida. Right: Hernado point found in Madison County, Florida. From the collection of David Abbott. Photo by Tony Clinton.

Early Native Americans occasionally heat treated this chert. Heat treating causes the red to turn a burgundy or slightly purple color. The yellow bands turn to a yellow-orange, and the blue-gray sections darken-slightly. The surface also becomes more lustrous when heat treated. This information was gained through personal

experimentation. The same molecular changes occurred when I heat treated several large flakes for 48 hours in a glowing charcoal fire.

Above photo: Artifacts made from Horse Creek chert from the collection of Charles E. Moore. Photo by Tony Clinton.

The accompanying photograph demonstrates the use of this material during the Archaic and Woodland Periods in the Southeastern United States. The point on the left is a resharpened Lost Lake point dating from the Early Archaic Period (7000 to 5000 B.C.). It was found by a Mr. Gray while he was quail hunting in Alcorn County, just north of Corinth, Mississippi. It is 3 1/4 inches long. The point in the center is a Little Bear Creek point and was found by James Thorn, of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, in 1996. He found the point in Lauderdale County, Alabama. This point is 4 inches long and dates from the Late Archaic to Late Woodland Periods (2000 B.C. to 500 A.D.). The Eva point was found by this writer in Lauderdale County, Alabama, around 1980. It is 2 3/4 inches in length. It dates from the Early to Middle Archaic Periods (5000 to 3000 B.C.).

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Indian Arrowheads: A Journey into Native American History

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 20:48:00 GMT

Indian Arrowheads: A Journey into Native American History

Step back in time and embark on a captivating exploration of Native American history as we delve deep into the world of Indian arrowheads. These ancient artifacts are a window into the rich cultural heritage and remarkable technological advancements of the indigenous peoples of North America.

In this article, we will take you on an enthralling journey, unraveling the mysteries of Indian arrowheads and uncovering the stories they hold. From their role in hunting and warfare to their significance in spiritual and ceremonial practices, these small, meticulously crafted weapons offer profound insights into the daily lives and profound beliefs of Native American tribes.

Join us as we navigate the landscapes where these arrowheads were discovered, from the dense forests of the Northeast to the sprawling plains of the Midwest. We will delve into the diverse styles, materials, and techniques used in arrowhead production, highlighting the incredible craftsmanship and ingenuity required to create them.

Prepare to be astonished as we reveal the stunning beauty of these artifacts and the invaluable knowledge they impart. For history enthusiasts, archaeology aficionados, and all those fascinated by the untold stories of the past, this journey into Native American history through Indian arrowheads is not to be missed.

History and significance of Indian arrowheads

Indian arrowheads are more than mere relics of a bygone era; they are profound symbols of survival and ingenuity among the Native American tribes. Dating back thousands of years, these artifacts played a critical role in the daily lives of indigenous peoples, serving as essential tools for hunting, warfare, and defense against predators. Each arrowhead tells a story, revealing the adaptive strategies of tribes as they navigated the diverse landscapes of North America, from the dense forests to the vast plains.

The significance of arrowheads extends beyond their practical use. They embody the cultural practices, technological advancements, and social structures of the tribes that created them. Archaeological studies have uncovered an array of arrowhead types, each indicative of specific tribes and their unique environments. The diversity in shape, size, and material used reflects not only regional availability but also the evolution of techniques over generations, showcasing the ingenuity of Native American artisans.

Furthermore, arrowheads often hold spiritual significance, serving as symbols in various ceremonies and rituals. They may have been used as offerings or as part of traditional practices that honored the connection between the people and the natural world. Thus, the study of arrowheads opens a window into the complex relationship that Native Americans had with their environment, highlighting their deep reverence for nature and the resources it provided.

Types of Indian arrowheads

Indian arrowheads can be classified into several distinct types, each representing different cultural practices and uses. These classifications often depend on the shape, size, and material of the arrowheads. Some of the most common types include the triangular, leaf-shaped, and dart points, each designed for specific purposes such as hunting various game or even for warfare. The triangular points were often used for hunting smaller animals, while larger leaf-shaped points were ideal for larger game, showcasing the ingenuity of Native Americans in adapting their tools to suit their needs.

The diversity in arrowhead design also reflects the geographical distribution of different tribes and the environments they inhabited. For instance, the Plains tribes often crafted long, slender arrowheads suitable for long-range hunting, while coastal tribes might have made broader, sturdier points to accommodate the larger marine animals they hunted. Additionally, the materials used varied widely, including flint, obsidian, and bone, each providing unique properties that affected the arrowheads’ effectiveness in the field.

Moreover, the evolution of arrowhead types over time is a testament to the technological advancements made by Native American tribes. As tribes encountered new challenges and opportunities, their tools adapted accordingly. This evolution can be traced through archaeological finds, which provide insights into how cultural exchange, environmental changes, and resource availability influenced the design and use of arrowheads across different regions.

How Indian arrowheads were made

The process of making Indian arrowheads is steeped in tradition and skill, requiring both knowledge and artistry. Initially, artisans would select suitable materials, often choosing high-quality stones such as flint or obsidian for their sharpness and durability. This selection was critical, as the effectiveness of the arrowhead depended on the material’s ability to hold a keen edge. Once the right material was chosen, the crafting process would begin, typically employing a technique known as flint knapping.

Flint knapping involves striking the stone with a harder object to remove flakes and shape the material into the desired form. This process requires a delicate balance of force and precision, as too much pressure could shatter the stone, while too little would fail to create a usable tool. Skilled artisans often spent years honing their techniques, learning to understand the properties of the stone and how to manipulate it effectively. The creation of an arrowhead was not just a practical task but an art form that reflected the culture and identity of the maker.

After the initial shaping, further refinement was necessary to create a functional and effective arrowhead. This included creating a sharp edge and, in some cases, drilling a hole for attachment to a shaft. The finishing touches often involved polishing the surface and adding decorative elements, highlighting the craftsmanship involved. The entire process was a reflection of the deep knowledge and connection that Native Americans had with their materials and tools, showcasing their resourcefulness and creativity.

Tools used for making Indian arrowheads

The tools used by Native Americans in the creation of arrowheads were as varied and sophisticated as the arrowheads themselves. One of the primary tools was the hammerstone, a hard rock used to strike the raw material and remove flakes during the flint knapping process. The size and weight of the hammerstone varied depending on the desired outcome, and skilled artisans often selected specific stones that provided the best control and precision while working.

In addition to hammerstones, Native American craftsmen utilized a variety of other tools to aid in the shaping and finishing of arrowheads. Pressure flakers, typically made from antler or bone, were employed to apply fine pressure to the edges, allowing for more delicate shaping. This tool enabled artisans to create sharper edges and more intricate designs, enhancing the effectiveness of the arrowhead. The use of pressure flaking demonstrated a high level of skill and understanding of the material, showcasing the advanced techniques developed over generations.

Moreover, the crafting of arrowheads was often a communal activity, with different members of a tribe contributing their skills and knowledge. This collaborative approach not only fostered a sense of community but also ensured the transmission of techniques and traditions from one generation to the next. The tools and methods used in arrowhead production exemplify the ingenuity and resourcefulness of Native Americans, reflecting a deep understanding of their environment and the materials they worked with.

The art and craftsmanship of Indian arrowheads

The art of crafting Indian arrowheads is an exquisite blend of functionality and aesthetics, showcasing the remarkable skill and creativity of Native American artisans. Each arrowhead is not only a tool but also a work of art that reflects the cultural identity of the tribe that produced it. The meticulous attention to detail in the shaping and finishing processes reveals a deep-seated appreciation for the beauty of the materials used, whether it be the glimmer of obsidian or the subtle hues of flint.

The craftsmanship involved in creating arrowheads varies widely among different tribes and regions, with each group developing unique styles and techniques that reflect their environment and cultural practices. Some tribes favored elaborate designs and intricate patterns, while others focused on simplicity and functionality. This diversity in artistic expression is a testament to the rich cultural heritage of Native American tribes and their ability to adapt to their surroundings while maintaining their identity.

In addition to their aesthetic qualities, arrowheads often served as markers of social status or tribal affiliation. Certain designs or materials might be reserved for specific individuals or ceremonies, thus elevating their significance beyond mere utility. The artistry involved in arrowhead production speaks to the broader cultural values of the tribes, highlighting the interconnectedness of art, identity, and survival in Native American societies.

Indian arrowheads as cultural artifacts

Indian arrowheads serve as invaluable cultural artifacts, offering insights into the lives and beliefs of Native American tribes. They are not merely remnants of tools but encapsulations of the history, spirituality, and social structures of the peoples who crafted them. As archaeologists and historians study these artifacts, they reveal the intricacies of trade networks, migration patterns, and interactions between different tribes, providing a broader understanding of the dynamic history of Native Americans.

Arrowheads also hold significant educational value, as they can teach us about technological advancements and adaptation strategies employed by indigenous peoples. The varying designs and materials used across different regions reflect the tribes’ responses to environmental challenges and resource availability. The study of arrowheads thus provides a glimpse into the ingenuity of Native Americans, showcasing their ability to innovate and thrive in diverse landscapes.

Furthermore, these artifacts occupy an important place in contemporary Native American identity. Many tribes view arrowheads as symbols of resilience and connection to their ancestors, embodying the traditions and knowledge passed down through generations. As cultural artifacts, arrowheads serve as reminders of the rich history and ongoing legacy of Native American peoples, reinforcing the importance of preserving their heritage for future generations.

The role of Indian arrowheads in Native American tribes

Indian arrowheads played a multifaceted role in the lives of Native American tribes, serving not only as tools for hunting and warfare but also as symbols of cultural identity and communal practices. In the context of hunting, arrowheads were essential for securing food, allowing tribes to effectively pursue a variety of game animals. The efficiency and effectiveness of these tools were vital for survival, influencing the socio-economic dynamics of tribes, including trade and resource sharing.

Beyond their practical uses, arrowheads often held significant cultural and spiritual value. They were sometimes incorporated into rituals and ceremonies, symbolizing the relationship between the people and the land. For instance, arrowheads might be used in offerings to ensure successful hunts or as part of rites that honored the spirits of the animals hunted. This spiritual dimension highlights the deep connection that Native Americans had with nature and the respect afforded to the resources they utilized.

The communal aspects of arrowhead production also contributed to their role within tribes. Crafting arrowheads was often a shared activity, fostering collaboration and strengthening community bonds. Elders would pass down knowledge and techniques to younger generations, ensuring the continuity of cultural practices. In this way, arrowheads became more than just tools; they were integral to the social fabric of Native American societies, reflecting their values, beliefs, and interconnectedness.

Collecting and preserving Indian arrowheads

The collection and preservation of Indian arrowheads have become significant pursuits for both archaeology enthusiasts and historians. As interest in Native American history grows, many individuals seek to collect arrowheads as a way to connect with the past and appreciate the craftsmanship of indigenous peoples. However, this practice raises important ethical considerations regarding the preservation of cultural heritage and respect for the communities from which these artifacts originate.

Responsible collecting emphasizes the importance of provenance and documentation. Collectors are encouraged to understand the historical context of the arrowheads they acquire, ensuring that they are not contributing to the looting of archaeological sites or undermining the cultural significance of these artifacts. Collaborating with local tribes and archaeological organizations can help collectors navigate the complexities of ownership and cultural sensitivity, fostering a greater appreciation for the history and significance of these objects.

Preserving arrowheads also involves proper care and storage to ensure their longevity. Factors such as temperature, humidity, and light exposure can significantly impact the condition of these artifacts. Collectors and museums alike must implement best practices for conservation, employing techniques that protect the materials and maintain the integrity of the arrowheads. Through responsible collection and preservation efforts, we can honor the legacy of Native American craftsmanship while contributing to the ongoing dialogue about cultural heritage and history.

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The Overstreet Legacy

Tue, 24 Dec 2024 17:19:00 GMT

Robert M. Overstreet was born in West Virginia and grew up in southeast Tennessee. He collected comic books, fossils, mineral specimens and Indian relics and became a serious comic book collector in 1952 buying the popular E.C. comics off the newsstand. In the 1960s, his first book project was a price guide on Indian arrowheads. He began researching and drawing examples of each point type to be included in the book. But, during this time the comic book market was booming with prices going up every year. Since the relic market was stable, he decided to shelve the arrowhead guide and began researching a price guide on comic books. Overstreet collected coins in the 1950s and knew the value of Yeoman’s Red Book on coins. The local coin collectors and dealers would have a Red Book party every year when the book came out. Overstreet dreamed of the day when comic books would have their price guide and become accepted as a legitimate collectible.

After exhausting his extensive library of dealer lists, letters and fanzines to create the initial listings for his book, he began soliciting cooperation from the leading comic experts, collectors and top dealers who provided even more information. Soon, the style and form of the very first Comic Book Price Guide was created. Overstreet’s very first book, The Comic Book Price Guide was published in 1970.

The first edition was very successful selling around 1800 copies. The world at large was completely unaware of this small underground market. Overstreet’s price guide was the very first to list all the American comic books with pricing information. It was the first of its kind and enthusiastically received. It was the first price guide ever to provide complete information of where to buy and sell by allowing advertising to dealers and collectors. Simply by buying this book, you would know the retail value of comic books as well as where to buy and sell them. This single tool brought the whole market together. With the valuable information in this book now available to anyone, the market began to grow rapidly.

After a few years, the Overstreet price guide became established as the #1 reference tool in the market and was seriously used and accepted by the majority of dealers and collectors from coast to coast as well as Canada, England, Europe and Australia. In 1976 the guide achieved national distribution, placing valuable market information in the hands of tens of thousands of people. Many became dealers during the 1970s selling their newly acquired inventories through mail order or at comic conventions. Some of these dealers began to open stores which stocked new comics as well as the valuable old comics. Soon, stores and chains of stores began opening in the larger cities and eventually everywhere The Overstreet name was rapidly becoming a household word. In July, 2010 the 40th annual edition of The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide was released at the San Diego International Comic-Con which Overstreet attended, as a special guest of the Con, to celebrate the event. With over 130,000 attending, dealers throughout the Con were receiving, displaying and selling the new 2010 Overstreet guides. The San Diego Comic-Con which started as a small convention at the El Cortez Hotel in 1970 has now grown to the mega media event it is today.

During the 1950s, Robert Overstreet purchased a boat and began hunting the local Tennessee TVA lakes for Indian relics. In the fall of each year, TVA would lower the water level of all their lakes which exposed the sand bars that were the high points along the original rivers where the Indians built villages and hunted. By searching the sand bars in the fall and winter months you could expect to find all kinds of relics just laying on top of the surface waiting for someone to come along. During these months, heavy storms would come through dumping rain causing the lake levels to rise and fall creating more and more erosion on the sandbars and river banks. Overstreet would be there to walk the sandbars after each storm where fresh relics would be washed out just laying there for the taking. On one such trip he found a Clovis in the morning and a Cumberland on the LeCroy site in the afternoon. On another trip he found a perfect drilled boatstone that had washed up on a sandbar on the Hiwassee River.

During the 1970s and 1980s Overstreet would occasionally attend local relic shows and with the success of his comic book guide decided to go back to his earlier plan to publish an arrowhead price guide. He began photographing points, slowly building his library of photographs and finally publishing The Overstreet Indian Arrowheads Identification and Price Guide in 1989. He abandoned his earlier attempt at using pen and ink drawings to using detailed photographs. The first edition was released at the Waverly, Tennessee show and was a complete sell-out. Over the years the Overstreet arrowhead books have grown in advisors, pages and illustrations becoming the absolute authority in the relic market.

As the years went by, the Overstreet guides in both markets have reported the market’s growth in an accurate, conservative even-handed fashion. They have shown slow, steady predictable growth attracting more and more investors into the hobbies. When the market was chaotic, the Overstreet guide was always there to provide stability. Today, thanks to Overstreet, both markets are doing well and they continue to be an excellent hobby for fun, excitement and investment.

In today’s markets, the name Overstreet is synonymous with the name comic book and the name arrowhead. The phrase “look it up in Overstreet” is used everywhere.

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Collector Spotlight- LoneStar

Fri, 20 Dec 2024 02:18:00 GMT

December 2024

Frank Garry Hartmann. Born in Passaic, New Jersey in 1951. Graduated from Boonton High School in 1969. Attended Oceanography School at Florida Institute of Technology until 1971. Moved to Texas in 1976. Worked for Brown and Root Constructors and as a Union Carpenter until 1980. Opened Lone Star Remodeling and G.C., Inc. in 1982. and operated a full service upper end residential and commercial remodeling company until 2017 when I retired and dedicated my time to fishing, fossils and chasing history with metal detecting and Prehistoric Texas Indian Artifacts.

I always had an interest in History and old stuff from a young age. I built my first metal detector from a RELCO add on the back cover of Popular Science Magazine in 1967 with the help of my dad.

After I moved to Texas I searched all over Galveston Bay’s shorelines for the pirate Jean Laffitte’s booty and found some of the home sites from a few of his captains that settled after he left Texas waters in 1822. I found that under most the colonial remains and debris were the remains of prehistoric Indian camps as they had first dibs on the real estate before the white man cometh. That started a whole new look at history for me.

For the last 45 years I’ve participated in Pay digs and screen digs all around the Texas Hill Country and amassed quite a collection. I designed and built a shaker/screener trailer years ago and fed it with a Kubota Loader-backhoe. It would shake and screen a yard of Texas Dirt in about 6 minutes. The waste dirt fell onto a conveyer that threw it out the back and all the good stuff stayed on the screen. This way you didn’t have to keep moving the screen to be clear of dirt. When business got tough I had to sell it to a well to do gentleman rancher who had a bunch of camps on his property. I never got to build another.

About 7 years ago I got involved with archaeology on an avocational level and started volunteering with The Houston Archaeological Society. From there I met and volunteered with other groups around the State such as The Hill Country Archaeological Society, Coastal Bend Archaeology Society and the Texas Archaeology Society.

I Try to attend the yearly field school that TAS does on a yearly basis. It’s a week long get together of about 350 like minded people who work together as teams at a prehistoric site, many times one with historic influences of some sort. It’s a great learning experience and people from all over the country come and play. I highly recommend it to young and old alike. Camping or motels are always available nearby. Kids are welcome.

Just about every day I have to pinch myself and see if I’m dreaming. I’m pleased to be living in The Lone Star State, and having all these things available to me at a time when I can kick back and enjoy it all. K.

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Something Extraordinary

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 01:31:00 GMT

Steven R. Cooper

Central States Archaeological Journal , Vol. 67, No. 1 (January 2020), pp. 28-29

Extraordinary is defined as “very unusual or remarkable.” The points shown here certainly live up to this description.

In July 2017, I reported the discovery of the largest MacCorkle point ever found in Massac County, Illinois, in the Central States Archaeological Journal . This remarkable find was also included in the 15th edition of the Overstreet Indian Arrowheads Guide (page 428) and featured in Prehistoric American . The MacCorkle point was first identified at the St. Albans site in West Virginia by Betty Broyles in 1966 and is notable as the first point type with a bifurcated base. These points are widely distributed across the upper Midwest. While typically categorized as medium to large, the initial specimen found by Mr. Peebles was longer than most known examples.

Imagine my surprise at the 2019 Kentucky Dam show when I was shown additional specimens recently unearthed by the same finder. These new points were of similar impressive length, with one measuring an extraordinary 6 7/16 inches , surpassing the original 2015 find of 5 5/16 inches . Interestingly, several smaller, more typical MacCorkle points were found in association with the two new finds.

This raises several intriguing questions:

Why were these few examples made so large?
Why were they found close to one another?
Were they created by a single prehistoric individual?
Were they left on the surface for ritual activity, buried as offerings to the gods, or placed with a deceased individual for their journey into the afterlife, the remains now long gone?

Sadly, we cannot answer these questions, as we cannot return nearly 10,000 years to the time these points were created and abandoned. Perhaps more artifacts remain to be uncovered. These finds demonstrate that where one artifact is discovered, others may be nearby.

If you have experienced a spectacular find, consider revisiting the location regularly. Who knows what might still be hidden? For this collector, repeated visits certainly paid off.

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I Inherited An Arrowhead Collection

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 13:23:00 GMT

Are you the proud owner of a collection of inherited arrowheads, unsure of what to do with them ? You’re not alone. Many people find themselves in possession of these historical treasures without a clear plan for how to preserve and appreciate them. But fear not, because in this guide, we will show you how to unleash the power of history contained within these arrowheads.

Inherited arrowheads are not just ordinary objects; they carry the weight of ancient cultures and civilizations. By understanding their origins, significance, and value, you can unlock a deeper connection to the past and gain a newfound appreciation for these artifacts.

Whether you’re an avid history enthusiast, a curious hobbyist, or simply someone interested in exploring their ancestral heritage, this article is a must-read. From tips on identifying and dating arrowheads to advice on displaying and conserving them, we’ve got you covered. Discover the fascinating stories behind these ancient tools and learn how to properly honor their legacy.

Understanding the historical significance of arrowheads

Arrowheads are more than just tools for hunting or warfare; they are windows into the past. Each arrowhead tells a story, representing the ingenuity and skill of the people who created them. By studying these artifacts, we can learn about the lifestyles, technologies, and cultural practices of ancient civilizations.

To fully comprehend the historical significance of arrowheads, it’s essential to delve into the different cultures that produced them. Native American tribes , for example, have a rich tradition of crafting arrowheads with distinctive styles and materials. By researching the tribes in your ancestral heritage, you can gain insights into the specific arrowhead types that may be present in your collection.

Identifying and classifying arrowhead types

The first step in understanding your inherited arrowheads is to identify and classify their types . This process involves examining the shape, size, and material of the arrowhead, as well as its geographical origin. There are several reference books and online resources available to help you in this endeavor.

Arrowhead types can vary greatly depending on the time period and region in which they were made. Some common types include Clovis, Folsom, and Dalton points, which are associated with early Paleo-Indian cultures. Other types, such as the Adena and Hopewell points, are linked to the Woodland and Mississippian cultures of North America.

By familiarizing yourself with the different arrowhead types, you can gain a deeper understanding of the historical context in which they were created. This knowledge will enable you to appreciate the unique characteristics and craftsmanship of each arrowhead in your collection.

Proper handling and preservation of inherited arrowheads

Preserving the condition of your inherited arrowheads is crucial to maintaining their historical value and physical integrity. Proper handling techniques are essential to prevent damage and ensure their longevity.

When handling arrowheads, it’s important to wash your hands thoroughly beforehand to remove any oils or dirt that could transfer onto the artifacts. Use gloves made of nitrile or cotton to handle the arrowheads, as these materials minimize the risk of accidental scratches or contamination.

To store arrowheads, consider using acid-free archival materials, such as specialized plastic cases or trays. These materials provide a protective barrier against moisture, dust, and other environmental factors that could degrade the arrowheads over time. Additionally, storing the arrowheads in a cool, dry location away from direct sunlight will help preserve their condition.

Displaying inherited arrowheads in your home

Displaying your inherited arrowheads can be a visually stunning way to showcase their historical significance and add a unique touch to your home decor. There are various display options to consider, depending on your personal style and the size of your collection.

One popular method is to mount arrowheads in a shadow box frame. This allows you to arrange the arrowheads in an aesthetically pleasing manner while keeping them protected from dust and potential damage. Another option is to create a display case with a glass top, allowing you to view the arrowheads from different angles while still keeping them secure.

If you have a large collection, you may choose to create a dedicated display area, such as a wall-mounted cabinet or a display shelf. This allows you to showcase your arrowheads as a focal point in a room, creating a visually captivating display that sparks conversations and admiration.

Incorporating inherited arrowheads into jewelry or crafts

For those with a creative flair, incorporating inherited arrowheads into jewelry or crafts can be a meaningful way to honor their legacy. Arrowheads can serve as unique focal points in necklaces, bracelets, or earrings, adding a touch of history and individuality to your accessories.

To create jewelry with arrowheads, you can consult with a local jeweler who specializes in custom designs. They can help transform your arrowheads into stunning pieces that reflect your personal style and appreciation for history. Alternatively, if you’re skilled in jewelry-making techniques, you can explore DIY options to create your own designs.

In addition to jewelry, arrowheads can be integrated into various crafts, such as pottery, leatherwork, or woodworking. Their incorporation into these crafts can add an extra layer of historical significance, infusing your creations with the spirit of the past.

Trading or selling inherited arrowheads

If you find yourself with a surplus of inherited arrowheads or if you’re simply looking to diversify your collection, trading or selling can be a viable optio n. However, it’s essential to approach this process with caution and respect for the historical value of the artifacts.

Before engaging in any trading or selling activities, it’s crucial to research local laws and regulations regarding the sale of arrowheads. Some areas may have restrictions or require permits for trading or selling certain types of arrowheads. Familiarize yourself with these regulations to ensure you are acting within the legal boundaries.

When trading or selling arrowheads, consider reaching out to reputable collectors, dealers, or archaeology organizations. These individuals or groups can provide expert guidance, fair assessments of value, and a network of potential buyers or traders. By engaging with professionals in the field, you can ensure that your arrowheads find new homes where they will be appreciated and preserved.

Joining arrowhead collecting communities and clubs

Connecting with like-minded individuals who share your passion for arrowhead collecting can be an enriching experience. Joining arrowhead collecting communities and clubs provides opportunities to learn from experienced collectors, share knowledge, and participate in organized events such as artifact shows or archaeological digs. These communities often have online forums or social media groups where members can discuss various topics related to arrowhead collecting. By actively participating in

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Inherited Arrowhead Collection

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 13:22:00 GMT

Understanding the historical significance of arrowheads

Identifying and classifying arrowhead types

Proper handling and preservation of inherited arrowheads

Displaying inherited arrowheads in your home

Incorporating inherited arrowheads into jewelry or crafts

Trading or selling inherited arrowheads

Joining arrowhead collecting communities and clubs

The post Inherited Arrowhead Collection appeared first on Arrowheads.com .

Collector Spotlight- Cgode

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 01:10:00 GMT

September 2024

We haven’t had a Moderator as our MOTM for a while. So as I was looking at the membership for this months Recipient I came across “CGODE” one of our Moderators who was never nominated. cgode as he calls himself joined arrowheads.com in June 2011 and it’s about time we honor him so take it away cgode.

I’m a 59 year old guy recently retired from a career in emergency services. I retired as a Captain of a fire department after 28.5 years, was a paramedic and served as a SWAT team medic for the last 15 years of my career. Those hats have been hung up!

I used to hunt deer passionately for many decades and I’m still an avid fisherman. My wife, son and daughter also keep me busy and especially the daughter cost me a ton of money … she is in nursing school and crushing it! It’s all good!

Ive always had an interest in NA artifacts and always wanted to find an arrowhead but never knew how to look for them. As a result I got a late start into actually knowing how to go about it….a friend of mine and I were sitting around his work shop one night having a couple beers and out of a hidden drawer he pulls out a tray of arrowheads! I was amazed and enthralled holding them. He took me to a spot a few days later and although I didn’t find any “arrowheads” that day, I did find scraper/knife form which at the time I didn’t realize how special it actually was. It’s still one of my best tools I’ve found and now, appreciate what it really is…..I was hooked! living in New England is a difficult place to find artifacts. Most of the farms now just grow hay, no turned fields in my area and our lithics are poor….but, as I’ve found out….there are really cool artifacts here to be found and there certainly are plenty of examples of exotic high quality lithics that were traded and made their way into our region. Internet searches eventually landed me here at Arrowheads.com where I have made some good friends, some I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in person and hunting pointy rocks together, others are my invisible internet friends and I’ve become quite attached to them…this is a great place as I’ve learned a lot and have helped others when I can.

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Clues to the Past

Sat, 07 Sep 2024 21:29:00 GMT

Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol. 58, No. 3 (July 2011), pp. 162–163

Central States Archaeological Societies, Inc.

At top : The Ivory Billed Woodpecker (center) was thought to be the inspiration for the bird portrayed on the Cox Mound Gorget (right and left sides). The Ivory Billed Woodpecker was once abundant in the Southeast, but has now disappeared and is believe to be extinct. Although thought to have been sited and heard in Arkansas a few years ago, no further evidence has been found. All that remains today are museum specimens that are stuffed, and portrayals from ages past such as are on this gorget. Essentially this bird vanished forever. The gorget is in the collection of Murray Hughes. The image of the woodpecker is from the Pink Palace Museum Memphis, Tennessee.

By: Steven R. Cooper Editor in Chief

Recently I gave up running for walking, and have a daily walk of three to six miles. I usually listen to the radio to catch up on the news and other events, and was intrigued by a story recently of an interesting character known as “The Leatherman.” He was an historic figure that walked during the last half of the 19th Century, a 365 -mile path between the Connecticut and Hudson Rivers in exactly 34 days, over and over. He was so precise in this walk, that people could expect him to pass by at an exact day and even time. He slept in caves, stashing food and other necessary items in them. He was called “The Leatherman” because he wore a self-made suit of all leather, from his hat down to his shoes. He rarely spoke, and it was reported to be mostly grunts and a little French. His leather suit weighed more than sixty pounds, and he wore it winter and summer. His walking routine took him more than 100,000 miles over 30 years. He was forcibly hospitalized by the Connecticut Humane Society in 1888, but escaped and was discovered dead in a cave on March 28, 1889. Found on his body was a French Prayer book, suggesting a Canadian or European ancestry. No one really knew his name, but still he was buried in Sparta Cemetery, located in Scarborough, New York, as Jules Bourglay. His story entered New England folklore, and as most stories go, the tale grew and twisted itself over time.

His grave has been a place of curiosity for many years, and sat right at the edge of a road. Numerous requests were made to move it to a more central spot of the cemetery, to remove the safety hazard. Then someone recently came up with the idea of taking a DNA sample and perhaps solving once and forever, the mystery of who he was. The idea caught on, and it created such controversy that a whole local movement developed, demanding that they leave the Leatherman alone. The group even had a web site! But a few weeks ago, those wanting answers won, and a tent was erected by the local historians and scientists. Then, shovels hit the dirt!

They dug and dug, but to their surprise, all they found were a few animal bones and old nails. The Leatherman was gone! After some thought, they moved the dirt, animal bones and nails to the new grave. But the mystery deepened, for where had he gone?

Like most things, he was consumed by natural forces at work. We like to think of our body as lasting forever after death, perhaps eventually becoming a skull and some bones, that in our imagination might be discovered far into the future. But in reality our fate can be seen in the story of The Leatherman, for as in a little more than 120 years, no trace remained!

Above: A photo of “The Leatherman.” You can see his handmade leather outfit here, which he wore every day. There is an excellent book on the subject, The Old Leather Man: Historical Accounts of a Connecticut and New York Legend by Dan W. DeLuca and Dione Longley (Garnet Books). It is a 232, page accounting of the Leatherman, including pictures of him, the cave shelters he stayed in, and the mystery surrounding him. It is the definitive guide to this tale. Photo from the Wikipedia

Such is the case of the ancient populations of North America. While a cemetery is discovered here and there, there is scant trace of the peoples who lived here before us in ancient times. We’ve all heard over the years the news reporting such stories as Twenty Ancient Burials Found! or Large Burial Ground of 120 Stone Boxes Uncovered! But really the numbers don’t add up. Where did they all go?

The Wikipedia online encyclopedia sites a source stating the population of North America in 1500 might have been between 2 and 18 million. Looking further at the source, The burdens of Disease: Epidemics and Human Response in Western History by J.N.Hayes, his fundamental reason for the rapid recline and disappearance of the native populations was disease. Watching The Conquistadors on PBS the other night, one of those interviewed states that some diseases brought by the Spanish could kill in less than four days, and anyone nearby would contract the disease too. Of course, the reason for this susceptibility to the diseases was simple. The Native population had never encountered the virus and bacteria that the Spanish carried. Lacking any immunity, they could only suffer and succumb to the unknown afflictions. Unknowingly, the Spanish Conquistadors carried out germ warfare on a massive scale. It was a catastrophe beyond imagination.

In just a short time, millions died. This was 500 years ago, nearly 5 times the length of time it took for The Leatherman to disappear. Nothing remains at all of these peoples.

Earlier populations of the Paleo, Archaic, Woodland and Mississippians all went the same way. If you look at the archaeological literature and ask how many “graves” or remains have been discovered at Cahokia, the answer is certainly nothing approaching the large population that lived there. An estimated 10,000 people lived there at any one time (and some estimates are much higher), and that level of population lasted at least for 100 years. That would equal approximately 6 generations, or 60,000 people over that time period. I don’t know of any huge ancient cemetery even approaching such a scale.

Perhaps we should look at the development and building of populations too. It took from 1500 to 1800 before the earth’s population doubled, nearly 300 years (Amazingly, it took only 39 years for it to double from 1960 to 1999). If we look back at ancient North America and double the population every 500 years, what happens? Calculating a starting population of 100 individuals some 13,000 years ago, by 12,000 years ago the population would have been just 400. But by 6000 BC that band of people, doubling every five hundred years, would have reached nearly 820,000. If you take it all the way to the arrival of the Spanish, the number grows astonishingly large.

It’s obvious from the highly advanced stone working skills evidenced in Archaic times (for example the precise hand manufacturing of some (Bannerstones), that an advanced society with many individuals had developed. Highly skilled individuals were sought out, and there was time to spend on activities that were not just for survival.

There was a show on The Discovery Channel back in the 1990’s called “Archaeology.” In the episode “People of the Bog” aired in 1994, they visit the Windover Site near Titusville, Florida. This site is quite unique in North America, as nearly all the objects these ancient people utilized were preserved by peat. Carbon dating showed those in the bog lived around 5000 B.C. They uncovered 168 bodies, from young children to the elderly. In one scene in the video, the archeologist is standing in a room of twenty tables. On one is laid out some arrowheads and stone tools. He explains that on most sites this is all that remains. But this site is special, and the other nineteen tables have an array of artifacts in antler, fiber, wood and other perishable materials. It is an astounding revelation, for it shows just how much we are missing when trying to understand the past. Except for rare sites like this, most of the work of ancient man has just vanished!

So, our collections are just small windows into the past. Think of our own lives. If all that remained 5000 years from now were forks, spoons and styrofoam cups, would someone really be able to understand how we lived? Would these kitchen utensils give a full picture of our lives, our world and our civilization? We of course, know the answer. And this answer applies to all of those who lived before us. I’ve heard people refer to certain groups by their point styles, such as “The Dalton People” or “The Cumberland People”. It’s easy to see how flawed that reasoning might be, if you refer to us as “the Spoon People” or “The Fork Civilization!”

Each and every tool, arrowhead and object from the past has a tale to tell; a story to convey about the individual who made it. But each is just a small clue to a past, now vanished, just like The Leatherman. Who knows what will really be found of ours 10,000 or 100,000 years from now? Hopefully our story will be more than kitchen utensils or Styrofoam.

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Plummets from the Lower Illinois River Valley, New Canton, Pike Co, Illinois

Sat, 24 Aug 2024 20:27:00 GMT

by Korhan B. Raif M.D. Barry, Illinois

Central States Archaeological Societies 2017 April Journal

The four plummets illustrated were all found around New Canton in Pike County, Illinois. They are a good representation of plummet types from the lower Illinois River Valley area. Until I found my first “plumbob” I had always typed plummets as drilled and grooved and had not given them much though other than they were very artistic and enigmatic objects. After finding my first plummet and comparing to others in my collection, I noticed there was more than reached the casual eye and that there were more variations in the grooved type than I had previously appreciated. When doing a little research, I found an excellent article and the best description of plummet types by Gregory Perino and by Ben Thompson in the Central States Archaeological Journal.1,2The plummets are pictured (Fig. 1) in chronological order (left to right) from the Late Archaic to the Late Woodland period. The first is a Godar type drilled plummet. It was found by D. Hougland in New Canton, Illinois. It is made of colorful red hematite and measures 3 x 1inches. Most plummets measure between two to four inches in length. Godar plummets have a “coffin” shape and tend to be wider at the top, evenly tapered and rounded at the bottom. It has a drilled top unlike other types of plummets, which are grooved. This is the oldest type plummet and it was originally described on the Godar farm in Calhoun Co, Illinois. It was found with Late Archaic Godar points, but was also found in Middle Woodland (Hopewell) context on the Snyder site, also in Calhoun County. Calhoun County is just south of Pike County, and both counties are nestled between the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. The second plummet is an Elm Point type plummet. It is a personal find, made of hematite, also from New Canton. It was found on a sand ridge in the Mississippi bottoms, on a site that I have found Late Archaic corner notched and Hopewell Snyder points. This type was first described from a bluff site overlooking the Mississippi flood plain in Elm Point, St Charles, Missouri in an Archaic context. This would be south-west of Calhoun County where the Snyder and Godar sites are located on the opposite side of the Mississippi River. The Elm Point type has an expanded mushroom or button like top that is wider than the stem. The stem may be extended or short. It is heavier in the bottom half and has a rounded to pointed lower end. Some have a more globular form with the expanded button top like the one illustrated. 1The third pictured is a hematite Gilcrease grooved plummet also found by D. Hougland in New Canton. Like most plummets it is made of hematite. Along with the Elm Point, the Gilcrease Grooved types are the least common types. Plummets are most made of hematite, but have also been made of limestone, granite, quartz, slate, shell and copper. Perino considered the Gilcrease Grooved a specialized form. It has a well-made groove close to the truncated top which has beveled or rounded edge. The stem is straight or convex-sided. Its body is heavier in the lower half with a tear drop shape and rounded at the bottom. The original Gilcrease Grooved plummets were found in a bluff top Hopewell mound group overlooking the Illinois River in Kampsville, Calhoun County, Illinois. Although the Elm Point and Gilcrease Grooved may look similar, if one looks at the picture one can see the more expanded pronounced top of the Elm Point type. The last is the Snyder grooved plummet. It was found by G. Harrison north of New Canton. It is made of a reddish hematite, and was found on a sand ridge that produces Late Woodland and Snyder points. This is the most common type of plummet found in the lower Illinois valley. This type is widest and heaviest at the bottom, the sides are always convex, and the stem is thick and tapers to a slightly flattened or rounded top. The groove is found lower on the stem compared to the other grooved types and the top is larger and has a pyramid like appearance. The Snyder Grooved was originally found on the Snyder site in Calhoun County, Illinois and is believed to be attributed to the Hopewell and Late Woodland period. 1,3New Canton is located along the base of the bluff in the Mississippi bottom in west central Illinois County. The bluff tops have produced many fine Early Archaic points and the bottoms have many Snyder, Woodland and some Mississippian sites. The famous Pulliam axe was found in New Canton and the giant Atlas Spear was found south of the town. For further reading on plummets I would strongly recommend the article by Greg Perrino in the CSAJ.11. Tentative Classifications of Plummets in the Lower Illinois River Valley, Gregory Perino, CSAJ October 1986.2. Plummets, Ben Thompson, CSAJ April 1975.3. Editor’s note: Plummets have never been found in direct context in anything but Archaic settings. Gregory Perino found the Gilcrease plummets beneath the Hopewell mound mentioned, in an Archaic component. The Snyder site is more known for its Hopewell component, but it had underlying Early Woodland and Archaic components besides (which the Snyder plummets are associated with). Personal communication with Ray Fraser February 2017The Central States Archaeological society is looking for new members here is a link to sign up. Its only $27.00 you get four journals per calendar year. HTTPs://csasi.org/subscribe_quick.htm

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Plummets

Sat, 24 Aug 2024 19:26:00 GMT

By Ben Thompson

Kirkwood MO.

Reprinted from the Central States Archaeological Journal April 1975

Why such a name? The name plummet is applied because of the similarity of many specimens to the builder’s plummet. The plummet can be described as a plum-bob or tear-drop shaped stone used as a bolo, or throwing weapon attached to the end of a thong or cord. The shapes are greatly diversified. Plummets range in size from less than one inch to six inches in length and can weigh up to one pound. They are made of various materials such as hematite, granite, limestone, shell, slate, galena, steatite, copper, and pyrite. The most common type in the Mississippi Valley is the hematite grooved plummet, shown in the accompanying picture. Numerous specimens are roughly shaped, but most are very symmetrical and highly polished, often very graceful in contour. Occasionally they are engraved or carved with designs (Reference Vol. 21, No. 3, pg 107, Perino). Eccentric forms are sometime found. Crescent shapes have been found in Florida. I have one hematite crescent-shaped plummet in my collection, and other odd shapes also (see photo). In California they tend to be longer and sometimes have a knob on both ends. Some plummets found in Florida are made from the center whorl of a conch shell. I have one example of this type that was found near Cahokia, undoubtably a trade item.

The late William Waters of Goedfrey, Illinois, had a collection of over 1600 plummets, mostly from the St. Louis area. This was the largest collection of plummets ever gathered together. Approximately 80% of these were made of hematite. Others were made of various materials, but it seems the high density of hematite was the most desirable. This leads one to think that their weight was beneficial in their use. Many theories exist as to their possible use, but most probably they were used with a net to snare birds, possibly water fowl. One was found by Clarence Moore in a mound in Bravard County, Florida, with the top carved like the head of a duck. This indicates that they could have been used to net ducks. The one that Mr. Moore found was with a cache of eleven plain grooved ones.

Consider this, in prehistoric times wildlife, including waterfowl, was much more plentiful than it is now. I can remember my grandfather telling me he saw carrier pigeons flying over in such large numbers that they darkened the sky like a cloud. They were not afraid and flew close overhead. It was an easy matter to kill them, and the white man did just that, to the point that today carrier pigeons are extinct. It is very likely waterfowl were just as plentiful for the Indians, and with a little practice the plummet could be thrown with its entangling lines or net to trap the unwary birds. It was much better for the Indian to catch his game and keep it alive until time to butcher it because of the lack of refrigeration.

Most plummets have a small, sometimes very slight, groove around the top for suspension. About one out of thirty have a hole for suspension. Of course, it was much more difficult to drill a hole than it was to carve a groove around the top. Some have two or more grooves encircling the top. Often, they are neither grooved nor drilled, and these were probably wrapped in rawhide.

Plummets are widely distributed over the country, but the majority are found in the Mississippi Valley, Florida and California. They are very rare in the Southwest. It seems they were not used in drier, more arid regions away from the migratory routes of the waterfowl.

Some plummets were undoubtably worn as ornaments or pendants, and are often found associated with the human remains in burials. Some were found with the Indians in Southern California by the early pioneers and the Indians referred to them as charm stones, and believed the plummets endowed the owners with magic powers. These magic powers were helpful in curing the sick, producing rain, in war and the chase, and in games of chance. No doubt the original plummets were used as net sinkers, bolo weights, or bird snare weights, but in time they became luck stones or charms. It is worthy of note that most aborigines generally attribute magical powers to any object that proves its worth, or is successfully used in war, the hunt, or a game of chance.

Today plummets are one of the most rare and most desirable collector items, and I am sure if you are fortunate enough to find one, you may consider that a bit of the magic power of the plummet has been working in your favor.

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Mississippian Ritual Weaponry

Tue, 13 Aug 2024 22:42:00 GMT

Originally published in the Central States Archaeological Journal July 1981

by David H. Dye, University of Memphis

At top: Figure 1. Raptor talon effigy bifaces excavated from a house floor, Link Farm site (40HS6) (A.D. 1300-1400), Humphreys County, Tennessee. Courtesy of the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture, University of Tennessee. photograph by David H. Dye

Over a hundred years ago Warren K. Moorehead, an early twentieth-century archaeologist, lamented the widespread use of the word “spud” to describe spatulate-shaped Mississippian ritual axes. His reaction stemmed from late nineteenth century archaeologists who reasoned that Mississippian spatulate celts functioned in the same way as modern, narrow-bladed spades or “spuds” used to dig potatoes. Much has changed since then; ritual weaponry is now interpreted as fundamental to Mississippian religious performance and ritual. Ritual or symbolic weaponry, either as artifacts or art motifs, are a widespread Mississippian phenomenon, characterized by their aesthetic qualities, distinctive stylistic differences, exaggerated size, exotic material, and high level of crafting. An early period from approximately A.D. 1000 to 1250 includes Cahokia type, flared-bit flint celts, which have been knapped into shape, ground, and then highly polished. Also crafted in the eleventh through early thirteenth centuries are crown-form maces, long-polled spatulate celts, and Ramey knives. These forms fell out of favor and another set assumed popularity between about A.D. 1250 and 1500, including copper axe heads, “Duck River” sword form bifaces, monolithic axes and short-handle spatulate celts. A third set of Mississippian ritual weaponry, dating between A.D. 1500 and 1650, includes new forms of copper axe heads, late short pole spatulate celts, and rectangular axes. Descendant communities of Mississippian people continue to use symbolic weaponry on ritual occasions.

The earliest iconography portrayals of symbolic weaponry are found at Picture Cave, where early eleventh century culture heroes carry bows and arrows and brandish crown-form maces. Their antagonists’ cannibalistic giants holding war clubs – were also painted on the cave walls. Marine shell cups and gorgets in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries exhibit culture heroes grasping axes, bifaces, bows, maces, and war clubs. The thirteenth century Rogan plate is perhaps the best-known example of a Mississippian culture hero holding a ritual weapon. The culture hero, Morning Star, wields a crown-form mace in the right hand and holds a head in the left hand. Once thought to represent combat and warfare, the image is now perceived as the iconic representation of a religious narrative, which portrays a mortal contest in which Morning Star is beheaded and his son retrieves his father’s head and restores him back to life. These the artistic representations are interpreted as illustrating the eternal contest of life and death. Symbolic weaponry assumes a central role in Mississippian art and iconography. That these forms are found in archaeological contexts alerts us to their long-term importance in performance and ritual. These ritual goods were so powerful they were not mundane exchange objects, but rather they would have been bestowed from one elite individual to another as a component of sacred bundles and rituals restricted to power-holding families and perhaps secret societies. Archaeological interpretations have moved beyond viewing ritual weaponry, such as spatulate celts and exaggerated bifaces, as agricultural spuds. Current ideas see these powerful religious objects as associated with ritual performance that honored Mississippian culture heroes such as the Hero Twins and Morning Star, deities who had once engaged in combat with the forces of death on behalf of humanity. David H. Dye received his Ph. D in anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis, and is currently a professor of Archaeology at the University of Memphis. He is author of several books, including “War Paths, Peace Paths: An Archaeology of Cooperation and Conflict in Native Eastern North America. ” In addition, he has contributed to and edited numerous volumes on the prehistoric Southeast. He is well known for his exquisite artifact photography.

Figure 2. Copper axe, Mound C, Etowah (9BR1) (A.D. 1250-1375), Bartow County, Georgia. Note partially preserved wooden handle. Courtesy of the Etowah Mounds Museum, Cartersville, Georgia. photograph by David H. Dye

Figure 3. Duck River sword-form biface, Mound C, Etowah (9BR1) (A.D. 1250-1375), Bartow County, Georgia. Note mica flakes glued to biface surface. Courtesy of the Etowah Mounds Museum, Cartersville, Georgia. photograph by David H. Dye

Figure 4. Short pole spatulate celt, Rogers Island site (lLu92) (A.D. 1350-1450), Lauderdale County, Alabama. Courtesy of the Office of Archaeological Research, University of Alabama. photograph by David H. Dye.

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Buyer Beware: A Guide to Buying Authentic Native American Artifacts

Wed, 17 Jul 2024 11:21:00 GMT

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The Carter Bannerstone

Sun, 07 Jul 2024 23:21:00 GMT

Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol. 58 No. 3

by Rodney M. Peck, Kannapolis, North Carolina

One of the most beautiful bannerstones from the southeast is known as the Carter bannerstone(Figure 1,2), named after one of its previous collectors, Loy C. Carter. It exhibits superb workmanship and the high grade of slate it is made from represents a careful selection of rock material.

The bannerstone consists of a pair of large wings that are very similar in size and shape. There is a large rounded barrel perforation. This form is referred to as the Unnotched Crescent style by Bryon Knoblock in his book Bannerstones of the North American Indian. Uniquely, there are twelve drilled indentions running down its center on one side whose purpose is unknown.

When one examines the workmanship of the ancient artisan, it is obvious how much skill was involved. First there was the quarrying in order to find a block of slate suitable to make such a large bannerstone. Second, there was the time-consuming work of pecking, grinding and scraping the stone into shape. Then once the body and the winged ends were formed, there was the slow process of drilling of the hole using a solid stick and sand. Finally, there was the polishing of the artifact itself. This bannerstone dates to the Middle Archaic time period, approximately 6500 BP, and was associated with the Morrow Mountain culture.

It was found on the surface of a plowed field in

Nansemond County, Virginia (now the city of Suffolk) on the western side of the Great Dismal Swamp.

At one time it was in the collection of Dr. Jay Goldberg of Colonial Heights, Virginia. He obtained it about twenty years ago from the late Loy C. Carter of Clarksville, Virginia. Mr. Carter probably purchased the bannerstone from the late James E. Byrd, of Suffolk, Virginia. Mr. Byrd sold the Indian artifacts he collected to the Heye Foundation Museum of the American Indian in New York as well as to private collectors in Virginia during the 1950’s-1960’s. Some of the finest artifacts that Mr. Byrd once owned may be found in many Virginia collections today. This beautiful specimen is truly one of the crémede-la-créme of southeastern Virginia bannerstones.

One face of the Carter Bannerstone. It is 5 7/8 inches long, 2 3/4 inches wide and 25/32 inches in thickness at the center. The hole diameter is approximately 1/2 inch in diameter. The material is a greenish-gray slate with small black spots scattered on the surface, which probably originated in the North Carolina Piedmont region. Note the interesting line of twelve pecked indentions down the barrel, a very rare feature. They do not appear on the reverse face.

References:

. https://arrowheads.com/bannerstones/

Knoblock, Byron W. 1939 Bannerstones of the North American Indian. LaGrange, III. Lutz, David L. 2000 The Archaic Bannerstone: Its Chronological History and Purpose, From 6000B.C. to 1000 B.C: Newburgh, IN.

McCary, Ben C. 1968 Bannerstones of the Dismal Swamp Area in Virginia and North Carolina. Quarterly Bulletin, Vol.22, No.4. 1975 Bannerstones from the Dismal Swamp Area and Nearby Counties in Virginia and North Carolina. Quarterly Bulletin, Vol.30, No.1.

Peck, Rodney M. 1973 The Boykins Bannerstone. The Chesopiean. Vol.11, No.5. 1984 Bannerstone Hill. Gates County, North Carolina. The Piedmont Journal of Archaeology, Vol.1. 2002 Southeastern Axes and Bannerstones. Kannapolis, NC.

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Collector Spotlight- Jerry Buster

Thu, 20 Jun 2024 01:05:00 GMT

June 2024

Thank you for the honor of being Member of the Month My name is Jerry Buster, my wife Chrystal and I have been married for 44 years. Growing up in the Mississippi Delta in a small town in the 1950’s was a great experience for me because we were free to play, explore, hunt, fish, trap and just be boys. Everybody knew everybody so you couldn’t get away with anything but also you didn’t have to ask permission to be on anyone’s land. Our town was located in the middle of a triangle made by 2 large Mississippian multi mound sites and another single mound site and all 3 of these were a short bike ride away. One day I showed my grandfather some arrowheads that I found and he said that since I was interested in that kind of things there was a stone frog effigy pipe in his shop that he found while he was waiting on our cleaning lady to get ready one day. Her house was on a small daub covered domicile mound on one of the multi mound sites. That pipe (pictured) kicked me into high gear until I went to college (didn’t graduate). I never could decide what I wanted to do when I grew up so I moved all around the south doing fun jobs like working with the last of the old open cockpit crop dusters and running a grocery/crew boat on the Mississippi River. i met and married Chrystal in 1980 and finally grew up (for the most part). She had never done anything outdoors so I figured that we needed to change that. She started hunting and fishing with me and on the way home from the Ramses the Great exhibit in Memphis we were talking about artifacts and antiquities and I mentioned hunting for arrowheads. I found what was left of my collection in an old 1950’s bank bag (pictured) and showed them to her. She was interested so I took her to a spot that I had had luck on many years before hoping she could find something. She hadn’t walked but a few feet from the truck when she found a beautiful arrow point. It was on then. She wanted to go every spare minute that we had.

The doctors had told her that she could not have any children so we took it at that. But with enough practice you will get good at anything and we practiced. After 9 years we had a son. Just as he was getting interested in looking for Indian artifacts, at the age of 8 he got sick and on his 9th birthday in LeBonheur Hospital in Memphis he quit walking. Our time was spent then with taking him all over the country to doctors trying to get a diagnosis and hopefully a treatment. The doctors at LeBonheur told us finally that we should just accept the fact that he was going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life and get on with our lives. Then we met Pete who owned a gym and he took an interest in Johnny and since physical therapy was not working we let Johnny join the gym. He started making improvements with Pete’s help and a lot of prayers. And when we went back to the doctor Johnny locked his wheelchair down, got up and shakily walked across the office to the doctor who was in tears. He continued getting better but the fact that he had missed his childhood gave us some behavioral problems but nothing serious. Just as we were getting back to normal my wife’s rheumatoid arthritis came on with a vengeance and she developed a heart condition. Couple that with the fact that all the landowners that we knew have retired and people’s attitudes towards people being on their land have change we aren’t really able to get out and look any more.

I love getting on Arrowheads.com and seeing all the great finds that everyone shares here and learning from the wealth of knowledge found here. I tried other message boards but they didn’t work out. Also the talent and generosity shown by the craftsman here blows me away. I’m sorry for being so longwinded so I’ll end here by saying Thank you again.

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Collector Spotlight- PointHound

Wed, 20 Mar 2024 00:46:00 GMT

March 2024

My name is Joe and I live in central VA. I have always been into hunting , fishing and other outdoor hobbies and activities for as long as I can remember. For about 25 years I have been a Metal detecting enthusiast for relics and old coins. Metal detecting was my main passion until about 5 years ago when I found my first point and discovered an even more exciting and fulfilling hobby. There is just something about resurrecting a ancient tool lost in time by man many thousands of years ago. So much in fact that it supersedes all my other interest in collecting and hunting. I am hooked for life!

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Collector Spotlight- Longstride

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 01:38:00 GMT

December 2023

Hello group, it’s an honor to be selected for member of the month, I got into arrowhead hunting as a teenager, we had permission to hunt part of the JB White site along the Little River just a few miles from my home here in Elevation Texas, my dad was into arrowheads but didn’t hunt anymore, he bought me the book ” A Field Guide to Stone Artifacts of Texas Indians” by Sue Turner and Thomas Hester that helped me to understand what we were finding, tools, debitage, waste flakes, preforms, how to age an arrowhead as well as tips on flint knapping.

I moved to the family farm in ’88, cut myself out five acres and started finding flint chips and arrowheads, been here 35 years now finding no more than 10 arrowheads total, found thousands of waste flakes, and the horizontal cairn, there are three springs surrounding the hill we live on, I had permission to hunt one of them years ago and there was some good stuff that came from there, Paleo to historic, the one closest to me was dammed up in the 50’s to make a 1000 acre lake, pretty sure that’s where the main site was where 3 creeks come together and a sweet water spring , the other is a bog, never found anything there but beaver dams and a boggy swamp, more on that later.

Spent most of my life working in the powersports business, semi-retired now focusing on completing my house and running a small homestead, three kids grown and on their own, an eight year old daughter, and one grandson, For fun we like fishing, boating, hiking, camping, bicycling, motorcycling, generally anything outdoors. We live in a part of southern central Texas called the Post Oak Savanna, it’s a yaupon thicket with multiple rivers coming together.

To keep myself entertained I play with blacksmithing, stone carving, culinary arts, ham radio, fixing up antique Volkswagens and motorcycles.

I’m proud to be a registered Chickasaw Citizen descended from original dawes roll enrollee’s, have a knack for flint knapping as well as other native crafts, a love for the outdoors and helping people.

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What to Do with Inherited Arrowheads

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 19:16:00 GMT

Understanding the historical significance of arrowheads

Identifying and classifying arrowhead types

Proper handling and preservation of inherited arrowheads

Displaying inherited arrowheads in your home

Incorporating inherited arrowheads into jewelry or crafts

Trading or selling inherited arrowheads

Joining arrowhead collecting communities and clubs

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The Indian Relic Collector’s Rights and Remedies Under The Law

Fri, 07 Jul 2023 15:17:00 GMT

Featured Article from The Redskin, Volume XIV Number two, 1979, by Prosecuting Attorney, Tommy Tucker

Indian-Relic-Article-Fakes

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How To Tell If Your Arrowheads Are Real

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 10:18:00 GMT

Uncovering the Secrets of Arrowhead Authentication: How to Tell if Your Arrowheads are Real

Arrowheads are fascinating pieces of history that have captured the attention of collectors for decades, but how do you know if your arrowheads are real? As with any sought-after item, there are always those trying to profit from creating fake versions. This is where arrowhead authentication comes in – a process that involves determining the authenticity of an arrowhead to ensure that it is a genuine artifact. But how can you tell if your collection is real? In this article, we will delve into the secrets of arrowhead authentication and provide you with the tools and knowledge you need to identify whether your arrowheads are authentic or not. From examining the material and construction of the arrowhead to analyzing the provenance and historical context, we will explore all the factors that contribute to determining the authenticity of these fascinating artifacts. So, whether you’re a seasoned collector or just starting out, join us as we uncover the secrets of arrowhead authentication and learn how to tell if your collection is real.

The Importance of Authenticating Arrowheads

Arrowheads are not just collectibles, but pieces of history that offer valuable insights into the past. They can provide clues about the hunting and gathering practices, social structures, and technological advancements of ancient civilizations. As such, it is important to authenticate arrowheads to ensure that they are genuine artifacts that can be studied and appreciated for their historical significance. Authenticating arrowheads also helps to prevent the spread of fake or fraudulent items in the market, which can harm the reputation of genuine collectors and dealers.

How to Identify a Real Arrowhead – Material, Shape, and Size

The first step in authenticating an arrowhead is to identify its material, shape, and size. Authentic arrowheads are typically made of stone, bone, or antler, and their shapes and sizes vary depending on the time period and location they were made in. For example, Clovis point arrowheads, which were used by early Native American hunters, are usually around 2 to 4 inches long and have a distinctive triangular shape with concave sides. On the other hand, Folsom point arrowheads, which were used by later Native American hunters, are smaller and more delicate, with a more refined shape and fluting along the edges.

It is also important to examine the material and construction of the arrowhead. Authentic arrowheads are usually made by flintknapping, a process in which a stone is struck with another hard object to create a sharp edge. This process leaves distinctive marks on the surface of the arrowhead, which can be used to identify its authenticity. Fake arrowheads, on the other hand, may be made by casting or molding, which can result in a smoother and more uniform surface.

Arrowhead Authentication Methods – Radiography, UV Light, and XRF Analysis

There are several methods that can be used to authenticate arrowheads, including radiography, UV light, and XRF (X-ray fluorescence) analysis. Radiography involves taking an X-ray of the arrowhead to examine its internal structure and detect any signs of tampering or fakery. UV light can be used to detect any traces of modern materials or chemicals that may have been used to create a fake arrowhead. XRF analysis involves using X-rays to determine the elemental composition of the arrowhead, which can provide clues about its age and origin.

While these methods can be effective in authenticating arrowheads, they require specialized equipment and expertise, and may be costly. As such, many collectors and dealers rely on the expertise of professional authentication services .

Arrowhead Authentication Services

There are several professional authentication services that specialize in authenticating arrowheads and other artifacts. These services typically employ experts in the field who have years of experience in identifying and analyzing ancient artifacts. They may use a combination of methods, including visual examination, radiography, UV light, and XRF analysis, to determine the authenticity of an arrowhead.

Before using an authentication service , it is important to do your research and ensure that the service is reputable and reliable. Look for reviews and testimonials from other collectors and dealers, and ask for references from the service itself. It is also important to be aware of any fees or costs associated with the service, as these can vary depending on the complexity of the authentication process.

Arrowhead Fakes and Replicas – How to Spot Them

Unfortunately, there are many fake and replica arrowheads in the market, which can make it difficult for collectors to identify genuine artifacts. Fake arrowheads may be made from modern materials, such as glass or plastic, or may be cast or molded to look like genuine artifacts. Replicas, on the other hand, are often made by skilled artisans who create copies of authentic arrowheads using traditional techniques.

To spot fake or replica arrowheads, it is important to examine the material, construction, and finish of the artifact. Fake arrowheads may have a smoother or more uniform surface, or may be made from materials that were not available during the time period the arrowhead was made in. Replicas, on the other hand, may be made from high-quality materials and may have a finish that closely resembles that of a genuine artifact.

It is also important to be aware of red flags when buying arrowheads. For example, if a seller is offering a large number of similar arrowheads at very low prices, this may be a sign that the items are fake or replica. It is also important to be wary of arrowheads that have been restored or repaired, as these may have been tampered with to conceal damage or defects.

Arrowhead Buying Tips – Red Flags to Look Out For

If you are a collector looking to purchase genuine arrowheads, there are several tips and red flags to look out for. First and foremost, it is important to buy from reputable dealers who have a proven track record of selling genuine artifacts. Look for dealers who specialize in arrowheads and who have a deep knowledge of the history and construction of these items.

It is also important to be aware of prices – while genuine arrowheads can be expensive, they should not be sold at prices that are significantly below market value. If a price seems too good to be true, it probably is. Be wary of sellers who are unwilling to provide detailed information about the provenance and history of an arrowhead, or who are unwilling to allow you to inspect the item before purchase.

Arrowhead Collecting Ethics

Collecting arrowheads and other artifacts can be a rewarding hobby, but it is important to do so ethically and responsibly . Many ancient artifacts are protected by law, and it is illegal to remove them from their original location or to sell them without proper documentation and permits. As such, it is important to research the laws and regulations in your area before collecting arrowheads.

It is also important to respect the cultural and historical significance of these artifacts. Avoid collecting items that have religious or cultural significance to living communities, and be mindful of the impact that collecting may have on archaeological sites and landscapes.

Arrowhead Preservation and Display

If you are a collector, it is important to preserve and display your arrowheads in a way that protects them from damage and degradation. Arrowheads should be stored in a dry, cool place away from sunlight and moisture, and should be handled with care to avoid scratches or other damage. Many collectors choose to display their arrowheads in cases or shadow boxes, which can protect the items while also allowing them to be admired and appreciated.

In conclusion, there are many things that need to be evaluated and looked at to make sure that your arrowheads are indeed real and worth something. At arrowheads.com, our initial appraisal is completely free and we can tell you at that time whether you have something worth value. Contact us today to get a free initial appraisal.

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Local Participation Guarantees Success for Your Artifact Show

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 12:00:00 GMT

Native American Artifact/ Relic Event planning involves the process of organizing and coordinating all the necessary elements to make an event successful. It includes a wide range of tasks such as selecting the venue, acquiring a vendor list, setting a date that does not conflict with other shows, arranging for catering, and managing logistics such as transportation, security, and parking. With all that said, I think the single most important aspect is to involve local participation. Without local participation all you have is a room full of dealers swapping stories and rocks. Effective event planning requires good communication and coordination skills, as well as attention to detail and the ability to stay organized and focused. Some key steps in event planning include defining the purpose and scope of the event, creating a budget, identifying potential venues and vendors, developing a timeline and task list, and executing the plan while monitoring progress and adjusting as needed. Successful event planning requires a combination of creativity, problem-solving skills, and effective teamwork.

1. Advertising is a major key to success. In order to increase foot traffic at your event remember the audience you want to reach lives in a 100 to 150 -mile radius of your event. Submit your event to local newspapers, radio stations and television news rooms in this radius area. To bring in younger people to our great hobby reach out to local historical societies, libraries, high schools, and higher education centers ask if you can post some fliers in these places to attract the future collectors of relics and artifacts. Boy Scout troops and Girl Scout troops should be informed of this event. I cannot express enough that we need the youth of America to get involved in our hobby. The best way to get this done is to advertise locally. There are other ways to get the word out as well. arrowheads.com provides a free calendar of events. At Arrowheads.com we also provide a space for paid ads on our main page. The Central States Archaeological Society also has a calendar of society sanctioned events.

2. It is also a good practice to try and find local sponsors. Restaurants, Sporting Goods Stores, Bait Shops, Radio Stations, Historical Societies, Hardware Stores, Hobby Shops and Barber Shops. People visiting the area will see the names on the flier and check out their services. This is a good way to gain local support for your event.

3. If you are new to hosting, I would suggest creating a “run of show” to keep you on track. This is simply some notes for you to carry either digitally or on paper to help you stay on track. Who is setting up tables? When are they being set up? Who is assigning the tables to the vendors? What time is the catering arriving? Who will collect money from vendors and visitors to your event? Who is taking care of trash and table break down after the show? Will you be using an audio system? Test it to make sure it works prior to anyone arriving.

4. Set the objective: Start by determining the purpose of the artifact show event. What message or story do you want to convey to the audience? Is it to educate them on a particular culture or era, or is it to showcase collections of unique and rare artifacts? Will it be educational? Will it be for sales and trade? Or both?

5. Select a venue: Choose a venue that will accommodate the number of vendors you plan to invite to sell/display artifacts and the size of your audience. It is advised to set a date that does not conflict with other area artifact shows. Consider factors such as lighting, security, accessibility, parking, and nearby hotels for dealers and guests when selecting a venue. Reach out to local hotels and see if you can get discounts on blocks of rooms.

6. Define the budget: Determine the budget for the artifact show event. This will help you decide on the number of artifact/relic vendors and display only tables to set up, the venue, marketing and advertising, and other expenses.

Ask vendors to prepay for table space. Plan accordingly. A show with dozens of empty tables due to vendors not showing up looks poorly attended. Getting paid up front helps ensure your vendors and display only attendees will be there.

7. Develop a marketing plan: Develop a marketing plan to promote the artifact show event. This is extremely important. One method of social media is Arrowheads.com free events calendar. However, and this is very important to remember. To reach a local audience send information to local newspapers, radio stations and television stations. Contact boy scout troops, girl scout troops, high schools, colleges, local historical societies and libraries! Ask to have fliers posted on their bulletin boards. Another great idea is to place posters, and banners out in front of the venue to reach local audience. To repeat myself; without local participation all you have is a room full of dealers swapping stories and rocks.

8. Hire staff: if this is to be a multi-day event consider hiring security or try to enlist some volunteer help from trusted fellow collectors.

9. Plan for the opening ceremony: Plan for an opening ceremony that will draw attention and interest to the event. Consider inviting archaeologists, local knowledgeable historian/collectors, or authenticators to speak at an opening ceremony.

10. Coordinate logistics such as loading and unloading zones, transportation, parking, and catering for the event.

11. Evaluate the event: After the event, evaluate its success and areas for improvement. Consider feedback from attendees, staff, and vendors to make improvements for future events.

By advertising locally as mentioned above and following these steps, you can plan a successful artifact event that showcases our great hobby and the collections of Native American artifacts that will help recruit, engage, and educate your audience.

Matt Dorso Administrator/Communications Director

Arrowheads.com

Matt@Arrowheads.com

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It is time to Change Things!

Sun, 12 Mar 2023 20:49:00 GMT

by Steven R. Cooper – Central States Archaeological Journal – editor/ Who’s Who in Indian Relics – author / The Overstreet Guide to Indian Arrowheads – editor

The other week I attended one of the largest collector events of the year – the Collinsville Artifact Show. Arrowhead and artifact enthusiasts wandered the floor, talking, looking, trading and acquiring literally hundreds of prehistoric works. It was a wonderful gathering of several thousand. But it pales in comparison to the myriad of collectors who everyday engage on Facebook and buy on the internet. For many, eBay is the source of their collections.

The idea of a Certificate of Authenticity has been around for many years. An expert examines something and gives their unbiased opinion on whether something meets a certain criteria. In artifact/arrowhead collecting the criteria is threefold. 1. Is it ancient? 2. Is it altered? 3. Is it restored? Other criteria can sometimes factor in, such as who’s collection it resided in before, what it is made from and is it pictured somewhere? Sometimes an item is even given a grade of rarity.

The first COA’s were given out by supposed experts in their field. Frederick Dockstader, the curator of the Heye Foundation Museum started including them with purchases from the museum’s vast collection back in the 1970s. The G.I.R.S. (Genuine Indian Relic Society) soon followed, with a peer reviewed COA that required several experts to view an item. This later evolved into the model we have today – which are COA’s by various individual “experts.”

So what is an expert? Let’s start with a realistic view. NO ONE is an expert with all artifacts. With over 12,000 years of habitation across more than a billion acres of land in the USA, it is virtually impossible to know it all. Means of manufacture varied over time and changed from place to place. It seems obvious that someone who knows Tennessee chert would have a difficult time identifying and understanding the aging process with the beautiful agates from the Northwest. The field of knowledge is so vast that the regional expert is whom one wants to pass their opinion on a piece from their “region.” This doesn’t mean someone cannot give their approval on an artifact from way out of their area, but the possibility of error is much higher. It is important to know the qualifications of the individual who issued the COA before trusting it completely.

Another important thing to note is that COA’s are not expensive. Most run $25-$50, sometimes a pittance of the cost of a fine artifact. Should you really rely 100% on a $35 opinion for a $10,000 piece? The way around this is sharing the piece with others you know whom you trust. I say others, as it is best to share something you have doubt about with at least two other collectors. The more eyes the better, especially when it comes to very expensive artifacts.

A COA is a valuable tool, but it is not an insurance policy. If the arrowhead turns out later to be not as it is represented, the person who wrote the COA is not responsible

If you have attended the huge Collinsville Show, you easily have the ability to share your new acquisition with many other knowledgeable collectors. If you don’t it is your fault. BUT what if you are not buying at a show? Most acquisitions today are transacted on the internet. There are 10, maybe 100 times the activity on the internet than at a show. On the internet you cannot share something with another collector prior to purchase. You have to rely on the seller and their credibility and/or the COA that is presented along with the artifact.

Today there is a VIRUS on the internet, perpetrated by a few people utilizing garbage or bogus COA’s to lure in unsuspecting collectors. Usually these items are well below the actual value of the “real deal.” For example, a 5 inch long Clovis may bring $5K-$20K to a seasoned collector. So why would someone offer such a piece with the starting bid of $9.99? Would you sell a new Tesla with a starting bid of $9.99? Of course not! So why do people go after such a piece? The key words here are “lack of knowledge.” We ALL want a good deal….and a 5” Clovis that might be worth $15K for $9.95 is a bargain too good to pass up. Of course, offerings like these rarely go for the starting bid. Usually they sell for $300-$500. Still a bargain, that is, if they were a real prehistoric point. But they are not.

So besides a cheap price, what convinces someone to spend their money on offerings like this? The answer is a COA. Someone might ask – but doesn’t the COA essentially guarantee the purchase to be genuine? It might if it was a legitimate COA. But many of these sellers utilize “pretend or altered” COA’s. These can be real COA’s that have been doctored. Perhaps someone makes an artifact that resembles what was on a COA? Or they change out the picture on a legit COA? How about making up an individual who is an expert and having this fictional person be the authenticator? Or having a once legitimate collector go to “the dark side” and start issuing COA’s on anything and everything? I know of two such guys right now – who will say virtually “anything” is authentic in their opinion. Knowledgeable collectors laugh at these so called “papers” – but the novice or and/or internet only buyer can easily be fooled by these shenanigans.

One scam that some of these frauds use is offering pieces with multiple COA’s. You would think that 4 or 5 COA’s would guarantee that what you were buying was absolutely “real.” These frauds know this line of thinking, which is exactly why they use it. The uneducated collector suckers up for this and buys, buys and then buys some more. It is only when they decide to sell down the line that they discover they have been duped. Most people when they are duped are ashamed of themselves. They also do not want others to know they were so stupid, so they keep it all to themselves. Those perpetrating these fraudulent sales know this, and thus have little fear of the consequences of their actions. They also have an alibi. “Five people put their COA on the piece and you now think it isn’t real?” they might say to the buyer.

ALL COA’s are not created equal. A COA is not a guarantee, even from a legitimate authenticator. It is an expression in writing of one person’s opinion. Can a COA be helpful in making a purchase? Most certainly! If the COA comes from someone respected in the collecting community, then you have a starting point in knowing your purchase might be on-target. If it is from someone who is unknown or has a reputation of putting a COA on just about anything, you can be pretty certain what you are looking at isn’t worthy of any attention at all.

Is this a small problem? It in fact is a BIG BIG problem. If one looks at the online auction listings, there are hundreds of artifacts with dubious COAs. If you look closely, it is just a few sellers who are doing this. What do they have in common? They are offering rare things with prices well below the market value. It is easy to lure someone in with a well-made modern reproduction with multiple COAs, or the crooks would not do it! For instance, nn the legitimate artifact market you buy a bannerstone for say $2000 and sell it down the road for $2500; a 25% profit. In the fake artifact market, you have a banner made for $250 and sell it for $2500; a 1000% profit.

I know many think how anyone could fall for such stuff. If you look at online auctions you can see the sellers with illegitimate offerings have hundreds of sales, nearly perfect feedback and their offerings are well presented. Their lies about where things came from are well-crafted, sometimes even saying something is pictured in this book or that. They may select an old collector’s page in an early Who’s Who which has a photo where nothing is really identifiable. The ruse almost always works.

The outcome these sellers want is for you to come back again and again. You buy with the assurance of the multiple COA’s and the great prices. Pretty soon you have what appears to be a collection on the wall that rivals the “best” collections out there. Or so you think? It is not until the collection is shown to a legitimate collector or brought to a show where the truth emerges. I have seen it actually happen. For example, a collector bought 52 bannerstones (mostly quartz) from one person. They paid approximately $2000 for each one (that is $104,000). When shown to an expert, only 4 were actually prehistoric. The rest had no value at all. That is $96,000 thrown out the window. The buyer never confronted the seller. There was too much shame. They also never collected again.

At one time about 30 years ago it was thought the COA would be the godsend to artifact collecting. Finally there would be something to guarantee an artifact was actually prehistoric. Sadly, the opposite has happened. Today COA’s are either just printed on the seller’s own computer, or acquired from a bunch of people whose sole purpose is to COA anything for a buck. If you do 20 COA’s in one day for $30, you have made an easy $600. If you refuse nothing, people flock to you with their bogus-modern-mad-copies so they can pass them off as ancient. It is such a simple scam. And it works!!!!

So how do you defend yourself? That is a difficult question, because when determining authenticity it can many times be one person’s word against another’s. My first suggestion if you are an eBay buyer is go look at some listings. When you see a seller using any more than 2 COA’s on a piece look closer. If their other items all have multiple COA’s something most likely is wrong. Another thing to watch is who is making the COA’s? Some guys use goofy names like “Arrowhead Tim.” Never trust something like this! You might try googling the address on the COA? Is the authenticator even a real person? With google it is easy to answer these questions.

Remember crooks are clever. They will tell you this and that. They may say everything I sell has a lifetime warranty. I have heard stories about these warranties. If you come back, they take what you bought in trade towards another bogus item. So you are given garbage for garbage.

How do we stop this? First, it is time to report these guys OVER and OVER to eBay. In truth, eBay actually defends the buyer over the seller. You can return ANYTHING – even if the listing says no returns. You just tell the online auction that the item isn’t as represented (it is not prehistoric). Many times the seller has to even pay the return postage, even if their listing says you have too. Only through buyer complaints can a seller be booted off the online auction site.

But as we all know, a real crook will find a way. They just reappear with another name. These sellers live under the premise “there is a sucker born every minute.” So the real key is KNOWLEDGE. Join with other collectors by applying for membership in a Central States sponsored society. Attend a show and talk with others. If you have bought something that is bogus – don’t be ashamed – be MAD.

Collecting real prehistoric relics is really fun and rewarding. People are addicted for life once they get involved. You will meet people from all walks of life. There is a show nearly every weekend of the year somewhere. I have seen collectors drive 12 or more hours just to attend a certain show (myself included).

I must repeat myself from earlier. “Don’t get HAD get MAD.” If everyone did something to run these crooks off they soon would go out of business. They do it because it is easy money. They do it because they think they can fool YOU. Show them you are smarter than them. Reach out to others who collect. Don’t hide your purchases, share them. Share on FACEBOOK or at a show or in person. Trust the opinions of those who have collected for years. If one guy says something is wrong don’t get mad at the messenger. Also don’t immediately get rid of something. But if three guys tell you the same thing, take notice. Ask them why. Remember knowledge is everything.

The solution is , if we all became responsible collectors and banded together, we could most likely stamp out these crooks. Put your trust in real people, not just a COA. Learn what artifacts are really worth. Bargain prices should be a red flag! Start off collecting slowly and learn so you don’t make mistakes. Don’t buy 20 $500 Clovis points in a month! If you have made mistakes in the past, don’t continue to repeat them. RARE artifacts are expensive because there is a limited supply. Why is a certain bannerstone costly? The answer is because there are more collectors who want them than there is supply. When you see something at a low price you have to ask yourself, is the seller stupid? Most likely no! The odds are they are a wolf just waiting for you as a sheep to come snuggling up. Then they pounce and it is over. They have your money and you falsely think you got a deal.

The crooks are out there. In truth, there are not as many as you think. But these crooks have covered up eBay and other places with their bogus offerings, many times under different names. Some even have others selling for them posing as legitimate dealers. Most if not all are using bogus COA’s as the lure. We need to shut them down, destroy them and throw their trash back at them. Once they see there is zero demand for what they offer they will go away. It is up to us to make this happen.

Finally, if you think you have been a victim, speak out. Share your experience. Notify the online auction! Spread it on the forums that are all over the internet. Don’t let others get scammed too. If everyone would band together this problem would go away – and quickly too. The time is now to act. We need to help others, we need to help ourselves and we need to help our collecting community.

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A Guide on Where to Sell Authentic Indian Arrowheads

Sat, 18 Feb 2023 12:31:00 GMT

If you want to sell authentic Indian arrowheads, you have several options for getting top dollar for your artifacts. From online auctions and specialized outlets to antique shops and art galleries, there are a variety of places where you can sell genuine Indian arrowheads.

Online Marketplaces

Online marketplaces offer the convenience and exposure you need when it comes to selling Indian arrowheads. Major online venues such as Ebay, Etsy, Amazon, and other websites offer seller accounts where you can list your artifacts for sale. It’s important to do your research ahead of time in order to determine the most appropriate price range for your arrowheads based on similar pieces that have been previously sold.

If you don’t want to spend the time, Arrowheads.com can do all of that for you if you would like. We have a complete appraisal process, and offer top dollar for your authentic Indian arrowheads. You can read more about our process here .

Social Media Alliances & Online Forums

In addition to major online marketplaces, you may consider joining social media alliances or posting in appropriate online forums to gauge interest and make connections with potential buyers. You’ll be surprised at how many collectors use social media or search through forums looking for authentic pieces of Indian arrowhead art. It’s important to vet any potential buyers thoroughly before concluding a sale.

Arrowheads.com has the largest social online forum for Indian artifacts and arrowheads. Consider joining our forum and family to learn more about all things American Indian Artifacts and arrowheads.

Sell Authentic Indian Arrowheads Now

Arrowheads.com has a complete process to appraise your collection and offer top dollar for it. Our process is extremely fair and comprehensive. We will take the time to thoroughly explain every detail to you so you KNOW everything.

We know that many collections are passed down through a family members passing. We also know that most people do not know what to do with the collection or even where to start. We would be honored if you let us help you with that process. We promise to make everything simple and understandable, fair and honest. Shoot us an email today!

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Where To Buy Genuine Indian Arrowheads

Sat, 18 Feb 2023 12:10:00 GMT

Discover Authentic Indian Arrowheads To Add to Your Collection and Know Where to Buy Genuine Indian Arrowheads.

Authentic Indian arrowheads are a fascinating part of history, with some pieces being centuries old. Learn the basic clues that can help you identify authentic artifacts and how to buy genuine Indian arrowheads safely, so you can add variety and value to your collection.

Explore the Different Tribes

Different tribes have different arrowhead styles based on the area and materials they had access to. Familiarize yourself with the types of arrowheads that each tribe created by researching collections online, consulting a reference book, or talking to an expert collector. This way you can start to recognize the authentic elements that separate original artifacts from replicas.

Determine the Artifact’s Age and Orgin

Determine the Artifact’s Age and Origin.The age and origin of a piece are important factors when determining its authenticity. For Indian arrowheads, observe the type of material used to make it as well as its shape, patina, and being sure to avoid excessive repairs or restoration which can decrease its value. The oldest artifacts are made of stone while more recent pieces may be crafted from metal or other composite materials. Doing your due diligence ahead of time will help you avoid costly mistakes and ensure you always add the best pieces to your collection.

Look for Unique Characteristics

Authentic Indian arrowheads will have distinct characteristics that separate them from fakes. Make sure to inspect the piece for anomalies in its shape and size, noting any inconsistencies or flaws like chips or breaks that may indicate it is a reproduction. Pay attention to details such as thickness, flaking, grinding and polishing, as these indicators can prove invaluable in identifying an arrowhead’s source and age.

Inspect the Authenticity of Artifacts for Sale Online or in Stores

Inspect the Authenticity of Artifacts for Sale Online or in Stores.When considering purchasing artifacts online or in stores, it’s important to inspect the piece carefully for any indications that it is a fake. Try to obtain high-resolution photos and detailed descriptions of the piece from the seller as this can help you identify artificial or manipulated artifacts. Additionally, cross-reference details like stone material, patina, style type, and source, with known varieties of authentic Indian arrowheads. This can greatly reduce the risk of buying counterfeit arrowheads. Here is a Collect Responsibly with Respect for Practicing Tribes and Peoples.

Collect Responsibly with Respect for Practicing Tribes and Peoples.Collecting should never be done without respect for archaeological sites and practicing native tribes. The best way to ensure you are purchasing original artifacts is to purchase directly from a member of a federally recognized tribe, who obtained the piece legally with the consent of their tribe. Additionally, it’s wise to consider donating your collections to educational institutions like museums or universities that are equipped to curate authentic artifacts in accordance with federal regulations. This will help preserve authentic artifacts for generations to come.

Buy Genuine Indian Arrowheads

Arrowheads.com is the leading website on all things American Indian Artifacts and Arrowheads. We offer a wide variety of store and collectors through our stores page . We also have our own store where we sell collections and we would love to help you through the process.

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Indian Artifact Collection Laws

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 16:44:00 GMT

Is it illegal to sell arrowheads?

Indian artifact collection laws can be confusing. Due to many questions posed by collectors in our state, we’re going to look at the laws as they affect hunting for points, both on the state and federal level. Some of the laws are very plain in the way they are written, while others are more complex; it’s worth noting that some of these laws haven’t been fully tested in court cases. All laws are subject to interpretation, so don’t take anything here as legal advice in any way.

Federal Laws:

Pertinent laws at the federal level are mostly contained within ARPA (Archeological Resources Protection Act of 1979) and the companion set of regulations, 43CFR7. A full reprinting of the complete statute would be far beyond the scope of our newsletter, however the short version is that no collecting of archeological specimens is allowed on lands owned or controlled by the United States government. A short discussion of Section 6 of ARPA is in order however, as much confusion exists in the collecting community.

Section 6 states:

(a) No person may excavate, remove, damage, or otherwise alter or deface or attempt to excavate, remove, damage, or otherwise alter or deface any archaeological resource located on public lands or Indian lands unless such activity is pursuant to a permit issued under section 4 of this Act, a permit referred to in section 4(h)(2) of this Act, or the exemption contained in section 4(g)(1) of this Act.

(b) No person may sell, purchase, exchange, transport, receive, or offer to sell, purchase, or exchange any archeological resource if such resource was excavated or removed from public lands or Indian lands in violation of- (1) the prohibition contained in subsection (a) of this section, or (2) any provision, rule, regulation, ordinance, or permit in effect under any other provision of Federal law.

(c) No person may sell, purchase, exchange, transport, receive, or offer to sell, purchase, or exchange, in interstate or foreign commerce, any archaeological resource excavated, removed, sold, purchased, exchanged, transported, or received in violation of any provision,, rule, regulation, ordinance, or permit in effect under State or local law.

(d) Any person who knowingly violates, or counsels, procures, solicits, or employs any other person to violate, any prohibition contained in subsection (a), (1), or (c) of this section shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both: Provided, however, That if the commercial or archaeological value of the archaeological resources involved and the cost of restoration and repair of such resources exceeds the sum of $500, such person shall be fined not more than $20,000 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. In the case of a second or subsequent such violation upon conviction such person shall be fined not more than $100,000, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

(e) The prohibitions contained in this section shall take effect on October 31, 1979 [the date of the enactment of this Act].

(f) Nothing in subsection (b)(1) of this section shall be deemed applicable to any person with respect to any archaeological resource, which was in the lawful possession of such person prior to October 31, 1979.

(g) Nothing in subsection (d) of this section shall be deemed applicable to any person with respect to the removal of arrowheads located on the surface of the ground.

So as we see from the Act, while “no person” without a permit may excavate or remove any “archaeological resource” from federal lands, the criminal and civil penalties contained in subsection (d) may not be enforced on any person picking up an arrowhead from the surface. Removal of the artifact from the site may, however, result in arrest for theft of government property.

State Laws

On the subject of artifacts and sites located on state property, the law in Mississippi could not be more clear. Mississippi Code 39-7-11 states:

(1) All other sites, objects, buildings, artifacts, implements, and locations of archaeological significance, including, but expressly not limited to, those pertaining to prehistoric and historical American Indian or aboriginal campsites, dwellings, and habitation sites, their artifacts and implements of culture, as well as archaeological sites of every character that are located in, on or under the surface of any lands belonging to the State of Mississippi or to any county, city, or political subdivision of the state, are hereby declared to be Mississippi landmarks and are the sole property of the State of Mississippi. Such sites may not be taken, altered, destroyed, salvaged or excavated without a permit from the board or in violation of the terms of such permit.

State law also makes it illegal to knowingly disturb human remains on private property without a permit from MDAH. In addition, if human remains are encountered, all ground disturbing activity must cease and the Sheriff of the county involved must be notified immediately.

State Laws Regarding Collecting On Private Lands

This is the area we’re most interested in, as most of us know the vast majority of collecting takes place on private land. Mississippi grants almost exclusive control of sites to the landowner, as long as burials are not encountered. Written permission from the landowner is required by law in our state to hunt for artifacts. The following paragraphs are selected sections of the Mississippi Code as it applies to collecting without permission.

§ 39-7-31. Entry upon land of another to deface, remove or destroy archeological relics or sites.

No person, not being the owner thereof, and without the written consent of the owner, proprietor, lessee, or person in charge thereof, shall enter or attempt to enter upon the lands of another and intentionally injure, disfigure, remove, excavate, damage, take, dig into, or destroy any historical structure, monument, marker, medallion, or artifact, or any prehistoric or historic archaeological site, American Indian or aboriginal remains located in, on or under any private lands within the State of Mississippi. No person without a permit from the board, and without written permission of the landowner, shall intentionally injure, disfigure, remove, excavate, damage, take, dig into, or destroy any prehistoric or historic American Indian or aboriginal burial.

§ 39-7-35. Penalties for violations of chapter; finder’s fee for arrest and conviction of violator.

(1) Any person violating any of the provisions of this chapter shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be punished by a fine of not less than five hundred dollars ($500.00) and not more than five thousand dollars ($5,000.00), or by confinement in jail for not more than thirty (30) days, or by both such fine and confinement. Each day of continued violation of any provision of this chapter shall constitute a distinct and separate offense for which the offender may be punished.

(2) The board at its discretion may grant a “finder’s fee,” not to exceed five hundred dollars ($500.00), for the arrest and conviction of any person in violation of this chapter.

In The Water…

So far it’s been easy …but creek hunting in MS is not specifically addressed in the laws. While the state does claim all artifacts on state land, and grants trespass rights to the stream channels of public waterways (implying state control of these areas), the disposition of artifacts within navigable streambeds remains questionable. In fact, the exact definition of a navigable waterway is outdated under MS law; however court cases in other states (including at least one Supreme Court decision) indicate that any stream that is navigable by boat should be considered navigable in law. It is illegal in MS to disturb the bed or banks of a public waterway (defined as “having a mean annual flow of not less than one hundred (100) cubic feet per second, as determined and designated on appropriate maps by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality”). Small streams, too small for boats, are under the control of the landowner and written permission would cover it.

While the legal situation is somewhat muddied, there is no concern voiced over creek hunting in our state. This isn’t the case in other states in the south, and Alabama is the only state in the region that specifically allows collecting of artifacts within navigable stream channels. Laws against collecting in streams in Florida are strictly enforced. Informal conversations with many members of the professional archeology community working in MS over the last couple of years has resulted in no objections to this form of collecting, as most readily concede displaced artifacts washed into streams have minimal archeological value except for pure distributional data.

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In Defense of Avocational Archaeology

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 16:43:00 GMT

IN DEFENSE OF AVOCATIONAL ARCHAEOLOGY

By Jeb A. Taylor, Associate Editor

In this country, there exists a high degree of enmity between institutional and avocational archaeologists/ collectors. Historically, the goals of both groups were pretty much the same: the retrieval of artifacts from archaeological sites. Any conflict that existed between them was probably more the result of competition than differences of purpose.

As time passed, however, institutional archaeologists began to place more emphasis on the retrieval of information and less on the artifacts themselves. The intentions of each began to diverge.

Retrieval of information from archaeological sites requires a great deal of discipline and training. These attributes are generally lacking in avocational archaeology. Consequently, institutional archaeologists have come to regard avocational archaeology as wanton, and destructive of cultural resources.

In an attempt to protect archaeological sites, institutional archaeologists have instigated laws that require permits to excavate on public land. The issuance of permits requires compliance with rigid archaeological standards that cannot generally be met by avocational archaeologists. Consequently, institutional archaeologists have effectively stopped avocational archaeologists from excavating archaeological sites on public land.

Additionally, probably in an attempt to further distance themselves from avocational archaeologists/collectors, professional archaeologists have adopted a code of ethics that prohibits them from participating in any activity that promotes or condones illegal artifact collecting and/or commerce. Certainly it would be inappropriate for professional archaeologists to be involved in illegal collecting activities, but they actually have very little capacity to affect artifact market values or commerce.

In any event, overly strict implementation of this code has prompted many, especially young, professional archaeologists to regard all artifact collectors condescendingly as pot hunters. This attitude has alienated them from both avocational archaeologists/collectors and the general public.

Avocational Archaeologists/Collectors

Today, the vast majority of avocational archaeologists/ collectors are surface hunters. They hunt plowed fields, lake and river shorelines, and other areas subject to erosion.

Through the years, avocational archaeologists/ collectors have provided a wealth of information to professional archaeologists. In fact, when the author was recently reviewing the histories of major sites on the High Plains, it became evident that more than 80% of them were brought to the attention of institutional archaeologists by avocational archaeologists/collectors. Unfortunately, due primarily to the prevailing condescending attitudes promulgated by professional archaeologists, avocational archaeologists/collectors are no longer as inclined to share that type of information with them.

Avocational archaeologists/collectors can be:

male or female
young or old
of any religious persuasion
of any ethnicity
of any profession

Although the prevailing attitude of many institutional archaeologists is that avocational archaeologists/collectors are inherently evil, most of them regard their hobby as a wholesome and healthy pastime. Ex-President Jimmy Carter relates in Sharing Good Times (2004:58):

One of my lifelong habits has been scanning the ground for projectile points and other archaeological artifacts of Native Americans. Since leaving the farm, I’ve continued this habit even in city parks, golf courses, college campuses, and along other paths that thousands of people may use each day. In fact, I’ve been surprisingly successful in finding arrowheads even in these kinds of public places.

and (2004:59):

Finding an especially beautiful point was a source of pride, and I was always eager to get back home and display it to my admiring parents and siblings. I had accumulated several hundred by the time I left home for college and the Navy, and I added to the collection whenever possible.

Most people wouldn’t regard Jimmy Carter as a “pot hunter,” but thousands of other avocational archaeologists/ collectors, who are no different from him, are considered just that. There is, unfortunately, a darker side to artifact “collecting”. A small number of unscrupulous individuals do clandestinely excavate cultural sites on public land and on private land without the landowner’s permission. This is a serious problem, particularly in the West where cultural sites are often located far from civilization and are difficult to monitor. This type of activity is looting and is not condoned by most avocational archaeologists/collectors.

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Artificial aging is counterfeiting

Sun, 29 Jan 2023 16:47:00 GMT

by John F.Berner, EIC

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.54, No.1, pg.18

Make no mistake, if a person ages flint or any other artifact, that person is a counterfeiter. There is controversy among archaeologists, investors, collectors and flint knappers whether modern flint knapping is a good thing or not. But one subject stands alone among them; that is concerning the artificial ageing of flint replicas and other stone artifacts.

Arguments have been presented by a number of archaeologists who believe that replication and marketing of flint items “will reduce the desire for loot ing “while providing an adequate supply of authentic looking items for the marketplace. Then there are others who suggest that learning the lost craft helps one understand how artifacts were created in ancient times. Some investors and collectors think there is too much flint knapping and that produces the temptation for a shady dealer to pawn off a replica at a handsome profit and that is wrong. It is! Lithic reproductionists, as they prefer to be identified, say that they are producing works of art and that those works of art serve an important need!

The only way to judge this scenario is case by case. If the only purpose is to replicate ancient copies and the knapper identifies his work as his own, selling under such circumstances; there is benefit to all. But if the knapper refuses to identify his work with some permanent marking and uses the excuse that the market for his work is minimal if signed and identified, then the replicator is feeding a potentially dishonest market.

If a knapped specimen is fine enough to warrant that specimen as a work of art, then the maker should be proud enough to show his name for all to see!

Unfortunately, the record indicates that more than 5000 persons are engaged in the replication of stone age artifacts, especially flint, to some degree; then it should be obvious to most of us that the art market alone cannot support all of the makers. It has been estimated that the 5000 knappers turn out nearly one and half million replicas per year!

We hear many excuses such as “that is the only way I can support my family” or ” I am not hurting anyone”. How about getting a real job?

Selling illegal substances or counterfeiting U.S. currency is in the same category. And for those who don’t know, nearly 99% of all unmarked replicas end up as marketed fakes. The reason is because there is an underground movement of “aging” unmarked replicas, and for some it has become a full time business. Some agers charge as little as $10 per point, and every trick in the book is used from rubbing grease and grime into the loose flakes to burying the replicas with animal feces, boiling the reproduction in lime and potassium permanganate and many other chemical methods. In some instances the surfaces of the faked specimens are then burnished to give the artifact an appearance of age and having been used.

All of this is nothing less than counterfeiting which is illegal in all the 50 states. If the ager, maker or seller is prosecuted and found guilty, serious time in a penal institution is a real threat. Do it through the mail or wire and the crime is federal. Making or selling fakes is a crime!

“Used by Permission of the Author”

To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: http://www.csasi.org/ .

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Ancient Mississippian Pastimes

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 19:49:00 GMT

by E. J. Neiburger, Waukegan, Illinois

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.4, pg.188

George Catlin painting of Mandan Indians playing Chunke in 1832, showing the game reached into historic times.

The ancient Mississippians were a complex society sharing many traditions of the Meso-Americans and Southwest Indian groups. The Mississippians could be characterized as living in a theocracy. Individuals and groups would go through various kinds of rituals and ceremonies every day. There was a seamless belief between the physical and supernatural worlds of the present and the past.

The Mississippians believed in a layered cosmos with a celestial “above world,” a “middle world” where everyday life occurred, and a “subterranean world” that lay under the earth and waters. Everyday games and other activities had an intense spiritual as well as temporal impact that stresses this belief.

One of the more popular games the Mississippians played was Chunke (Chunkey). In this game a chunkey stone, in the shape of a 2 to 6 inch diameter discoidal (Figures 1-2) was rolled over the bare ground or ice while several players threw spears in an attempt to mark where the stone would stop rolling. The closest spear to the final location of the stone, without actually hitting the stone, determined the winner. Extensive audience participation including wild gambling, singing and spiritual “guidance” made this an observer as well as athlete sport. The game continued to be played into the historic period. DeSoto, in his visits of Mississippian settlements in the early 1500s, described this game which was played by many other tribes (e.g. Mandan, Hidatsa), even into modern times.

The Mississippians, like many of the other Indian groups, were cannibals. They, like their Meso-American (e.g.Maya, Aztec) and South Western (e.g. Anasazi) cousins went to war, captured prisoners, tortured them, scalped them and then ate them raw or cooked(Turner, 1999). In some cases, large numbers of individuals were consumed. This pastime, as horrible as it sounds, is evident from several sources. The first is the writings of DeSoto who visited Mississippian villages in the waning years of that culture. He reports of seeing the burning of prisoners and their scalps hung from spear poles being paraded through the villages.

Left: Discoidals from Wisconsin, Milwaukee Public Museum Right: Discoidals from Georgia/Tennessee

A second indication is the practices of the contemporary Meso-Americans and South Western Indians who were well documented cannibals. The Aztecs and Mayans killed thousands in an attempt to spill enough blood to please the gods. The Mississippians had similar customs, organization, religion and history. They did essentially everything the Meso-Americans did.

The third indication was the presence of many cannibalized skeletons in Mississippian village waste dumps (not cemeteries). These remains were comingled with the bones of other food animals and village garbage. For example, at Aztalan, Wisconsin, archaeologists unearthed a surprising number of scattered human bones discarded in refuse pits, fireplaces and in other garbage depots. The bones and bone fragments found there represented all parts of the skeleton and many showed clear signs of cutting, dismemberment, breaking and charring (cooking)(Figures 3-4). Many of these bones showed unique breakage so marrow and brain matter could be removed(Figure 5). There is considerable evidence of pot polished bones (the bone edges were broken and then smoothed by being stirred and rubbed against the side of a clay y cooking pot). (Figures 3-4). These remains have been found at Cahokia, Ramey, Aztalan and other Mississippian sites.”Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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Mississippi Discoidals: Ancient Sports Collectibles?

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 19:48:00 GMT

By Anthony A. Stein, Parkville, Missouri

One of the most popular Mississippian artifacts today is the discoidal. What is a discoidal? The easiest answer is that a discoidal is a round Mississippian game stone that was used in the ancient Native American game known as chungke or chunkey.

No description of discoidals would be complete without some description of the game itself. In 1775, James Adair, in his 18th Century English, wrote a description of the game. The language seems rather difficult to follow in places, but the message seems clear enough:

The warriors have another favorite game called chungke, which, with propriety of language, may be called ‘running hard labor’. They have near their state-house a square piece of ground well cleaned, and fine sand is carefully strewed over it, when requisite, to promote a swifter motion to what they throw along the surface.

Only one or two on a side play at this ancient game. They have a stone about two fingers broad at the edge, and two spans round; each party has a pole of about eight feet long, smooth and tapering at each end, the points flat. They set off abreast of each other at six yards from the end of the playground; then one of them hurls the stone on its edge, in as direct a line as he can, a considerable distance toward the middle of the other end of the square; when they have run a few yards, each darts his pole anointed with bear’s oil, with a proper force, as near as he can guess in proportion to the motion of the stone, that the end may lie close to the stone; when this is the case, the person counts two of the game, and, in proportion to the nearness of the poles to the mark, one is counted, unless by measuring both are found to at an equal distance from the stone. In this manner, the players will keep running most part of the day, at half speed, under the violent heat of the sun, staking their silver ornaments, their nose, finger, and ear rings; their breast, arm and wrist-plates; and even all their wearing apparel, except that which barely covers their middle. All the American Indians are much addicted to this game, which it seems to be of early origin, when their forefathers used diversions as simple as their manners. The hurling-stones they use at present were, time immemorial, rubbed smooth on the rocks, and with prodigious labour, they are kept with the strictest religious care, from one generation to another, and are exempted from being buried with the dead. They belong to the town where they are used, and are carefully preserved.

Discoidals, sometimes called discs, were treasured tribal possessions throughout the Mississippian world. They have been found across all of the great Mississippian lands including the states of eastern Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana,

Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi. Although styles often varied from region to region, they were all used as game stones.

Discoidals began appearing at late Woodland sites in eastern Missouri and southern Illinois around 700 A.D. By Mississippian times, chunkey’s popularity had spread throughout the Mississippian world. Some Mississippian sites have produced more than one discoidal style, while others have produced only a single style.

Many surviving discoidals are both beautiful and durable. Quartz and granite were often used in the making of these popular game stones. Both materials are extremely hard, and they had to be. Discoidals were continuously used in sporting contests over generations, so they had to be durable. A very few discoidals are made from colorful flint. Discoidals are very popular today with collectors because they come in many styles and colorful materials. Many are so finely made that today they are seen as works of sculptural art.

The most frequently encountered discoidal styles are the Salt River, Jersey Bluff, Tennessee, Cahokia, Biscuit, Circle Roller, Apple, and Barrel.

The Tennessee style is one of the most desirable discoidal styles. They are often made of the finest quartz in colors ranging from white, amber, and honey, to dark red and rich browns. There is at least one Tennessee double cupped discoidal made from colorful flint. Some have diameters in excess of six inches. The double cupped variety gets its name from the small dimple or cup centered in the discoidal’s larger cup. The Tennessee single cupped style is the same as the double cupped style in all ways except the small center cup is omitted. This style is considered a southern style discoidal having its greatest concentration in eastern Tennessee and northern Georgia, but it has been found as far west as southeastern Missouri.

Another extremely popular discoidal style is the Cahokia style, which has at least three major varieties. The first variety refers to a discoidal with a cup that nearly reaches the edge of the discoidal. The cup slopes gradually toward the center of the discoidal where it reaches its maximum depth. Some cups are so thin that light can easily pass through the center of the discoidal. The second Cahokia variety has a very thin and sharp edge. The depth of the cup is rather uniform from the edge to the center. The first two varieties are very narrow compared to their relative diameter. The third variety is the Mound 72 style, named for the discoidals excavated at Cahokia’s Mound 72. This style has a wide cup and relatively thin edge, but it is much thicker than the first two Cahokia styles and tends to have a more rounded circumference. Cahokia discoidals are usually made of colorful quartz, but some are made from granite. Classic Cahokia discoidals usually range from two to four inches in diameter. A few have a perforation in the middle of the cup. Find and distribution patterns show that Cahokia discoidals were primarily used in Illinois and Missouri from the Illinois River to the Missouri boot heel; however, the perforated varieties do appear in western Indiana.

The Salt River discoidal was one of the most enduring of the discoidal styles. Named after the Salt River in eastern Missouri, it first appeared in eastern Missouri during late Woodland times but continued until Middle Mississippian times (ca. 1350 AD). Although occasionally found at the Cahokia complex (Madison and St. Clair counties in Illinois), it is most often found in parts of northeast Missouri. It is relatively unknown in Mississippian lands outside of this limited area. Its distinctive V-shape outer rim and relatively narrow cup makes it one of the most unusual styles. The Salt River style ranges in size from two inches in diameter. They were most commonly made from granite and dark hardstone, but they were occasionally made from quartz.

The Apple discoidal is one of the rarest styles. It is so named because of it’s general apple appearance. Each side has a rather narrow cup in relationship to its diameter. Some cups can be rather deep. Find and distribution patterns suggest that the apple discoidal was only a regional style, limited to southern Missouri and northern Arkansas. Sizes range from 2-1/2 inches to over four inches in diameter. Of all the discoidal styles, this one type seems best suited to fit in the chunkey player’s hand as it was rolled at high speed on the chunkey field.

The final three discoidal styles have no cups at all. They are the Biscuit, the Circle Roller, and the Barrel.

The Biscuit style, sometimes called the double convex style or Bradley style, is a rather late Mississippian style. It was introduced around 1350 AD and lasted until protohistoric times. It was favored south and east from the Missouri boot heel, but it did not seem to be popular in Illinois. Apparently the Illinois Mississippians preferred cupped discoidals. Biscuit styles range in size from an inch to over four inches in diameter, and they were usually made from quartz, hardstone or flint. Flint biscuits are very rare and are usually found in Tennessee, northern Alabama and Georgia.

The Circle Roller style is unique among all discoidals in that it is the only style that is not symmetrical. One side is flat and the other side is domed. Excavations in north Georgia suggest that this discoidal style may have been used for an entirely different game than chunkey. Its find and distribution patterns suggest that it was a northern Georgia style, perhaps radiating from the Etowah Complex near present day Cartersville, Georgia. Circle Roller discoidals are made from some of the most attractive stone materials ever used for discoidals. They are encountered in beautiful amber quartz and other translucent materials. The Circle Roller style ranges in size from two to nearly four inches in diameter.

The last discoidal style is the Barrel. It is perhaps the oddest and most cumbersome of all the discoidal styles. Found primarily in Tennessee, it derives its name from its general barrel shape. A rare style, it is the only type that can have a height greater than its diameter. Barrel discoidals are usually very tall, large and heavy. Some barrel discoidals reach a height of over 5 inches and may be nearly five inches in diameter. It is difficult to imagine how a man could roll such a large and awkward discoidal very far. The largest Barrel discoidals may have been ceremonial.

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A Rat Tail Spud, My Rarest Artifact

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 19:47:00 GMT

by Jim Maus, Adva nce, North Carolina

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.55, No.3, pg.140

During the time that we call the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex or Mississippian Period, the inhabitants in the southern part of our country made and used many religious/ ceremonial artifacts including shell gorgets, zoomorphic pipes, artistically engraved and painted pottery vessels and various types of axe tools. This latter category includes the very rare monolithic axes and several types and shapes of celt-like objects. This celt-derived tool class comprises spatulates, elongated celts and the very odd appearing tools that, today, are commonly called a spuds. These “spud” artifacts are actually sociotechnical implements meaning they were most likely made as utilitarian axe type objects that were modified using non-standard celt materials and/or non-standard overall shapes for the purpose of serving social/religious/ceremonial uses. Spud is a rather crude name for such a sophisticated and well made type of celt but since collectors know this artifact by that name, this writer will use it in this article.

Spuds have been found,though quite rarely, from Oklahoma eastward through Missouri, Illinois, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia and usually at or near major temple mound sites. Many Indian artifact collectors have never actually seen one except in a book or archaeological journal photograph because they are so unique. And then if you separate the long handle spuds from the short handle ones, the rarity of the long ones (also called rat tail spuds because the small head and long handle vaguely resemble long tail rats) is increased.

The state of North Carolina is not exactly in the heart of the territory occupied by the inhabitants of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, being too far east and north and thusly should not contain any rat tail spuds. But about 80 years ago, a farmer plowing a field behind a mule alongside the Town Fork Creek in Stokes County, did unearth one of these eccentrics. The farmer, apparently not being a collector, passed the tool on and it entered the collection of a father and son and there it remained until acquired by myself and became my rarest artifact.

The name spud was assigned to these objects over a hundred years ago because the original ones that were found reminded the discoverers of the shovel-like tools used in Europe to dig potatoes or spuds. Long handle or rat tail spuds are indeed oddly shaped artifacts since they resemble the cutting or bit end of a celt attached to a short broom handle. The bit end of the rat tail spuds are usually flattened like many other celts and the long shaft is normally round but some are ovoid shape in cross section. There have been fewer than one hundred of them found and few of these have shown any evidence of being used as a tool, so the supposition is that they were made and used strictly for some unknown ceremonial purposes. They vary from about twelve inches in length to over twenty inches and were usually made of greenstone though a few were made of slate and soft limestone. Greenstone is itself a catch-all term since it encompasses many types of stone that have a chlorite base — thus giving the mineral a greenish color. As already stated, their exact original purpose is unknown, which is typical for many Mississippian Period artifacts. Theories of their meanings to the ancients include rattlesnake effigies, long tail raptor effigies and arrow effigies. Some recovered spuds clearly show evidence of hafting to a handle, probably a wooden handle. This means that these artifacts would have been used as a hafted axe or celt form but most likely not for any utilitarian purposes. Indeed some of the very rare shell cup and gorget engravings, especially from the Craig Mound in Oklahoma, clearly show warriors with hafted elongated celt-like implements fastened to their bodies. Does that mean these objects were war weapons? Many collectors today, though, believe that these artifacts were simply symbols of status, be it ceremony or war, for the society’s elite some four to seven hundred years ago.

This rat tail spud, which is probably the only one ever found in the Tarheel state, is fifteen and three-eighths inches in length with the barbed head being two and seven-eighths inches both in width and length. The head has five saw-tooth serrations on one edge and four on the other but that edge probably also had five serrations in ancient times, the fifth of which was lost by a small ding on the barbed end. It is made of dark olive green serpentine greenstone and is well polished over the entire surface, which probably means that countless hands touched and held it over countless ancient years. This spud is pictured in Douglas Rights’ 1947 book The American Indian in North Carolina. Reverend Rights was a close friend and fellow artifact collector to the family who owned the spud for many years. As stated already, North Carolina is not known as being a hot bed of the Mississippian Culture but Stokes County in the north central part of the state has given up many unique artifacts, such as effigy pots, engraved shell gorgets and effigy pipes. However none of these can compare with the rarity of this exceptional rat tail spud, truly my rarest artifact.

“Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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LATE WOODLAND, MISSISSIPPIAN & HISTORIC RITUAL STONE AXES KNOWN AS SPUDS

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 19:45:00 GMT

BY PETER A. BOSTROM

Most writers, collectors, and archaeologists seem to be using the word spud more often now; however, when you look at articles written nearly a hundred years ago, the name certainly has been controversial. In fact, many different names have been used over the years to describe stone spuds. The reason probably relates to a lack of knowledge, because no one can say with certainty for what they were used. We do know that these ancient objects are very rare elite status objects. Some of the names that have been used are puds, spuds, stone spuds, chert spuds, ceremonial spuds, spatulate spuds, spatulates, flared celts, ceremonial batons, ceremonial axes, ceremonial celts, ceremonial spades, spade ceremonials, stone ceremonials, elongated axe heads, ritual axes, spud-shaped implements, paddle-shaped implements, paddle-shaped spuds, and even bark peelers. However, spud and stone spud are the names most often used in recent years. The most obvious problem with the word spud is that it also means “a potato” and that is what often comes to mind first when the word is mentioned.

In the past, Warren K. Moorehead was the most outspoken writer against the use of the word spud. In 1910 he wrote in The Stone Age in North America, Vol. 1.

Permit me to register a protest against the word `spud’ which is suggestive of a heavy iron implement in the hands of a laborer. It is supposed that the word `spud’ is retained because no one has proposed a good substitute.” Again in 1917 in Stone Ornaments of the American Indian he writes “The term `spatulate,’ as previously stated, was given me by Professor Charles H. Forbes, to take the place of the wretched word `spuds,’ which is suggestive of a heavy iron implement in the hands of an Italian laborer” (he added the word Italian in his later book). But in recent years, people seem to be complaining less about the use of the word spud. Only spud collectors still wonder why the word is still used. Since it also means “a spade-shaped tool”, it is probably the best descriptive word that can be used, especially if you compare the ones with round handles, which look very much like a spade in outline. If spuds are so well recognized as ceremonial objects, it seems that the term “ritual axe” would be a more distinguished title.

Spuds, or ritual axes, represent one of the finest crafted flaked, pecked, ground, and polished stone artifacts produced during the Late Woodland, Mississippian and early Historic periods. They represent a very rare artifact type. Many of the examples illustrated in this Journal relate, by their style, to the Cahokia site in Illinois, the Spiro site in Oklahoma, Caddoan sites in Arkansas, and the stone varieties from the southeastern United States. Several spuds have been found in and around the Cahokia Mounds site. Cahokia craftsmen were probably one of the main sources for these items. Cahokia style spuds were being traded to people living hundreds of miles away. Sporadic finds of spuds have been reported as far away as Canada.

From an article in an early Wisconsin Archeologist, that is referred to by Moorehead and that must have been written at the turn of the last century, Charles E. Brown describes three main classifications of spuds. For Class A he includes the longest spuds. These spuds have broad, semi-circular blades that angle 90 degrees out from the handle, or have blade shoulders that slope downward, or have barbs that angle upwards towards the handle. Class A spuds have long handles that are either circular or elliptical in cross-section. Some of them have been described as “broom handles” or “rattails”. They range in size up to 22 ³ /4 inches long.

Class B spuds include most of the examples illustrated here. Brown describes them as “Blade generally short, crescent-shaped or oval, convex or flat, reduced to a sharp cutting edge, shoulder when present also partially edged; handle generally of short or medium size, of nearly uniform width, circular, elliptical, less frequently square or somewhat rectangular in cross-section.”

For Class C spuds, Brown includes all of the wide, flat stemmed and perforated examples from the southeastern states, and from Arkansas through Tennessee, Mississippi and farther east. He describes them as “broad, flattish implements” with “blade broad, nearly circular, elliptical or semi-elliptical in shape, edge fairly thick and smooth, or thin and sharp, shoulders rounded or sharply pointed; handle narrower than the blade, flat or convex, sides straight or curved, parallel or slightly tapering to the top.”

Spuds apparently date to the end of the Woodland period where they have been surface collected on Jersey Bluff sites. However, reliable dates are not available because they have not been found on excavated sites. Jersey Bluff spuds were pecked and ground from granite and differ in shape from those found at Cahokia. Spuds were made, in various forms, throughout the Mississippian period. By the time Europeans arrived in North America, a new form of spud had begun to appear—these are the wide stemmed & perforated Class C type of spuds. B.W. Stephens reports, “Frequently this type of axe has been discovered in mound burials with historic material, such as Venetian glass beads, bronze sleigh bells, copper powder buckets, glass rum bottles and other historic objects.” He also writes that “Very likely the battle axe of the early Spanish solders was the incentive that prompted the Indian to imitate in stone this broad blade weapon that captured his primitive fancy.” An estimated date for all spuds might range between A.D. 720 to 1650.

Stone spuds were made from several different kinds of materials. Included in this list are the thin, wide and perforated type C spuds from the southeastern states. Spuds were made from Burlington chert, Kaolin flint, steatite, slate, quartzite, fine-grained sandstone, diorite, and fine-grained greenstone. The two basic types of materials used were chert and granite.

Spuds were made in two different ways. The long broom handle type A, the flat and wide Class C and the Jersey Bluff type spuds were made from materials that do not flake well. They were made the way some celts were made, by pecking them into shape with a hammerstone, then finishing the surface by grinding and polishing. The Cahokia type B chert spuds were first flaked into shape, then they were ground and polished.

Stone spuds are represented by a wide range of shapes and sizes. It is obvious that the form from which the earliest spuds found on Jersey Bluff sites developed was from celts. The flared bit variety of celt seems to be the pattern from which both Jersey Bluff and Cahokia spuds developed. In fact, some flared bit celts are the same size and shape as some spuds. The only difference between the two is the quality of stone and the degree of surface polish. B.W. Stephens writes in 1954, “It is obvious that the highly developed spatulate specimens are directly associated with the common forms of celts.”

We know that celts were hafted like axes because examples have been found with wooden handles still attached. There are pictographs on stone outcrops that show axes with handles, and there are also stone carved monolithic axes that illustrate them in three-dimensional sculptures. C.B. Moore also reported seeing “marks left by a handle” on at least two Class C spuds from Alabama. Some Jersey Bluff spuds also have a rougher surface in the hafting area for a better grip. It is logical to assume that most spuds were probably hafted onto handles. At least one hafted spud is illustrated in a pictograph at Madden Creek in Washington County, Missouri. It shows a very elaborate handle.

Spuds have been found in a wide range of sizes. One of the largest is known as the “Grove Spud”. It was found by a farmer in 1963 near the Cahokia Mounds site. It is made of compact greenstone and measures 18 ¹ /2 inches long. Moorehead illustrates a small spud measuring only 3 ¹ /8 inches long, and he quotes Brown, ” . . . the largest known example measuring 22 ³ /4 inches in length.” The larger examples are Class A spuds. The smallest example is a class B spud.

Gerard Fowke wrote that “they (spuds) bear no marks of rough usage.” B.W. Stephens writes, concerning Class C spuds, that “Occasionally the blade of some of these axes (he refers to them as ceremonial axes) show a small chip broken from the blade . . . . Many of these chips indicate that the Indian reworked such damage by smoothing out the chip by grinding and polishing.” Many spuds do seem to have been damaged along the bit, and some of them were repaired. A percentage of them were being used in a way that did cause their blade edges to become damaged, but the wear pattern on most spuds is not the same as on tools that were being used for wood working and agriculture.

Many different theories have been suggested for the use of stone spuds, but some of them do not seem very logical. Moorehead relates some of the accounts Dr. Joseph Jones took from different people. One suggestion was that they were used in agriculture, ” … the flat head being employed as a spade and the round handle for making small holes in the earth for the deposit of Indian corn.” Another suggestion is that ” … they were used to strip bark from trees.”

Some of the more logical explanations for the use of spuds fall into two categories. They are most often described as ceremonial or display axes that were never used for anything except ritual events. Another explanation, at least for some of them, is that they were used as weapons. Class B spuds are especially comparable in size and weight to battleaxes from northern Europe. Dr.Joseph Jones is quoted, early in the last century, as saying, “It’s possible that they (spuds) may have been used . . . as warlike weapons, since it would be easy to cleave or fracture the human skull with a single blow from one of these stone implements.”

More than likely, spuds were used for a number of different purposes. Some of the lesser quality spud-like objects that Class C might be hard to differentiate between a flared bit celt and a true spud, were probably used as utilitarian tools. Others, especially the very large and delicate Class A examples, were probably ritual objects used as display items, or were special offerings to the dead, much like Hopewell Ross blades and other exotic burial items. Still others may have been used in the same way European battleaxes or metal trade axes were used—as weapons. Very small examples, between three and four inches, may have been worn like jewelry or used as toys.

Whatever anyone thinks or believes about spuds, one thing is certain—they must have been important to the Late Woodland and Mississippian people that made and used them. They took special care to select the best color and quality of stone. The highly developed, artistic shapes and polished surfaces indicate that these items were made to impress people. Well, over a thousand years later, they are still impressing people!

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Long-Stemmed Spuds

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 19:44:00 GMT

Toney Aid, West Plains, Missouri

Take an ungrooved celt, polish it, stretch it (up to two feet long), flare the bit slightly and what have you got? A long-stemmed spud! For many years archaeologists for reasons of clarity have wished that the spud might be renamed “elongated celts” or “sociotechnic axe form,” but the common name of “spud” persists, named for a type of spade used to dig potatoes. Early archaeologists thought the spud was some type of digging tool. Clarence B. Moore (Moore 1903) was one of the first to describe it as an unusual form of celt, not an implement meant for digging. Very few long-stemmed spuds have chips or show any evidence of wear on their bits which would indicate use in digging or chopping.

Archaeologists now recognize that spuds are ritual axes used in Mississippian society as political or religious symbols during ritual ceremonies. James B. Griffin, writing about spuds found at Spiro (Griffin 1952), stated, “Polished, long handled stone spuds are commonly found in sites where other artifacts indicate a connection to the Middle Mississippian Southern Cult. The spud has never been found as a part of any Hopewell culture at any site. It is a clear time marker for the post-Hopewell Mississippi levels.” Since that time the spud has been recognized by several writers as one of the symbols used in the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. James A. Brown, in his most recent study of Spiro (Brown 1996), says, “Although sociotechnic weapons are too delicate or too cumbersome for use they are neither ‘useless’ or merely ‘decorative.’ We can attribute to them great importance as social and moral symbols due to their capacity to evoke the power to make them possible.” J.V. Knight calls them “sacra,” suggesting artifacts that are charged with supernatural meaning in the context of ritual activity or display (Knight 1986: Emerson 1996).

Spuds have been found in at least ten states. They are usually associated with Mississippian burials dating before about 1350AD. The majority of them are made from greenstone, a material found mainly in the Tennessee-Cumberland river drainage areas. Perino and others have stated that these implements were most likely manufactured there and traded to other locations (Perino 1964). They have been found in Florida, as far west as Spiro, and as far north as the American Bottoms that surround Cahokia.

How were spuds used in ceremonies? There is ample evidence that they were hafted, much as common axes, but with more elaborate handles. Spuds found at Spiro and by Moore in Arkansas, as well as two examples discussed following, all show stains on their polls that indicate they once had handles. A portion of an engraved conch shell found at Spiro (Phillips and Born 1980: Plate 204A) shows a hafted spud in the belt of a dancing bird man. This spud is hafted in a handle similar to the woodpecker handles found on copper celts end of the celt entering the back of the head of a woodpecker and coming out of the mouth, like a tongue between the open beak of the bird. A spud that size in an elaborate carved wooden handle would have been very impressive.

A Tale of Two Spuds

John Sutter (1856-1941) was an early collector of artifacts from the American Bottoms area across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. He lived in Edwardsville, Illinois, where he was the editor of the local newspaper and later a real-estate and insurance salesman. Sutter collected a large assortment of artifacts from the American Bottoms. According to his daughter-in-law, he “acquired most of his collection from the Thomas T. Ramey family.” The Ramey family owned the land Monks Mound stands on at Cahokia from 1868 through July of 1925. Emerson, in an article

on this spud and an associated pipe (Emerson, 1996), notes, “While Sutter did not record provenience on these items…and it is possible he limited his collection to the general American Bottoms locality…and this raises the interesting possibility that the spud…may have been recovered from the Cahokia site.” Four spuds are known to have come from the American bottoms. Perino reported two from the central area of the Cahokia site, while Pauketat wrote about one more from the Soucy Cemetery in the present-day village of Cahokia (Pauketat, 1983). After Sutter’s death the majority of his collection was donated to the Madison County Historical Museum. A few of his most important items, including the spud and pipe, were kept by the family and later dispersed.

Another spud found in Arkansas a few years before the Sutter piece, the Thibault Spud, also has an interesting story. The Thibault spud was found by J. K. Thibault in the mounds on his property prior to 1883. In that year, Edward Palmer, working for the Mound Exploration Division of the Smithsonian’s Bureau of Ethnology, was in Arkansas surveying mounds and collecting artifacts (Jeter, 1990). During his travels Palmer visited J. K. Thibault at his home along the Arkansas River, southeast of Little Rock in Pulaski County. In Palmer’s journal he records that during the visit Thibault donated fourteen fine specimens of pottery and four crania from his diggings in the mounds on his property. “The gentleman presented me with several specimens for the National Museum. He has some rare painted specimens of pottery and some with curious inlaid ornamentations. He has also some curiously shaped specimens of pottery and some pipes, shell beads, the finest ever seen by me, and a curious paddle shaped implement made of slate.” (Jeter, 285-6). Although Palmer wanted the paddle-shaped implement, Thibault declined to give it up and kept it in his private collection. Later it passed to one of his daughters, who married F. T. Gibson of Little Rock. The Thibault Spud remained in the Gibson family for a hundred years.

Both the Sutter and Thibault spuds are interesting examples of Mississippian ceremonial artifacts. They are two more pieces to fit in the puzzle of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, helping us to understand a little more of that culture.

Silhouettes of some of the more famous spuds from top down: spud from Spiro Mound in LeFlore County, Oklahoma; The “Grove Spud,” from St. Clair County, Illinois, the Sutter spud from the American Bottoms in Illinois; the Spiro Mounds spud from LaFore County, Oklahoma; the Soucy Cemetery Site spud, from St. Clair County, Illinois; and the Thibault Spud from Pulaski County, Arkansas. Graphic by Roy Hathcock.

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Michigan Archaic Stemmed Lanceolates

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 19:43:00 GMT

by Todd Walterspaugh, Galesburg, Michigan

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.56, No.4, pg.200

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.2, pg.94

This group of Stemmed Lanceolates were recovered in the Central Michigan area of Montcalm County near the town of Entrican. All are made from Greywacke Chert which was the commonly used Lithic for this type in Michigan. For reference the pre-form blade in the center measure 8 1/4″.

The Eastern Stemmed Lanceolte is considered to be the Eastern form of the Scottsbluff point made by the Cody Complex of the Western United States. The size ranges from medium to large with a broad stem. Not to be confused with Late Archaic Adena points which were also made from this material, these Stemmed Lanceolates always have a heavily ground stem and are knapped in horizontal to oblique parallel fashion. Most are thin and of high quality. A similar version of the type out of the Ohio Valley region is the Stringtown which is an Eared version of the type.

Greywacke Chert has a semi-porcelaneous texture and comes in a wide variety of colors from tan to brown and bluish green to light blue. A natural forming material which is found as chunks and blocks eroding from it’s matrix in streams and gravel beds. Surprizingly there is an absence of Fossils in this Lithic as most materials from the Great Lakes Region have some form of Fossil content. Greywacke is the Geological name for metamorphosed sandstone and many collectors call this material Argillite which is a similar form of sandstone.

Greywacke Chert was predominantly utilized by Native Americans during the Early to Late Archaic time periods. Commonly seen in use for Stemmed Lanceolates and heavily used by the Adena culture, Greywacke Chert was a largely distributed material and was used by Native Americans in all of Michigan’s lower peninsula including as far away as northeastern Indiana northward into northwestern Ohio and southwestern Ontario, Canada.”Used by Permission of the Author”
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A Large Hopewell Copper Celt

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 19:36:00 GMT

by Billy Ford, Spencerville, Ohio

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.56, No.4, pg.200

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.3, pg.134

More than eighty years ago, Henry Shetrone excavated the famous Seip Mound in Bainbridge, Ohio. This huge mound, measuring 240 feet long, 130 feet wide and 30 feet high, was one of the largest mounds built by the Hopewell people. It was at the center of an semi-circular earthen enclosure.

Henry Shetrone led the team organized by The Ohio Historical Society. The excavations went on from 1925 until 1928, uncovering literally hundreds of artifacts. Some of these amazing artifacts can be seen today at The Hopewell Cultural National Historic Site. However, one piece remained in private hands after the excavations.

In 1926, during the excavations, a trench in the center of the mound suddenly collapsed. Two of the workers were trapped within the trench. Feverishly the other workers attempted to free them, and they were transported to the hospital.

One of them, Florence S. Barrett, had very serious injuries. It was feared she would not live. Luck was on her side, and though she lived with pain the rest of her life, the paralysis the doctors feared did not occur.

Henry Shetrone visited her at the hospital. Feeling terribly sorry for the pain she was enduring, he presented her with several artifacts from the mound, including a wonderful copper axe.

Through the years, though she remained interested in archaeology, she never fully recovered from her injuries. The axe and other artifacts she collected were eventually sold at auction, with this axe being acquired by MaxShipley. It changed hands though the years and eventually ended up with its present owner, who acquired it too at an auction.

Interestingly, Florence Barrett was also a photographer, and several of her photographs were used in Shetrone’s book on the excavations.

Above: Both sides of the Hopewell copper celt from Seip Mound. It is 5 3/8 inches long, 2’/2 inches wide at the bit and just over 3/8 of an inch thick. Seip Mound is in Ross County, Ohio.”Used by Permission of the Author”
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A TAPERED CELT FROM MICHIGAN

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 19:35:00 GMT

Douglas A. Whitcomb, Wolverine, Michigan

It was 1952, and I was in second grade when I saw my first Indian artifact. We were studying the local Indians and a classmate brought in the artifact for the class to see. Her older brother had found it a few years earlier along the banks of Crockery Creek in our hometown of Ravenna in Muskegon County, Michigan. I do not recall that anyone, including the teacher, knew what the artifact actually was or what its use might have been, but we could all tell that it had been made by a prehistoric man.

The following year we had the same teacher and again had a unit on Michigan’s earliest inhabitants, the Indians. By this time, my interest in Indian artifacts had grown very strong. My father encouraged this and showed me a round tobacco tin full of arrowheads that my grandfather had found on his farm in Allegan County, Michigan.

Again my classmate brought in the Indian stone. I, of course, wanted to start my own collection, or more likely, I just wanted to be able to hold it and look at it anytime I wanted to. I only had two dollars and wondered if that would be enough to entice her or her brother to part with the artifact. After 47 years, I still remember the conversation like it was yesterday. As we left the classroom at the end of the day, there was a moment in the hall when we were somewhat alone. I said to her, “You know that Indian stone?” She never gave me a chance to offer my two dollars; she just answered, “Yeah, do you want it?” I was stunned and stammered out, “Yes.” At that, she handed it over to me, and I walked home in a daze.

Robert N. Converse in his book Ohio Stone Tools offers a perfect description of this artifact. He calls it a tapered celt and describes it as “usually long and oval in center cross-section. The bits are sharpened equally from both sides. There are no angular facets on the balance of the piece, all surfaces being smoothly rounded. Classic examples are scarce.” With regards to size and materials used, he states, “Most tend to be fairly large–7 or 8 inches in length–and are made from heavy, dense stone of high quality. Collections from Seip Mound, the Harness Mound, and the original Hopewell works in the Ohio State Museum include this celt form” (Converse 1973).

The particular celt that I obtained as a youngster is 9 3/4 inches long and 3 inches at its widest point which is about 3 inches from the bit. It is made from a fine-grained hardstone material that is a dark bluish-gray in color. Judging from where it was found, a creek bank, and the few small prehistoric nicks on the bit, I believe that it had been used perhaps near the area it was found for some woodworking endeavor. Then it was either left there on purpose or lost by its maker.

Crockery Creek is a tributary of the Grand River. The location where the celt was found is almost equidistant between the Grand and Muskegon River Valleys, and both areas were occupied when the Hopewell culture was flourishing during the Middle Woodland period. some 2000 years ago (Quimby 1960 and Fitting 1970).

REFERENCES

Converse, Robert N.

1973, Ohio Stone Tools, The Archaeological Society of Ohio.

Fitting, James E.

1970, The Archaeology of Michigan. The Natural History Press, Garden City, New York.

Quimby, George I.

1960, Indian Life in the Upper Great Lakes.

The University of Michigan Press, Chicago, Illinois.

Article used by permission from Douglas A. Whitcomb, Author

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The Talladega Cache of Celts

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 19:35:00 GMT

by Lamar Wilson

Dadeville, Alabama

The celts shown here (Fig. 1) are a cache found by Gordon Faulkner in February of 1984 while on a fishing trip with his father and brother. They were fishing the Coosa River in Talladega County, Alabama. The county line is in the middle of the river between Shelby and Talladega counties, in this area of the river.

The went to the bank to eat lunch, and Gordon noticed something sticking out of the water. He waded out to see what it was, and found a celt sticking out of the mud. He then started digging in the mud and discovered an old tree stump. Under it he uncovered to his amazement, more celts, bringing the total to six celts. After lunch, he decided to try his luck further, and waded back out to the stump. After doing some digging in the mud, he found one more celt.

I was recently able to acquire the celts from Gordon and add them to my collection. I have had a lot of favorable comments on them when I have shown them at artifact shows. I showed them to Dr. John Cottier at a meeting of the east Alabama Archaeological Society, and he said I should have them documented.

of their possessions with them. This remarkable cache weighs a total of 15.914 pounds. If one views the picture (Fig 1.), starting from the 3 O’clock position and going clockwise: the 11 inch celt weighs in at 5.15 pounds; the 7 1/8 celt is 1.105 pounds; and the next 7 1/8 inch celt is 1.59 pounds. After it is a 6 1/8 inch celt with a sharpened bit on the left end and weighing in at 0.11 pounds. This celt shows the most polishing. Following it is a 9 ¼ inch round celt weighing 4.25 pounds followed by a flat 9 ¼ inch celt that is 1.109 pounds.

This celt shows polishing on one side with notches having been chipped into both sides. It is thought it might have been a stick mounted battle

axe? The final 8 ¾ inch celt weighs 2.6 pounds. All of the larger celts show usedamage on one or both ends.

The original finder, Gordon, who is my cousin, is now confined to a nursing home in Virginia Beach, Virginia. His father Gordon and brother Glenn, who

were both on the original fishing trip when these were found, are sadly, now deceased.

Used with permission from Lamar Wilson, Author

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Two Keokuk Axes from Illinois

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 19:34:00 GMT

by Mike Wayland, San Jose, Illinois

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.2, pg.68

Hunting has always been good in our area. Many years ago my father-in-law, Justus Roberts, was an avid surface hunter. He hunted two or three sites in southern Henderson County, Illinois. Two of his favorite finds were the two undamaged and fine Keokuk axes shown in Figures 1 through 4.

The near axe in the photographs is made from a yellow and black speckled. bannerstone type hardstone. It appears to be a wirey granite material. The axe has been resharpened. It will stand up on its pole end, which is kind of unusual because of its narrow slab style. It is slightly ridged and has two flutes. Interestingly, there are two studs, or feet, opposite the handle side. Weighing one pound four ounces and measuring five inches in length, it was found close to Lomax, Illinois. It has no farm implement damage.

The far axe is made from a black and yellow speckled hardstone and has a full polish. It has one flute on the handle side. It measures just over five inches in length and weighs two pounds.

Southern Henderson County, Illinois, is the apex of the Keokuk type axe territory. It must have been thrilling for my father-in-law to find these. He passed away in 1969.

Two very interesting Middle Archaic side notched Benton Points, both made from quartz. The top point measures 3 Y2 inches in length and was found in Putnam County, Tennessee by Vestal Buckner. He traded the point to the present owner for a pocket knife. The bottom point is from Jackson County, Tennessee and measures 4 3/8 inches in length. Quartz is is a very rare and unusual material for a point, since is very difficult for the ancient flint knapper to utilize. These points have a curve their shape, the result of being knocked off a ball of quartz.

A cache of five Middle Archaic Buck Creek points found in Trigg County, Kentucky in 2008. The longest measures 2 ³ /4 inches in length.”Used by Permission of the Author”
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Do Not Judge the Axe Maker Until You Know the Rock Type

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 19:33:00 GMT

by David A. Easterla, Ph.D., Maryville, Missouri

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.56, No.4, pg.200

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.2, pg.82

Recently the author obtained an axe that appeared to be very crudely made. However, upon closer examination, the situation was the opposite. This fascinating % groove axe is complete and undamaged, yet it has the roughest surface that this writer has ever seen in handling thousands of axes (see photos). The axe has almost perfect morphology and symmetry, yet it would undoubtedly be a reject to most top grade, hard-core collectors.

The rock type of the axe is a metamorphic granite gneiss, which is very rare for axe making, and certainly new to this writer. As observed in the photos below, the blackish mineral is hornblende (6 hardness) and is very rough and sharp and protrudes from the axe surface considerably. The light colored minerals are feldspars (5 ‘/2 hardness) which are slightly softer and do not protrude from the axe surface.

This axe (% groove) is Archaic and thousands of years old. Obviously, over such a long period of time, the differential chemical makeup and hardness of the minerals composing the rock of this axe have become quite evident through the weathering process involving oxidation, acidification, leaching, dissolving, etc. Although unknown, the substrate material in which this axe was buried certainly involved elements of serious weathering consequences. Although unknown and unproven, based upon the symmetry, color, and morphology of the axe, this author strongly suspects that when first made, this axe was not only a beautifully colored black and white (or pink) lined (layered) axe but also possessed a very smooth and polished surface that the maker took considerable pride. Thus, this axe has become one of the writer’s favorite, since it not only hints of the original maker’s skills, but also shows the beauty of “Mother Nature’s” weathering and aging over thousands of years!

The axe has beautiful patina and is six inches long. It was found by James Rogers on 7 June 2009 on a sloping edge of Brushy Creek, approximately three miles south of Cameron, Clinton County, Missouri.

Side view and bottom edge view of a rare metamorphic granit gneiss. A groove axe.”Used by Permission of the Author”
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A Cache of Two Iowa Slant (Wide, Square) Groove Axes

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 19:33:00 GMT

by David A. Easterla, Ph.D., Maryville, Missouri

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.56, No.4, pg.200

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.2, pg.71

During May, and sometime in the 1960’s, Mr. Carl Garrett was plowing a cornfield on a sloping hilltop (near the top) about ‘A mile from the North Raccoon River (south side), approximately two miles west of Jefferson, Greene County, Iowa, when he plowed out together (cache), two, almost identical Iowa slant (wide, square) groove axes (Figs. 1, 2, 3 and 4). The sloping hilltop was not a campsite as searching by Mr. Garrett revealed no other artifacts, chips, etc.

These two almost identical Archaic axes (6 and 61/4 inches total length) had been slightly used (obvious angled “chop marks”), have good patina, and are made of Marfic-like igneous rock of obvious glacial origin. One has a slight median ridge in the groove (of unknown function). In all probability these two axes were buried together by the same Native American, and undoubtedly manufactured by the same individual.

Iowa slant groove axes are very stylish, rare, and unique and have a very small and limited distribution, being found primarily in southwest, central, and south central Iowa. To this author’s knowledge, this is the first published report of this axe style being found in a cache. Although we will never know the story of these two axes being buried together, obviously some Native American(s?) had great pride in these axes and possessed great skills and talent in creating them.”Used by Permission of the Author”
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The Southeastern Monolithic Axe

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 19:32:00 GMT

The Southeastern Monolithic Axe

Tim Brawner, Dothan, Alabama

The apex of the Woodland Period sparked the development of the great chiefdoms of the Mississippian. During this period the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex emerged as a major Mississippian complex. This complex appeared chronologically late, Middle to Late Mississippian, and existed throughout the southeast, extending from the Gulf Coast to Oklahoma and as far north as the Great Lakes. Although the complex appears widespread, the primary cultural centers were Spiro, along the Arkansas River in Le Flore County, Oklahoma; Moundville, along the Black Warrior river in Hale County, Alabama; and Etowah, along the Etowah River in Bartow County, Georgia. The heart of the complex appears to be Spiro. Fifty-two percent of the ceremonial manifestations occur at all three of these ceremonial centers, and 83% of the materials occur at either Spiro and Moundville, or Spiro and Etowah.

Among the rarer ceremonial objects associated with this complex are the monolithic axes; less than 25 are reported from the central southern portion of the United States. Monolithic axes are a highly specialized representation of the hafted celt, carved from a single piece of stone, highly polished and exhibiting little to no use or wear. Most specimens have a raised or expanding conical extension at the butt of the handle, containing an eyelet which runs parallel with the blade or celt. The top of the handle often tapers to an edge or hooks toward the poll end of the celt (Foreman and Fundaburk, 1957: pg 39-44, plate 90).

Examples of these unique artifacts are reported from the following areas and represent the known axes identified with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. Undoubtedly others exist; however, this compilation represents the majority of these known artifacts. It does not represent any chronology or geographic division.

Axe #1 – Figure 1A, Photo #1

The earliest reported monolithic axe was recovered by Dr. Joseph Jones in 1868/1869 from the East Tennessee Mounds. This axe was recovered from a mound on the eastern bank of the Cumberland River near Nashville, Tennessee. This example is 13 3/8 inches long; 5 3/4 inch celt length, and is made of a green chloritic material or greenstone. The mound was about 10 feet high, 100 feet in diameter, and contained a sacrificial altar surrounded by a circle of stone coffins. This axe was recovered from a male/female burial, under the skull of the male individual. The burial was located on the southern slope of the mound near the altar. The upper end of the handle tapers to a square, with three incised grooves carved on each side extending about half way down toward the celt. This axe is curated at the Museum of the American Indian; Heye Foundation, New York, New York; catalog number MAI/HF: 7775. (Saville, 1916: pg 4; Brehm and Smothermon, 1989: pg 15-19)

Axe #2 – Figure 1B, Photo #2

Another specimen was recovered in the late 1800’s, from the Calvary mound in northeastern Mississippi County, Arkansas. This example is 14.41 inches long, made of a medium polished olive-green diorite with damage to the bit of the celt. Several sources state the length as 13 3/4, while others state the length as 11 3/4; however, museum records indicate the length as 14.41 inches (36.6 centimeters). This axe was donated to the Smithsonian in 1897 by Mr. G. F. Morris and is curated at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; catalog number 197830. (Saville, 1916: pg 3)

Axe #3 – Figure 1C

Another specimen was recovered in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s by Charles S. Mason near Jonesboro, in northeastern Washington County, Tennessee. All but one reference report the discovery of this axe from Jonesboro in Polk County; however, no town by that name exists in Polk County. Museum records place the location of discovery in Washington County. This example is 12 1/4 inches long and is made of a hard greenstone. This axe is curated at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York; catalog number 20.0-6571. (Saville, 1916: pg 3; Brehm and Smothermon, 1989: pg 22-23; personal communications, American Museum of Natural History)

Axe #4 – Figure 1D

Another axe is in the possession of the Tennessee State Museum, Tennessee Historical Society, Nashville, Tennessee; catalog number 4.206. This example is 11 inches long; 6 inch celt length, and made of a greenish, banded, slate-like material or greenstone. This axe is heavily damaged, presumably, by the previous owner. This axe was first displayed in the 1920’s, so its discovery was prior to this time. Nothing else is known about this axe’s history or provenience, and only one writer mades reference to this example. (Brehm and Smothermon, 1989: pg 23-25)

Axe #5 – Figure 1E, Photo #3

Another specimen was found in July of 1936 during WPA salvage excavations conducted by the University of Tennessee. This example was recovered from a group burial in the upper horizons of a Dallas Component mound at the Hixon Site in Hamilton County, Tennessee; site 1Ha3. The Hixon Site is located along the western bank of the Tennessee River, approximately 20 miles up stream from the Hiwassee Island Site; site 40Mg31. This example is 10.708 inches long; 5.351 inch celt length, and made of a dark grey, slate-like material. This axe is curated at the Frank H. McClung Museum, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee; catalog number 307/1Ha3. (Foreman and Fundaburk, 1957: pg 46, plate 89 & 90; Lewis and Kneberg, 1941: Figure 26, map 2; Brehmand Smothermon, 1989: pg 25-26; personal communications, McClung Museum)

Axe #6 – Figure 1F, Photo #4

Another specimen is curated at the Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut; accession 2876, number 3701. The exact location of discovery is unknown; however, the workmanship and style is indicative of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex and it’s assumed to be from the Tennessee region. This example was broken into three pieces but measures 11 7/8 inches long; 5 inch celt length, and is made of a greenish metamorphosed material, either steatite or chlorotized porphyry. A sacrificed human figure is carved on each side of the upper end of the handle; the head is bent backward and resting on the poll end of the celt with the arms and legs draping down the handle. (Saville, 1916: pg 5, Waring, 1968: pg 82-86; Brehm and Smothermon, 1989: pg 20-22; personal communications, Peabody Museum of Natural History)

Axe #7

Several sources made reference to a monolithic axe being recovered in the early 1860’s from a burial mound in York District, South Carolina. Reference to this axe first appears in Charles C. Jones’s 1873, Antiquities of the Southern Indians; but no other details or history was given by any of these sources. (Saville, 1916: 3, Waring, 1968: 82-86)

Axe #8 – Figure 1G

Another specimen is reported from near Willsboro in Essex County, New York. Museum records indicate the axe was purchased in 1930, but no background information was included. This axe is curated at the Museum of the American Indian; Heye Foundation, New York, New York; catalog number MAUHF: 17/6294. (Waring, 1968: pg 82-86; personal cummunications, Museum of the American Indian; Heye Foundation)

Axe #9 – Figure 1H

The latest reported monolithic axe was found by Raymond L. Weatherly in April of 1968, along a tributary creek of the Cumberland River, east of Nashville, Tennessee. This example, the smallest reported axe, measures 9 inches long, 4 1/2 inch celt length. and is made of crreenstxme This

axe was found after a stone coffin was opened by plowing, exposing a male/female red ocher burial. Three limestone slabs covered a 36 by 60 inch, black slate stone coffin. Several other artifacts were recovered from this burial, including five shell-tempered ceramic vessels; five large shell beads, from the throat area of the female; one large worked piece of hematite; and a portion of a large chipped flint blade. Sometime later, farming activities exposed a cluster of 7 to 8 stone coffins, with the above burial located near the center of the cluster. As of this date, this axe is in the private collection of J. Clements Caldwell, Danville, Kentucky. (Brehm and Smothermon, 1989: pg 26-35; personal communications, J. Clements Caldwell)

Six monolithic axes are known to exist from Spiro, located along the Arkansas River in Le Flore County, Oklahoma. All of these examples were recovered from a log tomb in Craig Mound, also known as the Great Temple Mound; site 34Lf40. These axes were recovered between 1933 and 1935 by the Pocola Mining Company, a small group of individuals who excavated the mounds prior to excavations by the University of Oklahoma. Most of these axes were encrusted with a heavy rust-colored iron deposit or patina. (Personal communications, University of Oklahoma)

Axes #10 & 11 – Figures 1I & 1J

Two specimens were recovered which represent garfish effigies, carved in basrelief. The upper end of the handle tapers to a squared ‘point’ where a row, or jaw of exaggerated, interlocking teeth tapers downward to the top of the celt. The first gar effigy axe is 14 inches long, with a 6 1/2 inch celt. A circle, representing the eye, is carved on both sides of this axe. The second gar effigy axe is 13 1/4 inches long, with a 6 1/2 inch celt. Hints of eyes exist on this axe, but are very faint and almost undetectable. Both axes are curated at the Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma; catalog numbers 6125.18911 and 6125.1781, respectively.

Axe #12 – Figure 1K

The third specimen measures 13 3/4 inches with 6 3/8 inch celt length, and is a fine example of the classic Moundville-Etowah type axe. This axe is curated at the Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma; catalog number 6125.18910. (Waring, 1968: pg 82-86, personal communications, Gil-crease Museum)

Axe #13

The fourth specimen measures 11 3/4 inches, with a 5 7/8 inch celt. This axe is of the MoundvilleEtowah type and is in a very poor state of preservation. Only one writer makes reference to this example, and it was last reported in the private collection of Calude U. Stone. (Brehm and Smothermon, 1989: pg 48)

Axe #14 – Figure 1L, photo #5

The fifth specimen is a greenstone axe measuring 11 3/4 inches, and although well finished, shows some tool marks This axe is curated at the Museum of the American Indian; Heye Foundation, New York, New York; catalog number MAI/ HF: 20/7103. (Waring, 1968: pg 82-86; Brehm and Smothermon, 1989: pg 48)

Axe #15

A fragment of a sixth axe was also reported recovered from Spiro, but no other details were given. (Missouri Arch: 46 & 180) Two monolithic axes are known to exist from the area surrounding Moundville, located along the Black Warrior River in Halefftiscaloosa Counties of Alabama; site 1111500.

Axe #16 – Figure IM, photo #6

The first specimen was recovered from a field in the early 1900’s by plowing near one of the larger mounds at Moundville in Hale County, Alabama. This example is 11.6 inches long and is made of a highly polished greenstone or amphibolite. The upper end of the handle curves or hooks backward toward the poll end of the celt. This axe is one of the finest examples of the MoundvilleEtowah type axe and is curated at the Museum of the American Indian; Heye Foundation, New York, New York; catalog number MAI/HF: 17/891. (Saville, 1916: pg 4; Foreman and Fundaburk, 1957: plate 90)

Axe #17

Approximately one-third of another specimen was recovered from a field about 7 miles north of Moundville near Fosters in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. The 5 – 5 1/2 inch fragment made of a metamorphosed schist represents the upper handle of the axe, extending to just below the celt. The poll end of the celt is complete while the bit end of the celt is broken where the celt and the handle meet. A human face is intricately carved in bas-relief on the upper end of the handle, facing the poll end of the celt. A turban is portrayed on the head with the forehead sloping downward toward a heavy brow ridge. The eyes are ellipitcal, with a flat nose and flaring nostrils. The lips are pronounced, with the mouth open and the tongue partially protruding. A tunic is worn beginning under the neck and extends to below the ears. This fragment probably represents one of the most elaborately carved axes and was last reported in the private collection of James Willard Dorrah, Buhl, Alabama. (Miller, 1958: 182-183)

Six monolithic axes are known to exist from the area surrounding Etowah, located along the Etowah River in Bartow County, Georgia; site 9Brl. All of these axes were recovered from Bartow County, except one example from Cherokee County.

Axes #18 & 19 – Figures IN & 10

Two specimens were recovered from Mound C at Etowah. The first axe was recovered from burial 50, near the base of Mound C in a stone coffin grave. This example is 121/2 inches long, is made of a highly polished blue-grey limestone and was recovered by Warren K. Moorehead during excavations conducted at Etowah in the 1930’s. This axe was once in the possession of Philips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, but has since disappeared. (Moorehead, 1932: pg 81-82, 100; personal communications, Philips Academy). The second example was recovered by Lewis H. Larson, Jr., during excavations conducted at Etowah in the mid-1950’s. This example is 17 inches long and is made of a medium polished greenstone. This axe was recovered from the pelvis region of an “eagle warrior” burial and is curated at the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Etowah Indian Mounds State Historic Site, Cartersville, Georgia; catalog number 442. (Foreman and Fundaburk, 1957: plate 90; Waring, 1968: pg 82-86; Brehm and Smothermon, 1989: pg 45; personal communications, Etowah Mounds, Museum)

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A South Carolina Southern Raised Ridge Axe

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 19:32:00 GMT

by Billy Abee, Union, South Carolina

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.56, No.4, pg.200

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.2, pg.100

This report is a recording of one of the finest and rarest axe type found in South Carolina, A large Southern Raised Ridge Axe. Description, size, lithic material, and history of the discovery are given.

Stone axes have long been considered one the major characteristic artifact types of the Archaic Period. We know that there are hundreds of thousands of stone axes that have been found in North America consisting of about a dozen basic styles. Stone axes are an invaluable tool to the archaeologist interpreting the lives of the American Indian in their daily life; however, most of the research done in regards to stone axes has been done by amateurs and collectors, and not by professional archaeologists. Regrettably, not much can be said concerning the specific aspects of any cultural identification other than that the Southern Raised Ridge Axe dates to the Archaic Period, which puts these Indians in the categorical group of hunters and gatherers.

In the beginning every American Indian probably manufactured his own axe; however, as his material culture advanced in some areas, there can be little doubt that men of greater skills and patience (probably elderly men) specialized in the manufacturing of axes and other necessities and traded them to others for food, furs, and other tools.

The three-quarter axe dates to the late Archaic Period, from about 3,000 BC to the time of Christ, while the full groove axe dates from about 6.000 BC to 3,000 BC. The sites that produce this type of axe vary in function from very large base settlements to small hunting and transient camps. Frequently, all that remains today of these archaic sites are scattered fire —broken rocks, projectile points, scrapers, knives, axes, atlatl weights (bannerstones), and sherds from steatite vessels. Very few axes have been found in controlled excavations, for most have been found as surface finds in plowed fields.

One of the most important aspects of stone axe studies is the identification of the different lithic material that were used in their manufacture, and locating the potential sources of the material. The most common materials are quartz diorite, different type of granite, and greenstone.

At top: An extremely large, well made Southern Raised Ridge axe from Union County, South Carolina. It is 9 inches long, 6 ¹ inches wide, 2 ¹ /4 inches thick and weighs 6 pounds, 2 ounces. Material is a fine grained granite.

The manufacturing process of groove axes is that the Indian would look in local riverbeds for a natural stone a little larger than needed to produce an axe. He then would pick and hammer the basic shape he desired. Then he would form the bit end and ground a groove where he needed it to be to balance the axe when hafted. Last he would ground the axe smooth then polish it to suit his personal taste.

The Southern Raised Ridge Axe type is one of the most stylized of the many thousands of axes found east of the Appalachian Mountains and has a limited distribution along the foothills in Tennessee, southeastern Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

The raised ridge around both sides of the groove testifies to the fact that the original block of stone from which these axes were made from was at least as wide and as thick as the raised ridges indicate. This demonstrates how much pecking and grinding was needed to reduce the width and thickness of the blade while leaving the raised ridges intact. This type of stone reduction greatly increased the time and labor necessary to manufacture an axe of the style.

The Southern Raised Ridge Axes will vary in size from six to about ten inches in length, with about seven to eight inches being average. All examples will have a well defined deep hafting groove sporting two distinctive ridges around the circum-ference of the axe. The axe will always be full groove and may or may not show heavy use. The butt or poll end is usually square; however, some examples with round or pointed poles have been recorded.

The South Carolina Raised Ridge Axe shown in the accompanying picture was recovered near the Tyger River in Tuckertown, Union County, South Carolina. The axe was found by an African American man plowing a field in the late 1920’s or early 1930’s about 1/4 mile below the Gordon’s Bridge on the Tyger River (between Union and Newberry County, South Carolina). It was sold to Walt Stevens of Union County, South Carolina in 1938. Walt traded a piece of furniture for it. The man whom Walt purchased it from was using it as a doorstop in his two room house, in which he raised twelve children. At Walt’s death in 1978, he willed the axe to Billy Abee of Union County, S.C. Billy was contacted by Walt’s wife three or four days after the passing of Walt to come and pick up the axe.

The axe has been recorded and registered at the Archaeological and Anthropological Department of the University of Carolina, South Carolina, by Tommy C. Charles. This Southern Raised Ridge Axe is the finest one of its type recorded in South Carolina. It is 9 inches in length, 6 1/2 inches wide, 2 1/4 inches thick, and weighs 6 pounds, 2 ounces. Material is slightly weathered fine-grained granite.

This Early Archaic Dalton-Hemphill point was a surface find in Franklin County, Arkansas by Gerald Barbour in the Summer of 2000. It is four inches in length and made from Burlington chert. Collection of Gerald Barbour, Ozark, Arkansas. “Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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World’s Finest Anchor Pendant

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 19:31:00 GMT

Earl C. Townsend, Jr.

In 1978, when I was much younger, I got word that a silver trophy would be awarded at Chillicothe, Ohio, to the collector who brought the finest anchor pendant to the show. Believing that I had the finest anchor pendants in the world, I drove through the snow to a motel near Chillicothe on the Saturday night before the show, carrying the seven anchor pendants shown in the illustrations.

They were the finest out of the Ed Payne and Dr. Bunch collections so I was pretty confident and felt that I had never slept in a better bed. None of my dreams foretold the tragedy the next day would bring. -My beautiful anchor pendants lay in the case in front of the three judges. When I submitted them for the contest they assured me there could be none submitted for their scrutiny that could equal my poorest.

I was decked out in my finest sport coat and wore a necktie so I’d look good when my picture undoubtedly would be taken when I would be presented the beautiful trophy shown in the photograph (with the word pendant misspelled on it). No matter the mispelling – no one would notice as the da77ling beauty of the trophy caught the eyes of its admirers.

Beautiful silver trophy awarded to Garry Mumaw at the 1978 Chillicothe, Ohio show for best Anchor Pendant.

My hearty breakfast of bacon, sausage and eggs was well accepted by my digestive process and I drove to the motel where the great show was beginning to set up.

I had brought along a piece of thick red velvet on which I laid out my prize anchor pendants and the three judges voiced their immediate approval of their admission in the contest as anchor pendants.

After I had laid my anchors out for judgment and display, Earl Mumaw put up for judgment the arrow pendant shown in the picture below. The judges immediately rejected it as not being an anchor pendant. Mr. Mumaw did not accept that immediate rejection and began to explain to the judges that it was “in the class” of anchors.

A superb Arrow-shaped Anchor Pendant awarded the silver trophy as best Anchor Pendant. Collection of Garry Mumaw, Versailles, Ohio.

As other collectors were entering their “anchors” in the contest and laying them out for judging, it was noticeable that Mr. Mumaw was still arguing with the judges about the admissibility of his arrow pendant in the contest. I could hear him contending vociferously – “It’s in the class.” Finally, when he said “It belongs to my little boy, Garry,” the judges relented and agreed to admit it in the contest and Mr. Mumaw laid it out on blue velvet in the most prominent place on the display table, pushing several of my anchors to one side.

I was amused but thought “Oh well, it will please the child.”

But the day was yet young! Mr. Mumaw had just won the right to have the arrow pendant in the contest. Immediately he started a vigorous campaign to win the beautiful trophy. Fat chance, I thought, as I rearranged my seven anchors which Mr. Mumaw had pushed aside. I went on over to my table on which I had laid out some relics for sale and trade.

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Pendants and Gorgets

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 19:30:00 GMT

Bill Koup, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Personal adornment has always been an important pursuit of mankind. The wearing of specialized adornments for the purpose of appearing more attractive or to signify an individual’s rank, wealth or status has been documented with great regularity throughout the entire scope of mans’ history. Even the scarification and tattooing of skin has frequently signified great wealth or high status with particular societies. The use of various forms of jewelry and other decorative embellishments to the body or clothing has long been and probably always will be a popular and significant form of personal expression for nearly all humankind.

The prehistoric peoples of North America were in no way different to other societies in this regard. Literally thousands of artifacts including pendants and gorgets have been recovered that have no apparent use other than to enhance the owner’s personal presence. Some of these artifacts are most certainly akin to jewelry. Many of these items were worn to please the owner and to perhaps impress others of their personal wealth or sexual attractiveness. Certainly, there were many other types of adornments other than pendants and gorgets made and worn for the express purpose of signifying status within their respective societies. Perhaps a good anology would be the various patches and insignias worn by military personnel to designate rank, service and prestige. Another anology would be pins, watches, money clips and other items that have been awarded to individuals for their distinguished service at their place of employment. Even designer clothing with specific logos may be considered late 20th century manifestations of the desire for people to adorn themselves in ways to exhibit wealth or status.

So, are pendants and gorgets merely items of personal adornment worn to impress others or to signify status or wealth? Although no one at this time can be absolutely certain of the specific meaning of pendants and gorgets, chances are pretty good that is exactly what they are. Unlike many other artifact types whose specific purpose and use is highly speculative, pendants and gorgets appear to have been used as items of status, societal affiliation and certainly for personal adornment. Indeed, there is a significant body of documented archaeological evidence illustrating the fact that pendants and gorgets were worn as items to be proudly displayed on the body or clothing of the owner.

Pendants and to a lesser degree gorgets, have been discovered in nearly all areas of North America and among nearly all prehistoric cultures. They have been located in controlled archaeological excavations and on the surface as isolated field finds. Although most areas of North America had at one time supported pendant and gorget producing people, the Midwest and South seem to be centers for the production of these interesting forms.

Indeed, the Glacial Kame, Adena, Hopewell, Ft. Ancient and Mississippian cultures from Ontario,Canada, throughout the Great Lakes areas down the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys all produced various distinctive pendant and gorget forms. So distinctive and stylistically similar are many of these forms that it has become relatively easy to identify them as having been produced by a specific culture. It is even possible to identify some types of gorgets and pendants as being either early, middle or late in the scope of a particular society’s existence.

The Glacial Kame people were prolific gorget makers. Numerous styles and types exist and all are very interesting in their variety. Take for example the magnificent gorget illustrated here and on the cover. Although there are very few Glacial Kame Constricted Center Gorgets found in collections, the type is so distinctive in its shape and immense size as to be immediately recognized for what it is. Giant gorgets of this type are nearly always made from black cannel coal. This particular gorget was found in the early years of this century along with the surrounding flint artifacts in Allen County, Indiana. It is now in the collection of Ken Simper of Hamilton, Indiana. It’s always risky to make this kind of statement, but this cannel coal gorget is certainly one of the largest prehistoric gorgets ever discovered.

Midwestern collectors are capable of culturally typing many other pendant and gorget forms due to the numerous examples that have been found along with well documented, controlled archaeological research. Adena gorgets whether biconcave or quadraconcave or expanded are particularly distinctive and readily identifiable. Pendants are also easy to type culturally due to their distinctive shapes. Whether it is a Woodland Anchor Pendant, Hopewell Shovel Pendant or Mississippian Rattlesnake Gorget, the styles are so distinctive and their numbers are great enough to be recognized as a definite type from a particular culture.

Yes, pendants and gorgets can be found in a multitude of shapes, sizes and materials. The beauty of their forms has long been seen as high artistic expresion from prehistoric Americans. It is hoped that as you study the photographs found within these pages, you too will be impressed with the pleasing designs created by prehistoric Americans. After all, wasn’t impressing their peers with the wearers’ status, wealth or sexuality what they were created for?

Top Photo — Various gorget forms from Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. Left column, top to bottom: Warren Co., Ohio; Licking Co., Ohio; Franklin Co., Indiana; Sandusky Co., Ohio; Medina Co., Ohio. Center column, top to bottom: Hematite gorget, unknown provenience; Adams Co., Indiana; Indiana. Right column, top to bottom: Knox Co., Ohio; Summit Co., Ohio; Tippecanoe Co., Indiana; Fleming Co., Kentucky; Richland Co., Ohio. Lower Photo — A variety of pendant forms and one gorget from Ohio and Indiana. From left to right: Keyhole, Indiana; Pentagonal, Summit Co., Ohio; Anchor, Franklin Co., Ohio; Trapezoidal, Huron Co., Ohio; Anchor, Geauga Co., Ohio; Biconcave, Tuscarawas Co., Ohio; ConcavoConvex Gorget, Hancock Co., Ohio. Collection of Bill Koup, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Article used with permission by Bill Koup, Author

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Gorgets and Pendants, Stone Ornaments

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 19:30:00 GMT

James Tharpe, Plainfield, Indiana

Gorgets at first glance take on a similar appearance in shape to that of the undrilled bar type bannerstone. This form of artifact can vary greatly in form, but yet be so similar that it is possible to pass from one of one type to another of absolutely different type by steps so gradual that the transition seems quite natural. In this attempt to describe a gorget no fixed line can be drawn separating them from pendants on one side and bannerstones on the other. Its derivative may be linked through or with the Late Archaic Glacial Kame Culture. What is known is that the gorget dates from the Late Archaic time and continued through the Mound Builder and Woodland Cultures. Therefore the gorget may have coexisted with some forms of the bannerstone.

The name gorget is derived from the word “gorge” or throat, because many of these artifacts are believed to have been worn at the throat or upon the chest. However early explorers saw the Miami Indians wearing the gorget fastened to the hair. Today some women wear a similar object as a hair decoration. Today they are made of leather with a large hairpin positioned through two holes of the leather piece, while another similar object is made entirely of plastic.

While banded slate was greatly used for gorget manufacturing, a variety of other materials were also used. Examples of these are soapstone, limestone, shell, and granite; however, granite was rarely used.

Besides the flat pendant type of gorget, the long, thick, bar-shaped gorget includes the perforations of two or more drilled holes.

Special notice has been taken in regards to the Adena and Hopewell gorgets for their overall contour and shapely design. Adena forms range from the expanded center, quadriconcave, bi-concave, rectangular and semi-keeled shapes. Hopewell ranges from rectangular, expanded center (a different form of the Adena), and boat-shaped.

The drilling process with the Adena and Hopewell culture is from one side, that being the flat surface. All other forms of the gorget generally are drilled from both sides with a common meeting in the center of the artifact. The drill would be made from flint for its hardness and durability while perforating a given stone. During the drilling process a cone taper shape occurs, finally reaching a point where the stone is breached from one side or the other. Occasionally an unfinished gorget is found without the boring of the holes and those that have only one hole are considered to be pendants. Pendants were worn about the neck much in the same manner as gorgets.

Observed on the edges of some pendants and gorgets are notched cut marks called tally marks. These marks are not regularly placed on the stone and are not thought of being just decorative. It is conjectural that this may have served as a record of events.

The boat-shaped gorget of the Hopewell Culture has a flat surface and a elevated convex upper surface although some types of this group may only have a slight convex. The drilling is from the flat surface until the stone is breached through. Often a slight chamfering of the hole was done from the upper or convex side. These gorgets tapered from an expanded center to either pointed or squared tips.

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Reproduction or Replica?

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:44:00 GMT

How do you identify if an arrowhead is a reproduction or a replica?

Unpublished 12/31/99

What is the difference? A reproduction is a copy of any artifact which simulates or resembles the original, or may vary slightly from it; but to the ordinary person may or may not be recognizable as some form of copy. A replica is an exact duplicate of a real artifact in which the flaking patterns, styles and materials used by ancient people are carefully copied as to size and appearance. Many modern craftsmen make reproductions and replicas. It’s only when the reproduction or replica is altered by some means after completion to make it appear ancient and authentic that the artifact becomes a “fake”.

The making of a “Fake” can go through a series of processes. Subjecting the reproduction to acids, oils, tumbling and/or sandblasting can mask the distinctive appearance of new work. The most common method is to coat the new surface with a deposit of soil or chemical stain. One must always be suspect of high spots that show wear through coatings. Patination is difficult, but not impossible to duplicate. Acid can be used to etch the surface and oil can be used to darken the etched surface.

Knapped surfaces always have retain remnants of the work called hinge flakes which can if ancient; trap dirt and stains beneath those which remain in position. Few artifacts pass through time in a pristine condition. The use and wear from the original maker plus the forces of erosion, shifting of the earth and other physical changes cause varying degrees of wear on prehistoric tools. Artificial wear is different from natural wear. Signs of use such as cutting, scraping, polish, impact and so forth leave their mark on ancient artifact. Reworking the tool by primitive man was a necessary part of everyday life. Most modern reproductions represent items lost without having been in service. Metal tool marks are characteristic on modern works and typically found in notches. Many modern knappers utilize most of the raw material by slabbing with a diamond saw. Flakes removed on flat slabs tend to ripple heavily and terminate by diving into the blade. This is often prevelant on modern fluted reproductions.

The amount of retouch on a tool is a measure of tool use and rejuvenation. Ancient people rarely allowed a tool to be discarded without it having been used and altered many times. That’s the reason that many replicas and reproductions are obvious as they show no sign of use.The perfection of a given artifact is what is most appealing to the majority of investors.

Ancient heat treating of stone was designed to make it workable without harm to its planned function. Improving flaking quality by modern heat treating of stone often produces colors too gaudy to be accepted as genuine.

Heat treating while enhancing the color of the flint material, often make it too glassy, and knapable but weakens the stone beyond necessity.

Alterations sometimes appear out of place like ground off areas or sawn faces. Obviously the maker was careless or in a hurry. A reproduction is simply using eye-catching materials and mere similarities to the original pattern with noticeable discrepancies. Whereas when re-creating the original process, the product becomes a replica. The accuracy of the craftsman in matching the original pattern determines the skill of the knapper.

Artifacts out of place within collections should be a warning to the viewer that something is incorrect. A particular artifact from a given area should look like similar artifacts from that same area in terms of material, shape, style and most importantly; the appearance of age of the artifact. All tools of a given assemblage will age in similar degrees as they have been subject to the same environmental conditions.

Of course, there are instances where due to unusual circumstances, a strange find is possible. For instance, Obsidian is native to the Rockies of the far west; but we know from scientific excavations that the Hopewell culture of the Ohio valley did in fact import some of this material and used it for special ceremonial items. A fanner some 7 miles south of Mound City ; Chillicothe, Ohio found the remnant of a Hopewell core of obsidian in his garden plot next to his house. Located within the adjacent twenty acres there were thirteen “Core” patches (places where cores were knapped for bladelets). Also within these confines were also found remnants of the blade working of crystal quartz. But this is the exception, rather than the rule.

Persons who buy stone artifacts without knowing how to evaluate them are more likely to make a bad investment than a good one for there are far more replicas and reproductions on the market than one might suppose. Many of them are difficult to distinguish from the ancient and genuine originals.

To understand ancient workmanship a systematic approach is perhaps the best way. Although such methodology may seem a pain, it sure beats being a victim. A first consideration should be style or typology. Be cautious with extremely large or small examples of any given type. Ask yourself whether the type is local to the region in which you are collecting. Then pay particular notice to the material from which the item is made. Is the source within reasonable distance of the find. Then scrutinize the usage patterns (few are lost without some use). Are there signs of age that compare with similar pieces and types? Positive answers should be obvious. Consider if the price is appropriate for the quality of the artifact. Let the facts speak for themselves!

“Used by Permission of the Author” and originally published in American Indian Artifacts; Genuine or

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The Authenticators

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:43:00 GMT

Pg.10, Vol.XXXI, No. 4, 1997, “Prehistoric American”

In the beginning there were no fakes. When collecting began to take shape and museums sought examples for displays, the devious ones began in earnest, and so it began.

“assistance detecting frauds”

In 1902, a group headquartered in Dent, Texas and called the “Archeological Society” published a pamphlet which offered assistance in the “detection of frauds” and named spurious dealers.

“local societies started in 1936” 1936 saw the beginning with the founding of the early Illinois Archaeological Society and in 1940 the Greater St.Louis society, now both part of the Central States Archaeological society. Ohio began in 1941, now the largest in the U.S.

“arrival of fraud conunittees” Early on these societies recognized a need to sort out good from bad. Committees were appointed to inspect displays and give opinions. Offenders were admonished, but this did not stem the tide. An avid group of collectors started a new society.

“enter the G.I.R.S. in 1964” Thirteen dedicated collectors founded the Genuine Indian Relic Society with the purpose of educating the public about fakes,and hosting opportunities to view authentic artifacts. The original publication called the “Redskin” is the predecessor of “Prehistoric American” now in its 31st year of publication.

“certificates of authenticity” Gordon Hart, an avid collector introduced the idea in May 1970. This program continued through 1983. It was reinstated in 1987 and continued through 1995.

“private authenticators begin” Today several private authenticators offer service of examination and providing documentation of artifacts and state their opinion as to genuiness.

“papers a must by 2001”

I have often predicted that by the year 2001, “papers”to accompany the transfer of ownership of artifacts will be a must. Many collectors insist on multiple papers on important artifacts. Makes sense to me. Some are now seeking advice prior to finalizing their investment.

I wish that when I started collecting someone would have been available to validate my acquisitions. Best you could hope for was a verbal “I think it looks OK!” Later you find out you bought a fake. Great. Some friends relied exclusively on published material. Many published items are fake. Some rely on auction catalogs. Ever read page 1? ” Where is, as is”!

“credibility is a key ingredient” Who is giving you answers. Paper is only as good as the signatory. What about recognition by peers. What about experience? No credible authenticator will sign a paper with doubt. Credible written opinions are paramount for the next future owner.

“Used by Permission of the Author” and originally published in American Indian Artifacts; Genuine or

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Collecting beginning

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:42:00 GMT

As the early pioneer farmers began to turn the sod and cultivate the fields of rural North America, stone age artifacts of long past civilizations began to emerge from their hiding places. Most were merely looked upon as unusual curiosities and of little worth; some were viewed with amazement and became mantle piece decorations, and a few made their way into china closets and places of repose.

In the beginning, there were no known frauds, reproductions or fakes. But eventually, reproductions of these curiosities began to find their way into private collections, and into public museums and institutions. Very early reproductions were sometimes the work of a neighboring farmer who also wanted an example of these stone age artifacts to show his friends and relatives. Many museums quickly recognized the artistic value of these ancient items, placing them on display for public view. Some institutions were not so fortunate, finding their meager displays did not measure up with the larger and more aggressive institutions. This opened up a market for manufactured replicas of the originals. And as we might suspect, some of those early pioneer replicas found their way into collections of major institutions where they remain today on display as heralded works of ancient art. But, some are not.

Had the business of manufacturing replicas of North America’s ancient past survived only for the purpose of producing museum reproductions; there would be no need to continue this treatise. Museums seldom deaccession their collected material, unless to raise capital for more desirable artifacts. So, after nearly 100 years of collecting stone age items, little worth was attached to those things of stone as most people believed that modern Indians made them. The Twentieth century saw the organization of a scant few collector societies and archaeological groups. Major excavations by early archaeologists provided displays for World Fairs and Centennials; and this peaked the imagination of the masses.

The reproduction of antique and ancient artifacts is not unique to the new world. Ancient Romans reproduced art of their predecessors, Etruscans and Greeks as imitated artworks were highly desirable. The Chinese are well known for imitations of art from previous dynasties. They were manufactured for those who could not afford real antiquities.

Reproduction of North American Prehistoric artifacts did not necessarily have the same theme. In almost every instance the attraction of money strongly overwhelmed any other reason for imitating past artworks. With the majority of the American work force out of work following the financial depression of 1928, many persons sought any means to make a living. Enter the era of Birdstone fakers and repro artists. No other form of prehistoric North American artifact illicited such an impact and produced higher dollars than the enigmatic Birdstones. In Kentucky and Michigan entrepreneurs set up fully mechanized shop fully turning out thousands of replicas. They were exposed in the late 1930’s. One maker was found guilty and fined a $500 for his deceit. That did little to stem the tide. Serious reproduction efforts went almost unnoticed until the 1950’s when spendable income returned to the American public. Enter the age of reproduction Bannerstones, Gorgets, Pendants, Discoidals, Axes and so forth. And on the horizon were spurious pipes and smoking instruments. Many collectors believed that a pipe or two would improve their collection. Bad Pipes slipped into the cabinets of top collectors and museums with the greatest of ease; simply because there were too many different styles and manufacturing techniques to be understood. Unless one is expert, it is easy to be fooled by questionable pipes especially displayed among other genuine artifacts.

The late 1940’s, early 1950’s and then 1960’s saw the advent of major flint reproduction. Called the “Gray Ghosts” because most were manufactured of gray Edwards flint obtained from the Texas plateau. These monstrosities sold by the inch. Most were slabbed with a diamond blade saw, then knapped by pressure flaking using a common drill press. Some collectors recognized the awkwardness of these “too good to be true” replicas, but many collectors fell prey. For the tourist and casual collector, these bargains were enticing and literally thousands of these grotesque replicas found their way into collections. On the heels of the “Gray Ghost” epic; lacey eccentric effigy forms were made. Fish hooks, turtles, thunderbirds, alligators and more became par excellence in almost every antique and gift store throughout this country. The inexpensive price and attractive appearance of these imaginative ideas by modern flint knappers found their way into many collector’s display.

In the late 70’s, archaeological experiments with ancient flint knapping techniques entered the scene. Originally studied for the purpose of reviving an ancient art; these techniques were taught as college courses to help students recognize artifact remnants left by ancient man. Soon some began to experiment, and found it was easier to knap than hold a day to day job. Today, it is estimated that more than 5,000 knappers engage in replicating and reproducing ancient flint tools. Heralded by some archaeologists as a deterrent to illegal looting, many reproductionists have become illegal “fakers” as they produce up to several thousand replicas each year selling them at flea markets, curio stores and through artifact dealers as genuine (especially if their wares are good enough to pass the test of credibility). That’s why this treatise is entitled “Is it real, or reproduction”? By 1980, reproductionists improved their work with more attention to style, finish, size and native material. This is an era when many pipes, bannerstones, bird-stones and other forms were produced by the thousands.

Throughout this work, excerpts from previous writings are introduced where they augment a thought, circumstance or relate to the next subject. Pay particular attention to the date ofth excerpted subject matter (as published). This information has been taken quite literally from various publications; many which are almost antique themselves. Also of particular note is the emphasis on Flint projectiles, Knives, etc. There are millions of artifacts yet to be found in streams, river banks and plowed farm land. All items illustrated in this book were obtained legally by their owners; and may be displayed confidently.

“Used by Permission of the Author” and originally published in American Indian Artifacts; Genuine or

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Perfect Arrowhead Phenomena

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:40:00 GMT

Pg.9, Vol.XXXI No.2,1997 “Prehistoric American”

Perfect means flawless. Phenomena means an unusual, unaccountable, remarkable fact or occurrence. The appearance of thousands of perfect arrowheads in the last 10 years; must certainly be a phenomenon. With 35 years of mainstream collecting, even I was amazed. Bob Overstreet, author of the latest “Arrowhead Identification Price Guide” describes the perfect artifact and I quote:”Grade 10. Perfect in every way, including thinness, flaking, symmetry and form. The best example you would ever expect to see in any given type”. He goes on to say: “this grade is extremely rare, and therefore hardly ever seen,etc.”.

This essay was prompted by a question posed to me by Dr.J. Neal Brown, a highly regarded authority on Southern artifacts and a good friend who asked: “How many Clovis points of any significance have you seen in your 18 years in Georgia?” I remembered four. Then he related to his home state of Mississippi. He could not recall more than a dozen. Then we covered other states such as Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and the Carolinas. All of a sudden, hundreds of perfect points of all types are appearing on the market; Hardins, Clovis, Dovetails, Lost Lakes, Daltons, etc. Some collectors, new to the artifact field since 1990 can boast hundreds of fine perfect points. Where do you suppose these fine points were hiding up until then? The subject of how many fine points appeared in the great Edward Payne collection of the late ’20s and ’30’s were G10’s? Review illustrated many 6,7 and 8’s and a few 9’s. No 10’s! Were the perfect points ignored during these years? I think not.

What prompted the “Perfect Arrowhead Phenomena? Several possibilities. Twenty years ago, several major dealers began buying up slightly damaged major pieces. At the same time there was an upsurge in the practice of flint knapping. More than one old damaged piece was rechipped by experienced knappers and then aged to cover the work. In 1975 I noticed a large Dovetail of flint ridge with a broken base. 30 days later I saw the same piece which was now a perfect Ohio “Fracture Base”. Also many pieces with impact tip fractures are now without blemish.

But the real issue is the number of finely made reproductions which have entered the market. These are the G1 O’s marketed to the young execs and the movers and shakers who want to build a perfect investment portfolio. I guess you know, real pieces are not perfect. Few of today’s new collectors ever picked up a piece of worked flint in a freshly plowed field. Many G10’s don’t have a history that exceeds the past 20 years. Artifacts made by ancient man in North America were made for a specific purpose, primarily a tool for survival. He probably was not trying to impress his friend. Look deeper for authenticity and less for perfection. I think you’ll enjoy the point.

“Used by Permission of the Author” and originally published in American Indian Artifacts; Genuine or

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False patina; an illusion of age

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:40:00 GMT

Pg.31, Vol. XXX, No.1, 1996, “Prehistoric American”

What is patina? Webster’s dictionary(2) says:”the sheen on antique surface produced by use and age”. If that is patina, what is false patina? I would describe it as any attempt by modern man to give a false illusion of use and age. But then if the finish is modern, should it be too difficult to recognize it for what it is? The Chinese have been reproducing and ageing copies of ancient works for centuries; and the closer an item appears to the original, the more valuable it is perceived. However, this is not the case with prehistoric American artifact reproductions.

Nearly everything made by ancient man in North America has been copied and reproduced over the past 150 years. Some of the copies were made to fill voids in museum displays. Some reproductions were made as experiments. Most were made for profit and deceit! Those are the ones we’ll talk about. There were attempts to age copies around 1900, bury them in mounds and dig them up in the presence of a witness.

Because Flint objects have been the most widely reproduced item in the past 30 years, emphasis of ageing methods will be assigned to those items with false patina. Discarded motor oil and grease have always been a favorite ager for flint items, it original use being to cover up damage or rechipping. By soaking in the substance, some dirt and grime will penetrate loose hinge fractures, providing the look of antiquity. Some have been tossed into a wood fire to bake on the coating. Southeastern agers have a ready made supply of materials, the most popular is the loblolly pine needles which are renewed on the forest floor each spring and fall. Being highly acid, a few months buried with the pine needles imparts an unusual stain on rock. Not limited to the south, the use of decaying animal flesh and lime produces a deposit that resembles burial deposit. Modern fertilizers also react with stone and other items quickly.

Often flint collectors look for minute deposits of ferric oxide on surfaces which are a direct result of the object being buried for long periods of time in the soil. In order to satisfy the requirements of buyers, agers will rub the surfaces with mild steel or coarse steel wool, which when oxidized will turn to rust overnight. Some will remove carefully such spots from real artifacts then with a weak solution of elmer’s glue, then redeposit the substance on new items. Old English furniture polish rubbed in and torched with a flame leaves a non removable coating. On new work, thrusting in a bucket of sand removes many loose flakes. Speed polishing with a belt sander works wonders to make a new piece look old and worn. Various acid and lime baths do their part to give a whitish haze over many parts of new flints.Even horse liniment rubbed into the surface gives age. Knowledge is power and don’t forget it!

“Used by Permission of the Author” and originally published in American Indian Artifacts; Genuine or

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Artifact or Artifake?

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:39:00 GMT

How do you know if your Indian artifact or arrowhead is real?

Pg.186,Vol.31, No.4 ,1984, “Central States Archaeological Journal”

My past experiences as Editor-inchief of both the Redskin and Artifacts magazines provided an excellent opportunity to personally examine thousands of genuine, ancient artifacts in private and museum collections. I also examined thousands of reproductions.

Let explained the newly coined word “artifake”. This is my terminology for the current wave of incredible reproductions. Compared to most old fraudulent reproductions made during the past one hundred and fifty years, today’s “artifakes” are difficult to detect. Old time fakes, antique by modern standards often were absurdities because the fakers relied on pictures in books or pen and ink drawings that sometimes were merely figments of the artist’s imagination.

Today’s new wave of serious reproductionists are a different breed. Since the 1940’s, a tremendous amount of valuable information & documentation has been published on American Indian artifacts. These valuable resources have provided the inspiration for many modern “artifakes”. The clever fraud makers invest in genuine artifacts to copy and duplicate.

Some are known to have visited leading museums, producing three-dimensional drawings and blueprints of choice specimens. Then the masters of deceit seek out fresh raw material to use when making these precise “artifakes”. Let me share a few examples. “Great” pipes of the ancient Southern cultures were made with brownish green Meigs county steatite from Tennessee or blackish green steatite found in Virginia and North Carolina. To replicate modern copies of these expensive artifacts, the described material is again being quarried. Fresh material carves easily and takes a nice polish. The “artifakers” sometimes include a few damage marks. The final step in manufacturing is chemical immersion-bath which produces a false patination. Now the product is ready for market and will be offered at a price slightly lower than current values attributed to a genuine article. The price and availability makes the “artifake” very appealing to bargain hunters and unsuspecting novices.

Advancing collectors have always been attracted to pipes and consider them very desirable. Perhaps the most famous replication is the Hopewell Effigy pipe. It is a fact that only several hundred genuine Hopewell effigy types have ever been discovered. Compared to the number of comparable fakes that exist, chances of finding the real thing must be one of five hundred! Until about ten years ago, these reproductions were easy to spot, because the fakers made too many mistakes. The new wave of super fakes are exact duplicates and are made of the proper raw material. Most Hopewell pipes come from a burial association and often feature encrustations and calcium deposits on the surface. Modern ingenuity has overcome the problem. Newly made “artifakes” are taken to a crematorium and calcined with human remains. The fact that some of the modern replicas may crack or explode when subjected to such intense heat poses no problem. Broken fakes are sold as “ceremonially killed” artifacts at slightly reduced prices.

Pipes are not alone in the new wave of reproductions. Fifty years ago, the market was flooded with fake bird-stones. Most are obviously incorrect. Others were good enough to pass and still grace cabinets of major collections. Thirty years ago, some super bannerstones migrated from upper Illinois. Since the supers were too good to sell, why not try the alternate approach. Enter the age of the “ugly bannerstones”. Covered with ferric oxide and artificially weathered to look old, these sold best, and almost any artifact meeting will feature a few of these monstrosities. You’ll often notice everyone looking in the hole to determine authenticity. What good is looking at the hole when the material and shape is wrong?

Until recent times, pendants and gorgets were never reproduced in quantity. Today, choice artifacts may bring $500 or more, which gives the fakers plenty of good reasons for “artifaking.” Don’t overlook the reworks and recent finished examples fresh off the buffer!

No artifact escapes reproduction. Highly desirable shell masks and gorgets are acid etched from patterns by using the photo resist method. The non-design area is protected from etching by a wax covering, Then an application of decaying animal flesh will add the final touch to suggest burial association. Believe me, it’s quite convincing!

Discoidals are a current modern favorite of the reproductionist. Attractively patterned granites, quartzites, etc. are lathed by competent stone workers. After shaping, the product is judiciously pecked in a few spots and hand polished to provide a subtle “old time” finish. Lowly celts are a prime target with any suitable river pebble being ground on lapidarist green wheels, polished with carborundum paper, then buried in manure piles to acquire a well-aged appearance. Grooved stone axes could be purchased for $50 to $100 until recently. Today, choice specimens are priced from $250 to $1000 and more. “Artifakers” have noticed the trend and plenty of well-made duplicates are now available. Miniature jack-hammers are used to work the stone to the desired shape, then the form is sand-blasted to give a nice weathered look. Central Ohio has become a distribution center for some of the aforementioned “artifakes”.

I have purposely left my comments about flint artifakes until last. It has been said that for every single ornament, bannerstone, birdstone, pipe, axe or celt ever found, more than 10,000 flint projectiles have been discovered. Yet, flint artifacts are the most popular form of ancient American Indian collectible. Relatively few actual reproductions, except the 7″ to 20″ monsters that have shown up on the scene, Most noticeable in the past time were reworks. Large blades or knives received added notches simply because notched points brought more revenue from dealers. Broken or damaged points were repointed and shaped into perfect specimens. As the sheer number of demanding collectors multiplied, more flint artifacts became perfect.

Enter the age of the professional flint knapper. Some of these people are better at plying their trade than were the ancient flint knappers. Until recently, size was the only major problem. Today, quality raw flint is quarried for such purposes, and with years of experience, modern knappers can turn out anything your heart desires. You can virtually choose the style of point and material of your preference, including Indiana and Kentucky hornstones, Missouri color, Illinois white, Arkansas novaculite, and multicolor Flint Ridge chalcedony. In fact, 20″ plus “Duck River” swords of Dover tan are also readily available if you are willing to share the price. Let me share a typical example of costs. A fine quality St.Charles/Dovetail can be reproduced in a matter of 30 to 60 minutes by a skilled knapper. For 4″ to 5″ specimens, the maker will charge a dealer approximately $100. By the time the dealer adds a markup, this piece will be priced somewhere from $750 to $1000 and sold to an unfortunate collector. A well known family operation will have any type projectile made for you in any quantity for about one third of the price normally charged for ancient and genuine artifacts. The problem of “artifakes” is not limited to spurious dealers and unsuspecting collectors. Many persons have entered the business of buying, selling and trading American Indian artifacts within the last three or four years. The reason is profit and the growing demand by the collector community. Think to yourself, how few of these highly visible people were involved in serious collecting as recent as five years ago? You can’t become an expert in anything, whether it be coins, stamps, firearms or antiques in twenty-four months! Consequently, the new breed of “high rollers” are unwittingly being considered as today’s experts. And the advanced collectors who recently entered the inner sanctum are being taken for a ride. Make no mistake about it, “Artifakes” are big business. Some of the new experts are enjoying earnings of six figures a year.

I feel by now you’re wondering how you can prevent yourself from falling victim to this profitable scheme? I don’t have all the answers but let me offer some valid suggestions. Knowledge is power! By becoming more informed on the subject through good books and published material. I have enjoyed the good fortune of examining tens of thousands of artifacts and “artifakes”. Occasionally, I view items for which I remain undecided. If I can help one person from being wronged by a mistake, this has served its purpose. Thank you.

“Used by Permission of the Author” and originally published in American Indian Artifacts; Genuine or

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Etiquette of a Gentleman Collector

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:32:00 GMT

Pg3, Vol.XXXIV, No.4, 2000, “Prehistoric American”

For 31 years, most of my editorializing has been the subject of Frauds, etc. This is the forty eighth publication I have produced for the GIRS, and I have chosen a subject that I believe is important as our society grows in the 21 century.

Allow me to digress for a moment. The year is 1968. My best friend and hunting partner James Allen Wood offers me an invitation to attend a GIRS meeting in Columbus, Indiana. It is hosted by fine gentlemen collectors: Marion “Horsefly ” Bush, brother Billy Bush and Dr.Marvin Hawes. Guests were permitted to attend only when accompanied by a dues paying member. I had never known an opportunity of attending such an affair. Gray LaDassor of St.Louis was the society president and he ruled with an iron hand. I noticed him advising several dealers with questionable relics to remove them or leave the show!

In the late 60’s the GIRS had two classifications of membership: one a subscribing member who received journals and could attend society meetings, the other classification was termed “active membership.” This required recommendation by two active members and approval by all active members. I was elated to be accepted. Within the year, I was nominated for the office of Secretary by Dr.Stanley Copeland and elected. Over the next thirty two years I was appointed Editor in Chief of the society publication on three occasions and also served three terms as President. Enough digression.

The subject of this editorial should be stated as “What is the difference between acceptable and unacceptable behavior as a collector ?”

A Gentlemen (or Lady) collector would never cheat a fellow collector in a transaction of his or her own making or one orchestrated by a cohort. They never pass on questionable artifacts to another person. Some avoid the “taint” of bad artifact transgressions by engaging a “straw” man to do their dirty work. Does this relieve responsibility? I don’t think so!

Another requisite is to never barge in on another person’s transaction. This behavior is wrong. And there’s the greedy persons who knock the competition then say “come buy from me!” You don’t need to degrade another’s artifacts in order to sell your own!

One problem that deserves serious attention from the directors and officers of any society. That is possibly allowing known dishonest persons to enjoy table space at sanctioned shows. If such activity is obvious, the offenders should be escorted to the door, and if repetitious, barred from future attendance.

At a recent show, several friends noticed a known artifact thief shaking hands with reputable collectors and dealers. No one is so financially destitute that they need to allow persons known for cheating their fellow members. What do you think?

I am concerned about young and novice collector/members. When they observe behavior that is less than ladylike or gentlemanly, what do you suppose they think? The young always emulate the action of elders. Do we want to pass on that type of legacy to generations who succeed us? I think not!

I am committed to the purposes of our societies as much today as I was 31 years ago. Are you willing to stand up for our societies? Thank you.

“Used by Permission of the Author” and originally published in American Indian Artifacts; Genuine or

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Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:31:00 GMT

How can you tell if an arrowhead or Indian artifact is fake or real?

Pg.142, Volume 46, No3,1999, “Central States Archaeological Journal”

Wolves abound everywhere and while you may not readily recognize them, they prey on avocational archaeologists and artifact collectors alike. These wolves have been known for their cunning since their introduction to mankind. Their stealth and ability to survive is why this species has endured. The pack feeds on profit and their ranks are overpopulating the internet.

I am virtually a newcomer to Web browsing, I am amazed at the upstarts with Websites and the crassness of the opportunists. Within the past few days, I have seen the offering of some nine blades for $100,000 with purported documentation and reported COAs. (Certificates of authenticity as it is stated on the net). Now the story that accompanies this offering relates the discovery, yet nobody in the local area has ever heard of these artifacts which have been around for 16 years. Who in their right mind would spend six figures on a group of items on the internet auction, or consider making a bid? Because of the plethora of bad stuff, obvious fakes and skillfully made reproductions, a few good people have joined hands in pledging themselves as sellers of authentic and genuine artifacts.

The obvious is not always obvious, some say they do not know and give you ample opportunity to make a decision. Three day deals don’t cut it no matter how much paper or guarantees accompany the item. Ten to fourteen days is more reasonable.

Do you wonder why I call them wolves? There is an old ancient American method of stalking prey by garbing oneself in a skin of a like kind. Don’t you think you could sneak up on an unsuspecting grazing sheep in you approached wearing one of their coats? I think you could. Once in range, the prey is meal …and that’s what the crooks on the net are doing. They know the browsers are amateurs. Remember last year how the 17 year locusts enjoyed ever piece of greenery. For wolves on the net, its a banquet 7 days a week.

The other problem is one of value. Things on the net often have ridiculous values. At the best show in the country, some points would bring 15 to 25 dollars, the same crude pieces bring 75 to 150 dollars on the Web. And the buyers express exuberance over the fast delivery and the great values. What’s Mr. Web buyer going to be told if he brings these great acquisitions to your show?

Another concern is the new “paper boys”. With the internet, tons of new “authenticators” have set up shop offering services of appraisal, authentication and claim membership in every society from California to New York City. Membership in one of the Central States 13 societies doesn’t mean membership in all of them, or the GIRS, or any other organization.

Most serious is the fact that these credulous COA’s show up on the monitor screen and many are depicting obvious fakes so the new novice buyer gets it two ways! Credibility must be earned, and buying and selling a few points; an expert does not make! A final word of caution, if you think a wolf may be wearing sheep’s clothing, better get yourself a club!

“Used by Permission of the Author” and originally published in American Indian Artifacts; Genuine or

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A preoccupation with Fakes?

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:31:00 GMT

Pg.31,Vol.XXX, No.2, 1996, “Prehistoric American”

I certainly hope not.But the fact remains that Fakes are an ever present problem. Late in 1988, I was politely informed by one of our illustrious members that there was just too much talk about fakes. I took heed and never wrote another article on the subject until 1994. Then my reinspiration came from many experienced and novice collectors who mentioned how much they enjoyed the more than fifty articles on the subject I had authored over the past 25 years. While contemplating this subject, I began to think about the commentary of others who stressed the very same subject. Allow me to share a few excerpts with you.

“Nothing makes the collector so unhappy as to discover he had driven a long way, bargaining carefully, and spent a tidy sum of money only to bring home a fake.” Earl Townsend, Jr.,”Birdstones”, 1959.

“It has been estimated by old-time collectors that about 1/2 of the bird-stones in the hands of collectors today are of questionable origin. It has been estimated also that the percentages of questionable objects among other types may be: Bannerstones, 30 to 40%; diminutive axes, 90%; hematite plummets, 30%; and hardstone plummets, 80%.” Gregory Perim, “Central States Archaeological Journal”, January 1962.

“So many of today’s questionable artifacts are so well made that perfect judgement by the naked eye alone is impossible”. Gray LaDassor, “Central States Archaeological Journal”, No.1, 1965.

“When these objects are recognized by an expert as being fraudulent, the purchaser is sometimes resentful because he knows the piece in question was collected over fifty years go. Because an object is known to have been collected many years ago is no guarantee it is genuine”. Dr.Stanley J. Copeland, “Ohio Archaeologist”, No.1,1969.

“It is not possible for any one person to be skilled or gifted to the extent where he or she can be 100% perfect in recognizing Indian relic slate or stone frauds”. Cameron Parks, “Ohio Archaeologist”, No.2, 1976.

“A reproduction is a fake when offered as a prehistoric implement at a collector’s price”. Scott Haskins, “Ohio Archaeologist”, No.2,1978.

“Years ago, I bought an artifact to be real but later learned the arti fact was fake and the story behind it was a lie”. Marvin Seeley, “Artifacts” Issue No.4, 1984.

“The clever fraud makers invest in genuine artifacts to copy and dupl cate . Some are known to visit muse ums, producing 3-dimensional draw ings and blueprints of choice specimens”. John F .Berner,”Central States Archaeological Journal”, No.4,1984.

“Warning: More than any other collectible field, fake relics, all recently made and aged, are being offered to the public everywhere as genuine prehistoric artifacts”. Robert Overstreet,”Indian Projectile Points price guide”, 1989.

The list of such experts could fill this journal to overflowing as perhaps no singular subject has become so prominent, time after time. Should I have elected not to quote the authors and date; this information could have been written yesterday. No, I don’t think there is too much conversation on the subject of fakes. Sometimes I ask myself why is the proliferation of fakes so intense? I think primarily because so few bring dishonest makers or dealers to justice, probably for two reasons. Possible the fear of slander, and potentially being made a fool of publicly for having paid a “tidy” sum for a newly fashioned rock!

No article could be considered complete without a few expose’s. Currently an upper state Illinois faker who specialized in Ohio pipestone Hopewell pipe reproductions is now replicating famous Dr.Gordon Meuser slate artifacts. The only one’s being marketed are those that appeared in the small auction pictures.

The reason is that these are harder to identify. Each also is adorned with simulated Meuser type writing and date, taken directly from the late Doctor’s original catalog!

This past summer, I attended a knap-in. This is where those who experiment in reproduction of ancient flint types get together to trade raw material, tool technology and finished pieces. Here you could choose from Clovis to Lost Lake or Caddo knives for anywhere from $40 to $75 each, depending on the knapper skill.

Not every faker works with flint. A southern Indiana stone cutter is making good use of the off fall of his trade. Now making one good bannerstone per day, either in hardstone or slate. After finished grinding, each receives shot blasting to simulate pecking and polish, then microwaved to produce age appearing cracks and lines. Isn’t modern technology wonderful? The banners sell for $100 each, spot cash. (checks not accepted).

It used to be tradition that the good southeastern pottery came through a distributor who bought everything that surfaced. Greedy dealers didn’t like the mark-up so they make the pilgrimage to buy direct and save! The modern replicas are unlike anything genuine. The old adage is pay a lot, get the best. Not so, as the only thing for sure today, that you paid a high price. Think about it!

“Used by Permission of the Author” and originally published in American Indian Artifacts; Genuine or

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Local Participation Guarantees Success for Your Artifact Show

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:30:00 GMT

2. If you are new to hosting, I would suggest creating a “run of show” to keep you on track. This is simply some notes for you to carry either digitally or on paper to help you stay on track. Who is setting up tables? When are they being set up? Who is assigning the tables to the vendors? What time is the catering arriving? Who will collect money from vendors and visitors to your event? Who is taking care of trash and table break down after the show? Will you be using an audio system? Test it to make sure it works prior to anyone arriving.

3. Set the objective: Start by determining the purpose of the artifact show event. What message or story do you want to convey to the audience? Is it to educate them on a particular culture or era, or is it to showcase collections of unique and rare artifacts? Will it be educational? Will it be for sales and trade? Or both?

4. Select a venue: Choose a venue that will accommodate the number of vendors you plan to invite to sell/display artifacts and the size of your audience. It is advised to set a date that does not conflict with other area artifact shows. Consider factors such as lighting, security, accessibility, parking, and nearby hotels for dealers and guests when selecting a venue. Reach out to local hotels and see if you can get discounts on blocks of rooms.

5. Define the budget: Determine the budget for the artifact show event. This will help you decide on the number of artifact/relic vendors and display only tables to set up, the venue, marketing and advertising, and other expenses.

Ask vendors to prepay for table space. Plan accordingly. A show with dozens of empty tables due to vendors not showing up looks poorly attended. Getting paid up front helps ensure your vendors and display only attendees will be there.

6. Develop a marketing plan: Develop a marketing plan to promote the artifact show event. This is extremely important. One method of social media is Arrowheads.com free events calendar. However, and this is very important to remember. To reach a local audience send information to local newspapers, radio stations and television stations. Contact boy scout troops, girl scout troops, high schools, colleges, local historical societies and libraries! Ask to have fliers posted on their bulletin boards. Another great idea is to place posters, and banners out in front of the venue to reach local audience. To repeat myself; without local participation all you have is a room full of dealers swapping stories and rocks.

7. Hire staff: if this is to be a multi-day event consider hiring security or try to enlist some volunteer help from trusted fellow collectors.

8. Plan for the opening ceremony: Plan for an opening ceremony that will draw attention and interest to the event. Consider inviting archaeologists, local knowledgeable historian/collectors, or authenticators to speak at an opening ceremony.

9. Coordinate logistics such as loading and unloading zones, transportation, parking, and catering for the event.

10. Evaluate the event: After the event, evaluate its success and areas for improvement. Consider feedback from attendees, staff, and vendors to make improvements for future events.

By advertising locally as mentioned above and following these steps, you can plan a successful artifact event that showcases your hobby and the collections of Native American artifacts that will help recruit, engage, and educate your audience.

For more information, please contact: Matt Dorso

Matt@Arrowheads.com

Matt (aka) Hoss Administrator/Communications Director Arrowheads.com

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How to tell a Fake

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:28:00 GMT

How can you tell if an arrowhead or Indian Artifact is a fake?

Pg.109, Vol.VI, No.4, 1969 “The Redskin”

Fakes come in two kinds, those that are sold; and those that sell them. And sometimes you can’t tell the last kind anything. Experience is the best way to tell a fake from a fine genuine relic, but then not everyone has such experience with the relic in question.

Is there much faking going on? You bet there is and it didn’t start last week either! In fact, it started about 120 years ago when pioneer fanners began collecting those unusual stone items being brought to the surface by tilling the soil. Yes, the minute someone starts to treasure something that is not abundant, someone else will make a copy of the same. Contrary to what some people think “that the fake business has died down, the fake business is bigger and better than ever, its just that the fakes are better made and more people are fooled”!

Right now, south of the border, hand craftsmen are manufacturing to specification reproductions of American Indian relics that would fool 99 out of 100 collectors. They are patterned from genuine relics now in museums or private collections. These reproductions are made by hand from the proper materials mined in this country and artificially aged and believe you me, you just can’t tell at a glance!

Fortunately, the good old fakers always slip up on a seemingly unimportant detail somewhere and this is where the genuine is separated from the fake. So far all you’ve read is about what is happening. The following is common sense judgement on Indian relics; first if you don’t have experience in depth, secure a relic of the same kind and make a comparison, but of course make sure you choose one that has been authenticated and there is no doubt it is a genuine piece. Compare the workmanship, design, shape, material age and weight. Fakes never agree 100% with genuine relics, so somewhere there will be some differences. Don’t be mislead by too perfect a piece; you know that genuine hand made stone relics of the ancient Indian were never truly perfect! History is not totally valid proof either; some of the fakes now on the scene were in collections 50 years or more ago. There are pieces that won’t prove out that had labels back before the 1900’s. Remember that today’s new fakes will be pieces with history some 50 years from now. I sat in on an Indian Relic auction that had been owned by a collector who passed away in his 80’s and the first 18 lots were labeled and sold as Fakes. Some dozen collectors bought and paid good money for these items and not one piece was donated to our(GIRS)fake table. Do you suppose they are starting their own fake collection? Telling a fake isn’t easy, but if we take our time and learn what we are buying, we sure make it tough on the fakers and that’s what it’s all about anyway.

“Used by Permission of the Author” and originally published in American Indian Artifacts; Genuine or

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A never ending supply

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:27:00 GMT

Pg.25, Vol. XXII, No.4, 1988, “Prehistoric Artifacts”

I never cease to be amazed at the crassness of the dishonest purveyor of Fake material. We set up a display of spurious material at the 9th annual Owensboro show and we had a large number of persons who took special interest in the items shown, learning the difference between authentic and reproductions. Some supposedly knowledgeable persons asked if they could buy some of the fakes. Would they have displayed them as fraudulent? Would they have sold them as real? Then of course no is not always a good answer for some. We had a 5″ Dovetail of Gray Hornstone on display that ruined the interest of a Kentucky collector and it was donated to the display. Mid afternoon, someone stole this reproduction while the host back was turned on Saturday afternoon!

This show was also informative to another degree as one of the major Fake dealers visited the display and stated to the public that he and his factory had made and sold many of the more expensive frauds on display. He claimed that 8 full time stone workers were producing goods for the marketplace!

One of the most devious entrapments today is the precise reproduction of well documented artifacts. Often times through death, a collection is removed from the market and put in storage while the estate is probated. Many times the heirs themselves have no knowledge of artifacts.

Then later on the collection is consigned for sale and stored again. Often years pass before the collection is re-examined and sold. I have noted several times that someone produced duplicates of the originals and those were the items that became part of the public sale. These instances allowed for the removal of the original labels and information to be exactly duplicated and placed on the copies. Obviously, because these items are high dollar specimens, the very best reproductionists can be engaged to make very exacting copies. You say I have spent too much time in the sun? What would you say if I told you that several of these items previously resided in my personal collection and I have color photographs to prove my point?

Everything is not always what it seems. Twenty or thirty years ago, I used to visit as many major collectors as I could. Being a novice, I assumed everything in the collection being displayed was genuine authentic artifacts. Oh, how wrong I was! While most of these collectors knew which were good, and which were bad, most shared a common display space in the cabinets. Why? If you showed interest in a particular piece and the owner thought less of it than its neighbor, you could probably take it home for a bargain price. In this way the collection was purged of spurious material and no one recognized the difference. A secret way for some was “Fakes for Sale” never were listed in a catalog!

“Used by Permission of the Author” and originally published in American Indian Artifacts; Genuine or

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The Unique Caddo Seed Jar

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:16:00 GMT

by Jim Maus, Advance, North Carolina

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.56, No.2, pg.82

During the first century AD, the natives of a culture known today as Marksville, were living in the lower Mississippi River Valley. These people made pottery similar to the vessels made by the ancient Hopewell in the contemporary state of Ohio and there probably was some type of interaction between these two assemblages. The Marks-vine people evolved, over the next 800 or so years, into a society we call Coles Creek and who, around AD 900, merged with some other peoples slightly farther north and west. Let us skip ahead a few centuries until the Spanish explorers moved through the region in the 1540’s. They met these more westerly Indians who called themselves Tejas and whose name was later altered and became the word we use today for the state admitted into our Union in 1845 – – – Texas. The early Europeans also encountered, in the current states of Arkansas and Oklahoma, ancients known as Kodahadache, whose name was later anglicized into a moniker most familiar to Indian artifact collectors – – – Caddo

As mentioned above, the Caddo people and their ancestors have made pottery for at least two thousand years and one can assume that during that time, these people thoroughly learned pottery making techniques. Unlike their contemporary neighbors who lived further east and north nearer the Mississippi River, the Caddoans did not make major use of red, black and white clay slip on their vessels nor did they make lots of fish, fowl, animal and human effigy pots. But that does not mean that they were not master potters. They made, perhaps, the most symmetrical and beautiful vessels ever produced in our country during the late prehistoric and early Historic Periods. They made the usual bowls, jars and water bottles but they also embellished the surfaces of many of their creations with intricately incised (applied on green or un-fired vessels) and engraved (applied on the fired vessels), spirals, scrolls, ticks, lines, appliques and punctuates.

By AD 1200, corn was an integral part of the Caddo people’s diet along with squash, beans and various wild plants in addition to deer, rabbit and freshwater fish. The early European explorers noted that the natives in the Caddo homeland hung corn ears from the ceilings in grain storage buildings, as well as their homes, for the purpose of drying the corn kernels. These dried corn seeds would presumably have then been eaten or saved for planting the following year.

And that brings us to the creation one of the rarest Caddo vessel types, the so called seed jar. The term “seed jar” comes from vessel examples seen in Historic Pueblos. These Southwest jars were globular in shape with a small orifice in the top and were used by the Pueblo dwelling Indians for the storage of seeds, according to early European accounts. The small vessel opening allowed a corncob plug to be inserted in the hole for the purpose of keeping insects and rodents from the enclosed seeds. The Caddo seed jars were similarly made with a small vessel opening, normally around one inch or so in diameter, in the incurved top of the vessel. They have been described as being barrel shaped but since the Caddo, before about AD 1540, would have likely never seen a barrel, the most probable model for these jars was the common gourd which was prehistorically grown by the people. Caddo seed jars are quite rare, are thinned walled and symmetrical and most have no surface motifs though some few were incised or engraved, especially around and/or near the vessel mouth opening. Many of these jars were apparently fired using low heat-low oxygen firing methods which produced an outside surface with mottled grey/black/tan fire cloud colorations. Some are short and wide but most are tall and stout with the ratio of height to width being around two to one. A very few have been found with two or four lugs applied to both the vessel base and top, of which there is no logical explanation.

But were these “seed jars” actually used for the storage of seeds? There is no factual evidence to support this theory and the Spaniards did write that corn was saved by hanging the corn ears in buildings. If these vessels were actually used for the storage of corn, the major Caddo crop in the circa AD 1200-1700 time period, it would seem that many more seed jars would have been found than has actually happened. Also to be considered is the high humidity in the Southeast versus the Southwest where it is much drier. If seeds were placed in one of the jars in Caddo country and sealed with a stopper, they would probably sprout or mildew, either of which would render them uneatable. The best guess is that these jars were used for some purpose other than the storage of seeds. As is quite often the case in collecting Indian artifacts, the study of these vessels produces more questions than answers. But it is said that questioning the mysteries of life keeps us young and young at heart. If that is true, we may all become consummate teenagers as we contemplate the mysteries of the American Indians and the unique Caddo non-seed storage jar.”Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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The Pottery Gorgets and Pendants of Tick Island

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:16:00 GMT

by John Baugh, Tampa Florida

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.55, No.3, pg.131

Many of Florida’s early inhabitants lived along the St. Johns River in Volusia County. One of these ancient cultural groups resided on Tick Island during the transitional/St. John’s I period (500 BC — 800 AD), and produced unique pottery gorgets and pendants. I have enjoyed the privilege of collecting them over the last twenty-five years, and have always regarded their raw primal simplicity as their most attractive feature.

The distinctive pottery gorgets and pendants of this area were manufactured of local clay from freshwater sources and fired for hardness under low temperature heat. This unique clay contained natural inclusions of freshwater sponges, which acted to strengthen the objects without additional tempering agents and also produced the associated soft chalky surface commonly referred to as St. John’s Paste. This type of pottery is believed to have evolved from the Late Archaic Orange Pottery, a plant fiber tempered ceramic material found on the earliest ceramic sites here in Florida.

Examples of the Tick Island gorgets most commonly have two holes used for suspen sion, being most often rectangular, and occasionally ovoid or square in shape. Average width is approximately 3″, and about 1 ¹ /2″ tall. Rare examples are punctated or incised, with most being undecorated. The pendants are predominantly round with a single central hole, averaging 2″in diameter, with infrequent examples being diamond shaped.

Each one is a rare treasure of Florida’s past. I have found them to be illusive, and scarcely existent in public or private collections, and have resolved to compile and preserve the specimens that have been placed in my guardianship over the years.

The Tick Island Mound and midden complex was destroyed in the 1960s for commercial purposes. It’s said that portions of the site could be scattered as far south as Palm Beach, the shell having been used to construct many of Florida’s road foundations. Little more than a vast pool of water remains today where a once thriving and vibrant early cultural complex once stood. All is gone except a small quantity of remaining items that include the pottery gorgets and pendants of Tick Island, Florida.”Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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The Prehistoric Peoples of Arkansas

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:15:00 GMT

by Steven R. Cooper

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.55, No.4, pg.174

It is easy to become confused with all the different terms involving Arkansas archaeology. Like the rest of the Mid-West, the state has a long pre-history that spans the Paleo through Mississippian time periods. Unlike some other areas, there are a lot of sites where there is evidence of contact with the early explorers. This “Proto-Historic” period is very interesting, producing such items as teapot shaped pottery and Spanish motifs.

It is during the Mississippian period that you see the emergence of high quality pottery skills. While many sites are considered strictly Mississippian, there is also the rise of the Quapaw and Caddo, both very region specific and producing certain styles of pottery and other artifacts.

Mississippian sites that were located along the Mississippi and the St. Francis River drainage basins produced a vast amount of the pottery associated with Arkansas. Many of the styles are named after sites, some in Arkansas and some in Mississippi. Styles such as “Barton Incised” or “Rhodes Incised” are named after sites where initially these styles were found (the Barton Ranch Site and the Rhodes Place Site, both in Crittenden County). The pottery produced in this area is ninety percent gray-ware, the other vessels being pair4ed solid or multicolored.

Gray-ware finishes are of two varieties, Neely’s Ferry Plain and Bell Plain (again. named after the Neely’s Ferry Site in Cross County and the Bell Place Site in Mississippi County). Neely’s Ferry Plain ( Figure 1 ) has a finish that shows the mussel shell on the surface. This is the result of utilizing larger, variable sized shell for tempering. Bell Plain (Figure 2) utilized very small crushed shell for tempering. Originally it was thought that the fine surface of these vessels was the result of being dipped in a liquid paste just before firing, so that a slip covered the entire vessel. However, recent research has shown that these vessels were fired at a relatively low temperature, resulting in the core of the vessel maintaining a lower temperature. This causes the vessel’s surface to have a different color and texture. Many times after firing, Bell plain vessels were burnished to a high polish utilizing a polishing stone. Many features were added to these vessels, such as utilizing instruments to jab the pottery to create a design (punctation), creating additional features with clay strips to the vessel (appliqué), engraving on the vessel after firing or incising the vessel before firing. Incising could be executed when the paste was wet, soft, firm and dried, or even after firing in some styles.

A Mississippian Hooded Corn God Effigy
height: 10″ width 8″
Lee County, Arkansas

In addition, certain vessels were painted (Figure 3) usually with a red or white paint. Painted vessels have a slip of pigment coloring applied to their surface.

As mentioned previously, various sites produced distinctive forms. Nearly always named after the site of origin, some common forms are Barton Incised, Rhodes Incised, Parkin Punctated, Kent Incised, Fortune Noded, Walls Engraved, Avenue Polychrome and Vernon Paul Appliqué to name a few.

In addition to these Mississippian Culture Sites, there are also two other distinctive Arkansas groups, the Caddo and the Quapaw.

The Caddo occupied the four corners area of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana. The approximate center of the prehistoric Caddo is near the Big Bend of the Red River. The most important site showing the transition of the earlier Coles Creek Culture into Caddoan is the Crenshaw site, which lies on the Big Bend of the Red River, near the present day town of Texarkana. There is recent evidence that the people who occupied Spiro Mound were Caddo. When Desoto and his expedition visited the area in 1541, they found the Caddo villages were spread out and not surrounded by stockades in contrast to the fortified villages on the Mississippi.

The Caddo were master pottery makers. Their pottery too, is identified with the site and manufacturing earmarks (Figures 4 and 5). Styles of Caddo pottery include Bailey Engraved, Dunkin Incised, Harleton Appliqued, Handy Engraved and Keno Trailed. There are perhaps fifty or more styles. The Caddo continued to thrive well into the historic period, and their descendents moved to Oklahoma forming the modern Caddo Nation after the Civil War.

The Quapaw too have descendents that live in Oklahoma. They traded extensively with the French during historic times. They occupied sites along the Arkansas River as well as the Mississippi River. Their pottery is very visual (Figure 7), with their painted and effigy pieces being some of the most artistic creations ever made. They occupied some of the same areas as the Mississippians, and again their styles are named in association with the sites and stylizations. Avenue Polychrome, Old Town Red and Winterville Incised are just a few of the styles they are known for.

Obviously, these various cultures produced much more than pottery. The Caddo had some of the finest lithic skills of any prehistoric culture. Some of their miniature arrowheads, such as the Agee and Hayes styles are truly amazing (Figure 8). The Mississippians and the Quapaw too, created works of shell, stone and flint (Figure 6). In viewing the artistic output of these cultures, it is quite amazing to see how very talented, advanced and complex their prehistoric societies must have been.

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The Founding of the Arkansas Society

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:15:00 GMT

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.55, No.4, pg.173

The first organizational meeting of the Arkansas Society was on October 12th 1958 at the home of H.R.McPherson near Fayetteville Arkansas. Along with H.R. McPherson, Dr. David L. Hamer was also instrumental in the early development of the society. Originally, it was known as the Northwest Arkansas Archaeological Society. Dr. Hamer became the first President of the society and Quinton Barker of Elm Springs, the first Vice President.

The first article of Volume 6 #1 was by H.R.McPherson, entitled “Affiliation”. Arkansas was proud to join, and 50 years later it is stronger than ever. It should be noted that at the end of McPherson’s article, a wonderful head-pot from Cross County Arkansas was shown. A lot of time has passed since that was printed. The one thing that hasn’t changed is the passion of archaeology and quest for a knowledge of the past that lays beneath our feet.

Shown on this page are just a few of the fine artifacts from Arkansas that have been shown in the Journal over the years.

“Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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Full Bodied Fulton Aspect Caddo Effigy Vessels

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:14:00 GMT

by Steven R. Cooper

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.55, No.4, pg.236

The full bodied effigy vessels produced by the Caddo rank amongst the most rare and most visually appealing of all prehistoric pottery. The jar walls are usually quite thin, and very few have survived intact. They were produced during what is termed the Fulton Aspect of Caddo archaeology, which runs from approximately A.D.1200-1700.

The Caddo were a clan based society, and the various animals may be representations of clans. Most are water bottles with an opening in the top. The bears are the most lifelike of all of the animals represented. Turtles often appear faceless, with just tiny marks for eyes. Frogs, fish and birds are other creatures utilized. Quite a few of these vessels appear to be abstract creations with odd combinations of animals, man and mythological creatures. Some have rattles.

Closely associated with these effigy vessels are Fulton Aspect Rattle Bowls and Noded Bowls. These very odd creations usually have four main nodes which are hollow and contain pebbles, producing a loud rattling sound when shaken. Some have the addition of tiny nodes stuck on the surface and other forms of appliqué. Many times the bowls have remnants of red ocre in them, suggesting a possible ceremonial use.

Finally, there are the Fulton Aspect Effigy Bowls, which are similar to the Mississippian cat-Serpents. Usually some sort of bird is attached to one side of the bowl, and opposite are attached figurines of animals and human beings, standing or sitting on platforms. Rarely human heads are seen, unlike many Mississippian bowls.

These unusual and artful creations represent the finest level of Caddoan achievement in the ceramic arts.

Above are two Caddo Fulton Aspect Bear Effigy Vessels. Both were found together in the 1960’s near Little Rock, Arkansas. These both have extremely thin jar walls. They are both in exceptional condition, with well-defined facial features and a very similar appearance. It is very possible the same artisan made them.

“Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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Patched Pots

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:14:00 GMT

by Jim Cherry, Fayetteville, Arkansas

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.55, No.4, pg.224

For over 25 years, I have researched head pots by visiting many museums as well as private collections. As a by-product of this research, I have had the opportunity to examine many thousands of pottery vessels. Interestingly, I have come across three examples of prehistoric “patching.” To my knowledge, this has not been previously reported.

Fig 1.

On rare occasions bowls or jars are found that were prehistorically repaired by drilling holes on both sides of a crack. The crack was then presumably tied together. Repair of these three vessels is different because they show the application of clay paste to the damaged area.

The first example ( figures 1 and 2 ) is from Greenbriar Bottoms, 3IN1, Independence County, Arkansas. The pictured area of patching is darker than the surrounding pottery. This area appears to have flaked off during the initial firing process. A piece of the flake was then placed in the central portion of the patch, and the vessel re-fired. This patch is does not involve the inside surface of the pot.

Fig 2.

A Fortune Noded jar ( figure 3 ) from the Big Eddy site, 3 SF9, in Saint Francis County had a hole occur through one side during manufacturing. This was repaired by placement of a patch that involves the inner and outer surfaces of the pot. The nodes were not reshaped, which makes the patch all the more obvious.

The third example is a human effigy vessel from the Roseland site, 3MS55, Mississippi after the drying phase of manufacture. When lifted for firing, the bottom stuck to whatever the pot was resting on, and a large area pulled off. Similar to the previous two examples, the patch is smooth, and the right lower leg on the bottom of the vessel was not remodeled.

Fig 3.

“Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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The Way Things Used To Be

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:13:00 GMT

by Steven R. Cooper

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.55, No.4, pg.250

For more than one hundred and fifty years, collectors, amateur archaeologists, opportunists and the impoverished dug and removed artifacts from prehistoric graves in Arkansas. Although today referred to as looting and/or grave robbing, it was a legal practice up until 1991. Many ancient sites, including some large ones, were and/are still in private hands. These sites presented an opportunity to find the past and remove it from the earth.

The State Legislature of Arkansas passed Act 753 known as the Grave protection Act in 1991. While it addressed other issues, such as ownership of human remains, its main focus was to forbid any digging of prehistoric gravesites on private land.

The pictures presented in this article are of legal digging prior to the enactment of this law. The author, nor the Central States Archaeological Societies, suggests that any of these activities should be practiced today. They are now illegal, and those who knowingly violate the law should be prosecuted.

The author reviewed the pictures, the dates on the back of them, and has made all necessary inquires to make sure none of the activities pictured in this brief story are after the passage of the law or show illegal activity.

After the Civil War, there arose a large interest in the prehistoric peoples of the United States. As more land was cultivated and populated, more and more artifacts started turning up. The collecting of such things became a pastime for many people. Curio shops became a fixture in many towns offering exotic pottery, stone items and arrowheads. For many of the artifacts, demand far exceeded supply. Pipes, huge flints and other rare items have never existed in large supply. This was the beginning of the creation of fakes and reproductions.

However, there were ample amounts of pottery. The prehistoric Indians were superb potters, and buried literally thousands of pots across the state of Arkansas and other areas.

Where there is demand, there can also be profit. While many collected because of a passion for it, there were those who recognized there was money to be found in the ground. These became the first diggers, who then sold their finds to the Curio shops and collectors back in the Eastern United States. Museums, including the Smithsonian and Harvard, sent expeditions to obtain artifacts for their collections. Many of these expeditions utilized information from the local dealers and collectors to find the sites. They removed huge amounts of objects, especially pottery. And yet there still seemed to be no dwindling of the supply.

Above: A blonde/orange colored vessel in situ and after excavation by Larry Garvin at the Knappenberger Site in Mississippi County, Arkansas on March 9′”, 1990. The vessel measures 8 inches tall and 9 ‘/2 inches wide.

Above: A group of six vessels found along with a discoidal on November 15′”, 1990 at the Austin Site in Mississippi County, Arkansas. The duck effigy was covering the human effigy vessel.

Below: Two vessels found together in March 1988 by Ron Stamm at the Crosskno Site, Mississippi County, Arkansas. The large red on buff bottle is almost 10 inches tall.

In the 1920’s, a huge site was discovered in the Carden Bottoms in Central Arkansas. At that time, crops were failing and the farmers needed money. A literal “gold rush” for prehistoric pottery came about. Wagonloads were sold to dealers, collectors and museums. Many of the finds were spectacular effigy pots, and strangely, Caddo, Mississippian and even Quapaw pottery were found at this site.

The 1930’s saw the arrival of the Great Depression. It was the direct cause of the creation of the Pocola Mining Company; known for it’s “looting” of the Spiro Mounds Site in neighboring Oklahoma. These “diggers” were desperate to create wealth in a time of poverty. Collectors and museums quickly bought up the artifacts they uncovered.

The 1950’s and 1960’s saw a rise in prosperity in the United States. Along with it came leisure time, and the collecting of artifacts became a passion for many. Many collectors have told me that it was weekend sport to go hunting and digging for artifacts. In Arkansas, large groups would go to known sites. Armed with probes, shovels and assorted tools, pottery and other artifacts were removed by the thousands.

One collector related to me that there were perhaps twenty groups in a field at one time. At sunset, the farmer would drive in his Cadillac up to each group and collect five dollars from each. They were expected to fill back in the spots they had dug. I’ve heard stories where someone would spend a week and find only two pots. Other times twenty pots might be uncovered in one day.

While there are horror stories where some literally threw the bones in graves across the fields, the majority of collectors held respect for these ancient individuals. Most never disturbed or removed any bones.

While the stone artifacts survived well in the ground, pottery was never a sure thing. Many have probe holes. Many were what was known as “sack” pots, a whole pot that was removed from the ground in pieces. These needed restoration to make them whole again. Probably less than 10% of all pottery removed from the ground was undamaged and without need for repair.

One can discuss the archaeological pros and cons of these practices. Today, these individuals are referred to by such terms as pothunters and looters. But it must be kept in mind that what they were doing was not illegal at the time. It was openly done, and there was very little protest from the archaeological community. Many landowners encouraged the practice as a way to achieve extra income off of their land.

Above: Two Mississippian vessels found together at the Austin Site in Mississippi County by Larry Garvin on March 8th, 1991. On March 10th Governor Bill Clinton signed the Grave Protection Act and ended activities like this forever. The Cat serpent measures 9 ¹ /2 inches from nose to tail.

All this changed in the late 1980’s, with the rise of the American Indian Movement, and a fear that our archeological past might be destroyed. Modern methods are more concerned with the understanding of the past instead of just acquiring fine artifacts. With more than 100 years of prehistoric prospecting, there are thousands of artifacts in museums and private hands. The 1991 Grave Protection Act insured that the remaining archaeological resources would stay as they have been, buried and not to be disturbed. Modern methods will expand our understanding of the past beyond the artifact. But the artifacts of these ancient peoples still excite our imaginations and maintain public interest in the peoples of the past. The future of archaeology rests in the hands of public and private funding. If there is interest there will be progress. Hopefully the 21′ century will enhance our understanding of these ancient peoples and help us to know those who lived here for thousands of years.

“Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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Ceremonial Figurines on Pottery Bottles

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:13:00 GMT

by Jim Cherry, Fayetteville, Arkansas

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.55, No.4, pg.270

These two bottles are from the Notgrass site, 3MS15, in Mississippi County. Both were found to have incised figures on their surfaces.

The first image (pictured above left and right) is of a mythological creature, probably an “Uktena.” They are a creature of the underworld, having horns, claws, and a snake-like tongue. The image is incised upside down, but when drinking from the vessel, the creature would appear right side up. The right image above is an enhanced view of the engraving images of two dancers. The first has a head consisting of a corn stalk, and he has no hands nor feet. The second has the head of a bird with a hooked beak and a three pronged forked eye symbol. Lines are draped down from the arms suggesting wings, and he has bird-like clawed feet. This is a classic image of “Bird-man” as described by Phillips and Brown in Pre- Columbian Shell Engravings from the Craig Mound at Spiro, Oklahoma. Figure 182 from shell cup 303 from Spiro has a very similar image of Bird-man.

This ceramic bottle was found many years ago at the Wildy site, 3MS 10, in Mississippi County, Arkansas. It stands 7 ³ /4 inches in height, and features two incised ceremonial figures. They appear very similar and both have been decapitated. Additionally, the hands and feet are missing. Currently in the collection of Dub Lyerly, Ash Flat, Arkansas.

“Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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Pottery Restoration Made Easy

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:12:00 GMT

Matt Rowe, Oklahoma

Ancient ceramics are a wonderful way to add spice to any artifact display. While stone items are still the number one collectible, no collection is complete without pottery. Earthenware vessels used to be an easily acquired commodity, available for a moderate price. Due to strict laws, availability, and increasing market demand, they are becoming more difficult to obtain. Complete vessels are next to impossible to find. The majority come broken and glued, or in pieces ready for you to assemble, commonly referred to as “sack pots.” Sack pots are my personal favorite, but I’m a glutton for punishment. If you have a bit of free time on your hands and don’t mind some hair-tugging frustration, then I think you’ll love them also. They are the ultimate ancient 3D jigsaw puzzle. Complete bowls can be incredibly expensive and sometimes sack pots are the only viable alternative. Most items are much more eye appealing as well as valuable restored, than in their former broken state.

Restoration has been practiced for a very long time, commercially and for the hobbyist. It seems that for any item of antiquity that can be broken, battered, or abused, there’s someone out there who can fix it—furniture, vehicles, guns, arrowheads, pottery, your grandpa’s toupee. Some professional restoration can lead into big bucks, and if you’re as cheap as I am, the budget won’t allow it. With this guide, I’m going to attempt to give you a better understanding of what goes into the pottery restoration process, and give you the confidence to try it for yourselves.

Items Required:

Durham’s Rock Hard Water Putty (available at hardware store or lumberyard)

Acrylic Paints (no neon colors, only flat “earthy” colors)

Knife or carving tools (X-acto works well) Paper Towels

Sandpaper

Water Soluble Glue (superglue isn’t water soluble, use Elmer’s or similar)

Paintbrush (medium and small)

Masking tape

Sack Pot Preparation & Assembly

WASH ALL PIECES — A light rinsing will work on most pottery, but every now and then you’ll run into pieces that really have some caked up crud. Find a large container, fill it with water and then put your pottery shards in. Very gently clean both faces of the shards by rubbing lightly with your fingers. Do not get carried away in the cleaning process, or force removal of deposits, as this could risk damaging the pottery. I recommend doing all of this from a large plastic container. If doing it from sink and running water, you risk small pieces breaking loose and losing them forever. Aboriginal painted vessels are oil based, so this method also works for me with no adverse affects, ‘knocking on simulated wood.’ Edge treatment is the most important part of the cleaning process, to insure a tight fit when gluing. I have found that a soft bristled toothbrush will remove the dirt from the nooks and crannies of the edges, without being overly aggressive. Once all pieces have been thoroughly cleaned, lay them aside on paper towels to air dry.

Assembly

It is best to start out with the bottom pieces of the bowl, or you’ll undoubtedly end up “painting yourself into a corner.” First off, put down the glue. You heard me, put it down…no, seriously, put it down. I know you’re anxious to play with it, but you’ll just end up gluing your finger to your ear, so put it down. You need to have a general idea of where most pieces go before you attempt to semi-permanently attach them. This is where masking tape comes in. You can use masking tape to sort of loosely hold shards together while you figure out where they all go. Start off by finding bottom pieces that will allow any other shards to fit into them from any direction. Watching the bowl take form is the most time consuming and rewarding process.

Once you have taped together the shards and are confident that you are ready to attach them more permanently, remove tape and arrange the pieces in order on paper towels. If there are numerous shards, it may be easier for you to attach a small piece of tape to each one, numbering them individually, so you can remember their location. OK, now you can pick up the glue. Again, starting with the bottom pieces, start assembly. A thin line of glue in the center of the pottery edge is preferred. Excess glue is unsightly, so don’t get carried away with it. The less glue, the better, if any squeezes out of the seams, then you are using too much. Rock the piece you are gluing back and forth to seat it firmly, you want as tight a fit as possible. Be sure shards are in alignment before you let them dry, the slightest flaw will affect the overall appearance.

Helpful Tips

1. When dealing with super small pieces, it’s sometimes better to squeeze out glue in a small container, and apply it with Q-tip or small paintbrush.

2. NEVER glue together shards in which you will have to insert a smaller piece into later.

3. Do not attempt pottery assembly under the influence of alcohol or drugs, your olla could end up looking like a ladle.

Restoration

OK, so you’ve assembled your first vessel, congrats! Now you have a choice of leaving it as broken and glued, or to further it by patching the cracks and holes. There are different degrees of restoration. Some are simply patched, the holes filled without paint added. This gives a nice semblance of completion to the vessel, without “covering up” the patchwork. Others take it a step further and match the natural look, making it very difficult to tell that restoration has ever been done. It is simply a matter of personal choice.

Patching

Plaster of Paris, bondo, spackling compound, just about anything you can think of has been used for pottery restoration. I prefer to use Durham’s Rock Hard Water Putty. It is cheap, fast, sets up hard, doesn’t shrink, and carves with ease. Find a disposable container lying around and dump about half a cup of the powdery Durham’s in it. Stir and mix in water until it becomes about the consistency of a thick pancake batter. The mixture will be light tan. Powder tempera paint can be added if a darker base color is desired, but go lightly, too much can affect the hardening process. Remember to work somewhat quickly, as the mixture sets up in just a few minutes. Using your fingers, apply the mixture to the areas to be filled. For cracks, use minimal amounts at a time, squeezing it into the seams and smoothing as you go. It is better to leave just a little above the surface of the pottery, than below. Durham’s doesn’t shrink, and the excess is easily carved off. For larger areas or holes, press the putty firmly against the broken inside edges first so it will adhere better. Build up the area slowly, until the holes are completely filled. It will stiffen up in just a few minutes, but more mixture can be made quickly if necessary.

Carving

Durham’s reaches peak hardness in about 8-10 hours. The first hour is the best time to do your main form rendering. A curved blade knife works well for initial sculpting. Using the flat blade, scrape the putty off, matching the contour of the bowl. Be sure not to scrape away too much and go below the surface level of the pottery. More mixture can be quickly made if need be, to fix air bubbles, or any mistakes. In the event that the bowl is corrugated or textured, go by the outermost part of the pottery (you can apply texture when the mixture has fully cured). Lightly sand the restored area to bring down any rough edges and contour the piece until you’re content with its overall shape. This also is the best time to clean up any excess putty that may have gotten over onto the original surface of the vessel. Take a glass of water, dip a soft bristled toothbrush in it, and gently clean up the residue on the sides of the patchwork. A soft rag or paper towel will also work, if toothbrush is not handy. Let the water do most of the cleanup work, do NOT scrub forcefully. After you are satisfied with the initial form, set aside to finish drying.

Texture

No ancient earthenware vessel is completely smooth, none I’ve seen at least. If you look really close, you will notice scratches, exfoliation, dips, grit, tooling marks, etc. It is sometimes tough to duplicate these micro-flaws, but it can be done. You can match corrugations, filleted rims, incising, noded rims, or just about any method used by the ancients. My favorite item to use for carving/texturing is an X-acto knife kit, available at a Wal-Mart near you. A lighted magnifying glass (I use 10x desk mount) comes in handy when examining the pottery to match textures. If there are numerous dips or scratches on the original pottery, you want to make sure to add some on the patched spots. Most pottery has very small pits giving it a gritty surface. This can be recreated simply by repeatedly jabbing a needle or sharp tipped implement into the putty. For more extreme surfaces you can use a vibratory engraver with good results. For scratches, simply rake a sharp instrument across the surface. Go crazy, there are no rules! I have found that “popouts” can be made by inserting a sharp tipped knife, then flicking upwards, breaking out tiny amounts from the surface at a time. You don’t want the restored area to look too smooth and crisp. Tmy flaws give character and every aboriginal artifact has them. There are many ways to help hide detection of your restoration. The trick is to draw somebody’s eye away from seams and make them focus on something else. My favorite method is to put an obvious flaw (popouts work nicely) in a very noticeable location. Have fun with it; imagination is your only limit.

Painting

Painting is probably the hardest part of the restoration process to master. Before you ever pick up the paintbrush, you’ll want to examine the vessel very closely. You will notice that there are many shades and colors, but one dominant hue overall. This is what you want to focus on, the base color. Since it is much easier to darken, than to bring back lighter, you want to apply the lightest base tone first. Squeeze out small amounts of acrylic paint onto a pallet. Primary colors are all you need if you don’t mind mixing. I’m lazy and like to save time by buying many different hues of earth tone colors. Once you have acquired your base color, dilute it heavily with water. To prevent streaking, layer the paint in watered down doses. Apply paint at the sides of the restored area and work inward, making sure you don’t get any paint on the original pottery surface. I prefer to use a small paintbrush for the delicate edgework, and then a larger brush for the central areas. You may experiment with Q-tips, I have heard this works well for some people.

Once your base color has been applied and you are content with the results, focus on larger stained or shaded areas. A cotton ball works great for dabbing on soft colors or matching the dark “fireclouds.” As in texturing, let your imagination flow in the painting process. Once the general color has been matched, you can focus on the smaller, more tedious work. You can fake shell tempering with a large stiff bristled brush and off-white paint. Push the brush into the off-white paint, and then thrust it repeatedly into a paper towel, leaving very little paint left on the brush. Dab the end of the brush lightly onto the restored area of the pot; practice until you get the desired results. Acrylic paints are water based and very forgiving. A wet paper towel will get rid of mistakes, so have fun with it.

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Bannerstone CD

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:10:00 GMT

The following Bannerstone resource is provided by Terry McGuire, author of “Bannerstones: An Ancient Native American Art Tradition”. Thank you Terry for your wealth of knowledge when it comes to this rare art form.

To order this dvd, please contact Terry McGuire at (773) 283-9943 or email him at bucketncorkscrew AT aol DOT com ( replace the AT with @, and DOT with a . )

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Bannerstones – What Are They?

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:09:00 GMT

Knoblock stuck with the older theories on the usage of bannerstones . He believed they were ornamental or ceremonial objects. His conclusions were based partly on the fact that certain forms of bannerstones were usually made from exotic and beautiful material, such as ferruginous quartz or highly banded slate. He also felt that the time expended in making bannerstones , coupled with their fragile nature, would certainly negate their usage as utilitarian objects.

Throughout the 1940’s, William S. Webb continued publishing reports on his findings in Kentucky and Alabama. In them, Webb further refined and expanded his theory that bannerstones were atlatl weights placed between an antler or bone hook and a handle. His research was so convincing that nearly all professionals accept his work as gospel. However, in her excellent and objective look into Webb’s research, Mary L. Kwas has made some interesting observations. In looking at Webb’s work at Indian Knoll she found that out of the total of 880 burials only 43 contained any kind of atlatl object. Of these 43 burials, only 2 contained a bannerstone , hook and handle. One burial contained a bar weight, hook and handle. Kwas also noted a very conspicuous lack of points found in the burials with atlatl objects. Perhaps, she pointed out, this was due to the usage of organic materials which did not survive. However, she noted that of the 45 burials with atlatl objects, only 5 had associated projectile points. Kwas seems to be saying that Webb’s research should be considered more carefully and that his atlatl weight theory should not be taken as the ultimate answer to the usage of bannerstones .

In 1955, Byron Knoblock responded to Webb’s the¬ory by asking several pointed questions. Why are axes and celts far more plentiful than bannerstones ? Why aren’t arrowheads or spearpoints found in burials with atlatl parts? Why are many bannerstones so fragile and others so large and cumbersome? Why are banner-stones found in burials with women and children? He concludes his attack by rejecting the notion that ban-nerstones, birdstones and boatstones were all used as utilitarian objects.

Also, in her excellent overview of bannerstones, Mary L. Kwas summarized some of the experiments done with bannerstones attached to atlatls. J. Walker Davenport did experiments by moving bannerstones to different positions on the atlatl, but could find no help or hindrance one was or another. In 1960, Orville Peets felt that bannerstones helped balance the atlatl, but did not find that they increased distance. Clayton Mau experimented with various lengths of atlatls and found that certain lengths with precisely weighted stones could increase throwing distance. George Cole proposed in 1972 that weight may have been attached to the spear because he found a detrimental effect when weight was attached to the atlatl. In 1974, Calvin Howard found that increasing the atlatl and spear length could increase throwing distance, but adding weight decreased distance by 18 percent. Kwas reports on several other experiments with bannerstones , atlatls and spears that give variable and conflicting results that indicate the need for systematic experimentation. Until this is accom-plished, the theory that bannerstones are indeed atlatl weights remains problematic.

Kwas reports that in 1973 Prudence Precourt wrote that bannerstones were atlatl weights and status symbols. Precourt states that only 3 percent of Archaic burials contain bannerstones , but 85 percent of the ban-nerstones found at Archaic sites were in non-burial contexts, thus indicating that a burial with a bannerstone was a status burial including those of women and children. Howard Winters in 1968 and Nan Rothschild in 1975 reached similar conclusions that bannerstones were status markers.

So, what are bannerstones , atlatl weights or cere-monial status objects? This writer feels strongly that bannerstones are indeed both. The Archaic Period last-ed for at least 7000 years. It was within this long peri¬od that bannerstones first developed, rose to a climax and disappeared. There is a significant body of evi¬dence suggesting that it is quite conceivable that early or less developed bannerstones were indeed intended to be used as weights. These forms might include, among others, tubes, humped, triangular, ball and other less elaborate forms of bannerstones .

Atlatls and the attached weights were the lifeblood of these hunters and gatherers. Probably no other pos-session contributed more to their survival than the atlatl. Perhaps over time the attached weight slowly became more elaborate, more decorative and more spiritual. Perhaps certain atlatls and attached weights were never intended to be used in a utilitarian way. It may have been that every family, clan or other unit possessed the power or luck needed to assure the survival of the owners. Over time these “special” bannerstones developed into the ultimate design specimens that we now consider among the highest artistic achievements of prehistoric man.

A modern analogy might be the highly decorative commemorative rifles and shotguns that have the high-est degree of workmanship, special engravings, rare metals, exotic wood, fine detail, and special ammuni-tion. All of these features add nothing to the function- ality of the weapon itself.

It is inconceivable that a large thin winged butter- fly bannerstone would ever be used in a utilitarian way. Nor would the double crescents, notched ovates or many others. If these bannerstones were not special, symbolic atlatl weights, then they were certainly ceremonial objects of some sort. Of course these are merely the conjectures of this writer.

Much research is needed in the area of bannerstones . The area has been sorely neglected by the pro-fessional archaeological community. Most have jumped on the Webb bandwagon and have no intention of ever getting off. Fortunately there are a few researchers, like Mary L. Kwas and David Lutz, who refuse to wear the “Webb blinders” and have instead forged ahead with solid research and insightful thought.

This feature reprinted from PREHISTORIC AMERICAN Vol. XXIV, No. 4, 1990 pages 14-16.

Article used with permission by Bill Koup, Author

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A SALUTE TO DAVID L. LUTZ

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:09:00 GMT

by Richard Michael Gramly, PhD

THE ARCHAIC BANNERSTONE: ITS CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY
AND PURPOSE FROM 6000 B.C. TO 1000 B.C.
by DAVID L. LUTZ

Bannerstones exist both in art and anthropology. David L. Lutz, who has both a collector’s sensitivity and formal training in anthropology, knows this fact. Other longtime students of the subject also appreciate the fact and so, too, will careful readers of The Archaic Bannerstone. Although Lutz acknowledges a debt to earlier researchers such as Knoblock (1939), Webb (his many writings), and Kwas (1981), years of systematic inquiries and travel to document collections have earned him the right to speculate about what bannerstones meant to the ancient American societies who made and used them. Dave’s ideas command our attention.

In the space of 525 pages he presents thousands of superb photographs representing at least as many artifacts, which are the basis of his arguments. Lutz believes that bannerstones were not tools, but actual emblems of societal membership. In his opinion they were tangible manifestations of persons’ kinship or membership in clans. They may also have had economic value to clansmen, who conducted long-distance trade that brought shell from the Gulf of Mexico to the South (pp. 247, 431, and 510). The areas of distribution (p. 93) or exchange networks we assume, were larger than mere tribal territories. Bannerstones, as clan emblems, also endured for a much longer time than individual tribes or “nations” might be expected to persist.

Chronology, or the longevity and succession of the many forms of bannerstone through the centuries, is one of Dave Lutz’s primary concerns. His book has as many facts about dating as any one researcher might be expected to gather in a lifetime, and more than any reader might hope to assimilate during several sittings! Dave pays particular attention to co-occurrences of bannerstones and other artifact types useful for dating — such as projectile points. It is to the author’s lasting credit that he has crafted a work that presents so many critical facts relative to this topic.

Bannerstones have long been regarded as art — witness their places in books like Hothem’s Ancient Art of Ohio (1994), Brose et al.’s Ancient Art of the American Woodlands (1985), and Douglas and D’Harnoncourt’s Indian Art of the United States (1941) — to name a few. Dave Lutz is also aware of the strong visual impact that finely crafted bannerstones of choice raw materials have. He has illustrated many examples in full color within this volume. But to him even the use of certain stones has chronological value; he speculates as well that some raw materials were culturally, if not socially, expressive (for example, pp. 94 and 464).

Scattered throughout The Archaic Bannerstone are brief sections offering anecdotal and previously published information about famous discoveries, such as the Godar site (p. 321), and Dave’s own answers to often-asked questions, such as (p. 427) why were some bannerstones left undrilled when they were completed in every other way? His answers have the ring of credibility tempered in the fire of long familiarity. A book as impressive as Dave’s leaves one thirsting for more, and should it ever be reprinted, as researchers are sure to demand one day, both an Index and a Glossary should be added. His use of terminology assumes a reader’s familiarity with Knoblock’s Bannerstones of the North American Indian (1939). Although I have carefully leafed through this classic work, I never felt justified in paying the considerable price in order to own it. Other readers may be in the same position — therefore, the need for a glossary. Dave’s book deserves to stand all on its own, owing nothing, but perhaps inspiration itself, to earlier works.

Being a “married-in”, adoptive New Englander, who is familiar with the rich record of Archaic sites — both on the islands and estuaries of sea-girt “downeast” as well as along major waterways (like the Connecticut and Androscoggin) of the Interior — I would hope that a future expanded ver¬sion of The Archaic Bannerstone would picture some of the wonderfully delicate, impressive large bannerstones of this region. Many have exact provenience, and, yes, have been absolutely and relatively dated!

My real concern about The Archaic Bannerstone is that it will not be read by all the academic archaeologists who would stand to benefit from it. Truly, today certain fields of knowledge are better understood by astute North American artifact collectors and amateur scientists than they are by professionals with PhDs. This much I will admit myself. But Dave Lutz’s unique perspective on bannerstone-using Archaic groups cannot, and will not, be ignored for long by the audience who needs it most. There are scholars, who know a good thing when they read it, to bridge the gap.

Thank you, Dave. North Andover, Massachusetts December, 2001

The author of The Archaic Bannerstone is shown in his relic room admiring one of the Hooked bannerstones from the Rockport site cache.

“Three Atlatl Cache”, Rockport site bannerstone cache found by the Lutz family on April 20, 1977. These banners were found in a feature on the Rockport site, Spencer County, Indiana. All three were “ceremonially killed”. Two of these bannerstones are of the rare Hooked style, while the third is an Hourglass type. (David Lutz Collection, Newburgh, Indiana) (David Lutz photo)

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Bannerstone Images

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:08:00 GMT

Jon Sorgenfrei Collection

(Jon Pafford Photo)

Effigy Bannerstone

Tommy Beutell Collection

(Jon Pafford Photo)

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Bannerstones From The Terry McGuire and Ed Harvey Collections

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:07:00 GMT

(Terry McGuire photo)

Hardstone banners from upper left: horned with shaft flute, 2.8″, Illinois. green quartz horned 2.75″ Southern Illinois. granite horned 3.25″, Mercer Co., OH. Wisconsin winged 4″, St. Clair Co., IL. ferruginous quartz hourglass 2.4″, Holmes Co., OH. conglomerate granite shuttle 3.5″

Slate banners from the upper left: black glacial slate double-notched butterfly 7″, Michigan. Red claystone double-edged 4.2″, Madison Co. TN. reel 4.75″, Greene Co. IN; double-notched slate butterfly 5.5″, Dubois Co. IN. knobbed crescent 7.75″, Preble Co. OH; clipped wing 3.2″ Ohio, one of 4 known to exist.

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The Atlatl Hook and Weight

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:06:00 GMT

David Lutz Collection, Newburgh, Indiana

The atlatl hook and weight combination is not only a fascinating insight into the hunting technique that Native Americans used in the spear thrower, but also acts as a temporal maker. Webb (1939) first surmised from finds at Chiggerville, that the combination of hook and weight comprised an atlatl or spear thrower system. Through extensive research, Lutz (2000) has shown that atlatl hooks, like bannerstones, experienced stylistic changes through time.The earliest atlatl hook and weight system can be traced back to approximately 6500 B.P. There were four recognizable forms of the atlatl hook including “Eva”, “Black Earth”, “Indian Knoll”, and “Slotted” (Lutz 2000).

The atlatl system remained in use until the Woodland period (Lutz 2000). Temporal sequencing of these different types has proved difficult due to the lack of suitable preservation for organic remains such as antler. Because of this, well documented examples of atlatl hook and weight combinations are scarce and funtion as valuable temporal markers.

This atlatl hook and weight set was found at the Crib Mound, Spencer County, Indiana, by Don Champion in the 1960’s.

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Introduction – Bannerstones

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 17:05:00 GMT

Charlie Wagers, Fairfield, Ohio

This issue of Prehistoric American is dedicated to the bannerstone , a prehistoric artform which captures the imagination and love of most all artifact collectors. The bannerstone probably comes in a wider variety of forms and materials than any other prehistoric artifact type. They are found made from the most beautiful quartz to the most drab sandstone. Their from aries from their highly-developed double crescent to examples that are little more that a drilled pebble. From the number of salvaged examples and reworked froms, they were undoubtedly highly regarded by their owners.

Speculation has bounced around for years on what was their actual use. Moore was convinced that the examples found along the Green River in Kentucky were net spacers and that the hooks often found with them were hooks used in the manufacture of nets. Dr. W. S. Webb spoofed at this theory claiming they were spear thrower or atal atal weights. He based his theories upon excavations at Indian Knoll in Ohio County, Kentucky. It is interesting to note here that there was an example found at Indian Knoll which was a beautiful quartz saddle form on a necklace of shell beads. In this issue, Bill Koup and David Lutz present their thoughts and studies on the subject.

The writer speculates that the term “bannerstone” is applied to a form which had a variety of purposes and uses. There is little question in my mind that some were used for atal atal weights. It seems curious that so much effort would be placed into a beautiful quartz banner to use it on a tool as utilitarian as a spear thrower. It also seems curious that beautiful quartz examples are found which show no use and seem to have been made to be buried, yet have the same form and are found on the same sites as those associated with spear throwers. Likewise, this writer cannot believe that the highly developed slate forms like the double crescents, notched ovates, reels, and butterflies would have been used as a spear thrower weight. Further, I know of no situation in which these forms have been found with a hook or other association suggesting an atal atal weight. It is more probable that these forms were mounted for use as a sceptre or symbol of position.

A very unusual find was this beautiful quartz banner found with the beads as if to form a necklace. This was found on the Indian Knoll Site in Ohio Co., Ky.

Article used with permission by Bill Koup

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A Chronology of Bannerstones

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:43:00 GMT

Our understanding of banner types of the late Archaic Period is much better than the previous period due to the larger number of sites excavated in Northern Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky. My interest in this project began with an incredible find made by my father on a river bank near the town of Rockport in Spencer County, Indiana. A burial had been exposed due to the falling Ohio River that contained two hook bannerstones and one hourglass bi-face bottle type. They had all been ceremonially “killed”. From the years we have collected from the site, five other banners have been found on the beach. Represented are two humped types, two other bi-face has practically gone unnoticed by researchers should alert us to the role bannerstones played in this burial ceremonialism and that these different types are of the same temporal placement. There are also reports of three different types found in a burial such as the cremation burial (Dowd 1989:102) found at the Anderson Site in Tennessee which contained two different types of oval banners and a segmented shell type. I also know of a burial found in Harrison County, Indiana that contained a horn banner, a single- face bottle type and a triangular type which were found together only inches apart. A cremation burial at Crib Mound in Spencer County, Indiana contained three quartz butterfly types and three granite hinge type banners.

In the past, sites located along the Green River in Kentucky have been described as a single cultural unit with the artifacts lumped together and described as the Green River Phase. However, it has been recognized for some time that several different components are represented. These middens as the ones in Indiana and elsewhere date at different periods of the bannerstone making area and the components vary from site to site. These mid-dens are also difficult to analyze because the soil has the same color and texture and there seems to be no stratigraphic relationship between the artifacts. Hopefully in the future these different components of the late archaic can be identified and separated from this conglomeration of traits found throughout the journals.

The first is his use of primary forms which are represented by right basic forms that he states evolved into thirty-two ultimate designs or types. I suggest these primary forms are nothing more than blending forms in the evolutionary chart and their crude appearance may be due to specimens being made by poor craftsmen or specimens found at the fringe of the bannerstone making area. He also states that ultimate decisions which he placed at the end of the evolutionary chart, could not be classified as types unless they were made of the proper materials and this certainly is erroneous. I think they had a preference for certain materials and would probably go to extraordinary lengths to obtain it,but if itwasn’t available, they most certainly used a substitute. For example, I have found three broken geniculate pieces in Spencer County, Indiana and none were made of banded slate, the preferred material.

The last issue is whether an adjustment is needed in the typology to include new types. I am aware of several that should be included in the chronological chart as new types but what should be done about those specimens of different construction and different temporal periods that are identified by the same name. One example of this is the use of the type name hourglass to describe the single-face hourglass type such contradiction but unaware of the temporal difference when he stated (Knoblock 1939:129) “because these objects are nothing more than hourglass variations, there is no reason why they should be put into an independent group”. These same arguments can also be found among other types. The only work done on bannerstone chronology in a scientific manner was by Mary Kwas (1981). She has used the date from excavated sites where banners where found to loosely arrange their order of appearance. It is a very good report considering the data she was working with. I am having the same problems as she with poor descriptions and photos. She has limited her report to types found only in the Southeast and the temporal placement for these types is weak because researchers from which her material was gathered used broad temporal periods to describe units of culture that were obviously much smaller.

In concluding this paper I would like to impress upon the readers the enjoyment and satisfaction of this bannerstone study. It has ben very gratifying to make these small discoveries and slowly observe this chronological order unfolding.

I would also like to comment on the danger of misinterpreting the data. As one works with these specimens in trying to establish their chronological sequence, one has to be very cautious in his interpretations because the temptation is great to arrange them in an order that may seem very obvious with perceived evolutionary lines and planes but arranging these specimens without the advantage of stratigraphy could give erroneous results. This is a very complex problem and it will undoubtably require the excavation of new archaeological sites for more data. This may be a problem because it now appears that some universities are beginning to pull back from their field explorations due to pressure from certain Indian groups. The ideas expressed in this paper are mine alone and I take full responsibility for their content.

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Hardstone and Porphyry banners

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:42:00 GMT

This beautiful group of hardstone and porphrey banners is from the collection of Floyd Ritter, Collinsville, III. Beginning with the bottle banner in the center and going clockwise around the outside; bottle from Moniteau Co., Mo., Crawford Co., Mo., LaSalle Co., Ill., Cooper Co., Mo., Wisconsin winged type from the Frank Burdett Colection, found in Mo., Wisconsin winged pictured on page 398 of Moorehead’s Stoneage in North America, found in Wisconsin, Boone Co., Mo., Clayton Co., Mo., Moniteau Co., Mo., Wisconsin winged from northwest Mo., Madison Co., Ill., A Wisconsin winged from Dodge Co., Wis., pictured in The Payne Collection, Pike Co., Mo., McNairy Co., In. The three banners in the center, from top to bottom are from Massac Co., Ill., center found in 1935, formerly in the Lester Field Collection, from Mo., bottom from Weakley Co., Tenn. (Photograph by Peter A. Bostrom, Troy, Ill.)

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Butterfly/Winged Bannerstones: The Differing Variations

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:41:00 GMT

Bill Koup

Albuquerque, New Mexico

The Butterfly or Winged bannerstone of banded slate is probably the most popular and sought after form of bannerstone among collectors. Few other bannerstones attract as much attention as a beautiful ultimate-design Butterfly banner. Certainly there are many other bannerstone forms of remarkable design or of exotic material that are by far more rare, but for the average collector these forms are largely unobtainable. But, when one looks over a medium to large general collection of artifacts from Kentucky to Canada or New York to Iowa one will generally find an example of a Winged bannerstone. Obtaining a nice example of these interesting and beautiful bannerstones is usually a collectiong goal of those who have an interest in slate artifacts.

All of the bannerstones discussed and illustrated in this article may be termed a Winged banner-stone and some would call all of them Butterflies. In Bannerstones of the North American Indian, Byron Knoblock grouped all of them into the Notched Butterfly group and differentiated them by class A, B or C. However, in most instances collectors usually refer to those bannerstones with notches as Butterfly bannerstones and those without notches as Winged bannerstones. Perhaps they should be called one name or the other since the only major distinction amoung most of them is either the presence or absence of notches. For the purposes of this article both the names Butterfly and Winged will be used.

The popularity of Butterfly and Winged bannerstones among collectors is due largely to two related reasons. Design and Availability. The prehistoric Archaic people who made these banners obviously were very attracted to the design of winged bannerstones. The original popularity of this design spread over a huge geographic area encompassing a large part of the entire bannerstone making area. The Archaic people who made these beautiful bannerstones were very satisfied with these designs. Significant is the fact that characteristics changed very little from one side of this range to the opposite. A double nottched butterfly bannerstone found in Canada or upstate New York can be nearly identical in design characteristics, size, and material to one found in southern Illinois or western Kentucky. The same could be said about other variations of winged banners. This high incidence of usage over a huge geographic area is certainly a primary reason for their popularity among collectors today. The form is very pleasing to behold and specimens are frequently available in many areas through trade with other collectors, artifact auctions or estate auctions.

From what has been stated above, one might get the idea that Butterfly/Winged bannertones are common. No bannerstone is common. However, among bannerstones, the winged varieties seem to be fairly plentiful, but most of them are not the classic ultimate-design specimens. Superb examples of any size are rare. Many winged banners have been rather crudely manufactured having either a thick unrefined appearance or being assymetrical or both. These are plentiful and easy to collect. Better examples in the small to average size range are less common but still routinely available. But top authentic examples of clasic thin-winged bannerstones of larger than average size are exceptionally rare. They have not survived the ages very well and there were fewer of them made. These large banners are very thin and fragile. Many of them were broken in prehistoric times. Many more were broken by farm machinery. Still others have been broken by unfortunate finders and collectors.

Following is a brief description of the seven winged bannerstones in this writer’s collection. Collecting a top example of all the variations of this type of bannerstone has been a real challenge that has taken years to accomplish. These examples are well above the average in size and quality. The accompanying photogtaphs to this article illustrate the opposite side and end views of the same banners that are shown in color elsewhere in this journal.

Left column, top. This is an undrilled butterfly bannerstone which may be the most unique type among all bannerstone. It is the only type manufactured specifically to not be perforated. Instead it has a rather wide and shallow groove on both sides in which to facilitate exterior hafting (see end view photo, bottom banner). This type of butterfly banner is found almost exclusively in the state of Michigan. However, a few are known to have been found in northern Indiana and northern Ohio. This bannerstone was found in Michigan and first collected by Arthur Abraham from Davison, Michigan. It is pictured in Who’s Who Number 2 as part of the Hubert Wachtel collection. It is made from red-brown banded slate and is 6 1/4 inches in width. It was later collected by Hugh Huff and Ron Ammerman.

Left column, bottom. Although this banner is not a particularly large or fine example of a double-notched butterfly banner, it is a good example of those that are made in a thicker, heavier style.This writer has noted several of this type as being from northeast Indiana. They are often very symmetrical and well made but they are thick in profile in comparison to the classic thin winged examples. This banner is from DeKalb County Indiana and has a width of 4-3/4 inches. It was found by Dennis Poorman on his farm near Waterloo. It was then purchased from Poorman by Cameron Parks in 1940.

Right column, top. This is another example of the classic double notched butterfly banner. It was found in Cass County Indiana and has two sharp central ridges (see end view photo, third from bottom) and very deeply cut notches that have been noted on other banners found in the same general area as this example. This bannerstone is 5 inches wide and made from dark green banded slate. The earliest known collector was H. C. Wachtel of Dayton, Ohio. Later collectors were John Berner and Hugh Huff.

Right column, bottom. This single notched butterfly bannerstone from Miami County, Ohio illustrates the variation that is probably the rarest of the winged bannerstones. It is 5-3/8 inches wide and made from green highly banded and contrasting slate. It also has sharp central ridges parallel to the perforation (see end view photo, third from the top). This bannerstone was originally collected by V. E. Ladd of Toledo, Ohio and later by Randal Jones.

Another noteworthy observation on these seven bannerstones is the fact that four of them have significant white streaks or splotches in the material from which they were made. These particular pieces of slate were chosen for these banners due to the presence of these streaks. Many other very fine slate artifacts have been made from slate that contains these streaks.

Group of various forms of slate butterfly banners. Top row left to right, found near Angola, In., ex Archie Diller Collection, Pickaway Co., Ohio, from Stan Copeland. Middle row, left from five miles east of Kenton, Hardin Co., Ohio, ex Dana Baker Collection, right, provenience unknown, ex Bill Jenkins Collection. Bottom row, left, from Dekalb Co., In., ex Donald Boudeman and Cameron Parks Collections, pictured in Bannerstones of the North American Indian, pages 514 and 515, left a small example from Pickaway Co., Ohio, ex McKnight Brothers Collection. (Photograph by Charlie Wagers.)

Article used with permission by Bill Koup, Author

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The Unique Styles of Mississippi Benton Phase Tubular Bannerstones

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:40:00 GMT

J. Neal Brown, Ph.D., Natchez, Mississippi

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.55, No.1, pg.40

The tubular type bannerstone was a favorite of the Benton Culture. Many tubular type bannerstones have been found in the state of Mississippi, primarily within the geographical area known to have been occupied by Benton Peoples. The Benton phase in northeast Mississippi has been reliably dated to have occurred mostly between 3700 B.C. to 3200 B.C.

Lutz pictured a number of tubular bannerstones from North Mississippi, but did not differentiate them into the known distinctly different styles. Little information is currently known concerning the chronology of tubular bannerstone development within the Mississippi Benton phase.

The two tubular bannerstones pictured in Figure above A and B are examples of the most often observed style of Benton tube. Collectors often refer to this tubular bannerstone as a “Covered Wagon” style due to its similar shape profile to the Conestoga Wagon of pioneer days. This style Benton tube was most often made from mint-green claystone, that most likely had its geological origin in the Quachita Mountains of central Arkansas, and it was a favorite material used by Benton culture peoples for manufacturing both tubular and shuttle style bannerstones. This claystone often contained bands

of a white material. The perforation, drilled through the long axis of tubular bannerstones, was most often parallel to these bands. Examples that exhibit bands that are perpendicular to the long axis of the bannerstone are rare. The “Covered Wagon” style bannerstone depicted in Figure IC is an example of this rare variant. The example depicted in Figure 1 B is made of a dark-brown claystone, found locally, that was often used to manufacture bannerstones. Higher developed examples of this style exhibit much more concavity of the top edge. However, both convex and straight top edge variants are known. The example depicted in Figure 1 D illustrates a slightly concave top edge with bilateral cane-drilled indentions. This variant with cane-drilled indentions is very rare. Also, solid-stick drilled indentions occur on some “Covered Wagon” style bannerstones. The example depicted in Figure 1 E was pictured earlier by both Knoblock and Lutz and it features bilateral solid-stick drilled indentions.

The example depicted in Figure 2 below is an example of a “Mississippi Crown” style Benton tube. This style is rectangular in shape with a well defined hump that is located in the middle of one side. The hump profile of highly developed examples resembles a three-prong crown. This style tube is only found in north Mississippi and most examples are made of mint-green claystone. Examples made of Limonite or a dark-brown claystone are known; cane drilled bilateral indentions occur on some examples of this style. The less developed examples are often made of Limonite and often exhibit cracking and sometimes exfoliation of the outer surface. Less developed examples are often found with caches of small preform biface blades made from Tuscaloosa gravel and small Benton biface points made from Tallahatta quartzite. The example illustrated in Figure 2 is a less developed style of a “Mississippi Crown” style banneerstone.

Another unique style Benton tubular bannerstone is depicted in Figure 2. This style Benton tube is called an “A-Frame” style by collectors. The geometric profile of highly developed examples are made of either a dark-brown claystone or Limonite. Most examples exhibit a fluted base with some having a purported shaft groove. Examples exhibiting a well defined paneling made by removal of the outer surface of each lateral side are known.

The rarest unique style of Benton tube is depicted in Figure 2. This unique Benton tubular bannerstone is called a “spool” style by collectors. Its geometric profile resembles a sewing machine thread spool. It is rounded in shape with the middle outer surface removed to create a paneling effect. Most examples have a fluted base and are made from mint-green claystone.”Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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BANNERSTONE FINDS

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:39:00 GMT

by V Gary Henry, Asheville, North Carolina

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.56, No.4, pg.200

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.2, pg.72

In 1978, I located to Asheville, North Carolina, where I still reside. Several stories from this time period are remembered. One of the most rare artifacts in this area is a complete bannerstone (atlatl weight). I have found numerous pieces, usually halves broken at the weakest point at the perforation. In my earliest artifact hunting trips in this new area I walked the fields along several streams in the area to locate sites. At times my wife would let me out on one side of a creek, cross the creek by road, and then parallel the creek on the only road, which was on the opposite side of the creek from the side I was hunting, and then cross back over the creek at the next perpendicular road to the creek and pick me up. On one occasion a farmer’s son accompanied me in checking out some fields on his father’s farm. During our walking my companion mentioned a “tomahawk” he had found. Further discussion indicated the artifact had a hole through it so I immediately suspected it was a bannerstone. When we finished hunting the boy retrieved the “tomahawk” and gave it to me. It was indeed a bannerstone (Figures 1-2, center). I reached into my billfold and gave the boy what paper money I had, in exchange for the bannerstone, which I think was $10. This was my first banner-stone. It appears to be an Early Archaic winged type dated at 5800 to 3800 B.C. It is 4 inches long, 1 7/8 inches wide and 1 1/8 inches thick. The perforation is 1/2 to 5/8 inch in diameter.

My first finding of a traditional bannerstone not broken in half occurred on May 22, 1994, on the sixth visit to a site in Buncombe County, North Carolina. I saw the perforation and could not believe my luck (figures 1,2 top). However, in turning it over I discovered it was broken but not broken completely through the perforation. I had about three fourths of the artifact, which I still considered a significant find. I believe it is a Middle Archaic Paneled bannerstone dated from 4300 to 3500 B.C. It is 2 3/4 inches long, 1 13/16 inches wide and 1 3/8 inches thick, and the perforation is 5/16 inch in diameter. I have found 89 artifacts on this site in seven visits from December 22, 1986, through May 11, 1997.

Then, on April 5, 1997, on my fourteenth visit to another site in Buncombe County I found my first complete traditional bannerstone (Figures 1-2 Bottom). The drilling was only just begun and not completed. Because of the difficulty of finding complete bannerstones in this area, I consider this one of my best finds. It is also considered a Paneled type bannerstone from the Middle Archaic period dated at 4300 to 3500 B.C. It is 3 inches long, 1 15/16 inches wide and 1 3/16 inches thick. The perforation is 3/8 inch in diameter. I have found 1,167 artifacts at this site in 27 visits from April 24, 1996, through July 13, 2000, including diagnostic points from all time periods except the Paleo and Late Mississippian.”Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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IN DEFENSE OF AVOCATIONAL ARCHAEOLOGY

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:37:00 GMT

By Jeb A. Taylor, Associate Editor

As time passed, however, institutional archaeologists began to place more emphasis on the retrieval of information and less on the artifacts themselves. The intentions of each began to diverge.

Avocational Archaeologists/Collectors

Today, the vast majority of avocational archaeologists/ collectors are surface hunters. They hunt plowed fields, lake and river shorelines, and other areas subject to erosion.

Avocational archaeologists/collectors can be:

male or female
young or old
of any religious persuasion
of any ethnicity
of any profession

and (2004:59):

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Laws Concerning Artifact Collecting

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:37:00 GMT

What laws do I need to know if I am collecting arrowheads or Indian artifacts?

Due to many questions posed by collectors in our state, we’re going to look at the laws as they affect hunting for points, both on the state and federal level. Some of the laws are very plain in the way they are written, while others are more complex; it’s worth noting that some of these laws haven’t been fully tested in court cases. All laws are subject to interpretation, so don’t take anything here as legal advice in any way.

Federal Laws:

Section 6 states:

(e) The prohibitions contained in this section shall take effect on October 31, 1979 [the date of the enactment of this Act].

(g) Nothing in subsection (d) of this section shall be deemed applicable to any person with respect to the removal of arrowheads located on the surface of the ground.

State Laws

On the subject of artifacts and sites located on state property, the law in Mississippi could not be more clear. Mississippi Code 39-7-11 states:

State Laws Regarding Collecting On Private Lands

§ 39-7-31. Entry upon land of another to deface, remove or destroy archeological relics or sites.

§ 39-7-35. Penalties for violations of chapter; finder’s fee for arrest and conviction of violator.

(2) The board at its discretion may grant a “finder’s fee,” not to exceed five hundred dollars ($500.00), for the arrest and conviction of any person in violation of this chapter.

In The Water…

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CLOVIS CULTURE BEVELED BONE RODS

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:36:00 GMT

By Jeb A. Taylor, G.I.R.S. Associate Editor

In Volume XLIII, Number 2, 2009, Prehistoric American, Michael J. O’Brien, Ph.D. and R. Lee Lyman, Ph.D. contributed one more in a long line of theories regarding the use of beveled bone rods by Clovis culture big game hunters.

We may never know for certain what these objects were used for. However, replication studies and common sense can help us to determine which are the least and most likely theories regarding their use.

As O’Brien and Lyman pointed out, the oldest theory is that, they are foreshafts. I believe this theory shows the most merit, so it will be addressed last. A second theory was posited by Wilke, Flenniken, and Ozburn in Clovis Technology at the Anzick Site, Montana. They argued that the rods were handle portions of composite pressure flaking tools used to remove flutes from Clovis points.

They demonstrated that a flute could be removed using this method. However their test was performed on opalite, a material that is extremely weak and easy to pressure flake. Even though the theory was tested successfully, it is unlikely that this was the intended use of these objects. Why would a Clovis knapper, for example, need 14 such specialized flaker handles, as were found at Wenatchee? Also, if they were part of a Clovis knapper’s tool kit, why weren’t other tools associated with knapping found with them: hammerstones, abraders, billets, etc.? And lastly, Clovis points are easily replicated using more conventional tools, so why go to all of the trouble of fashioning very labor-intensive bone flaker handles when there is no apparent advantage to them?

SLED SHOES

The next theory was offered by Dr. Richard Michael Gramly in The Richey Clovis Cache. There he claimed that beveled bone rods were used as “sled shoes.”

Before continuing, I should mention that for a good portion of my life I lived in remote areas of Alaska and Minnesota. There I built my home and supported a family mostly from what the land offered. In the summer we traveled in birch bark canoes and in the winter we used sleds and toboggans, all of which I made from components split out of birch, ash, and cedar trees with relatively primitive tools, axes, draw knives, etc. And more importantly, paddled and pulled them many hundreds of miles through varieties of conditions, mostly, in hindsight, adverse!

Bone and/or ivory sled shoes were used in the Arctic by Eskimos, to protect precious wooden runners, and to create a wide smooth surface. However, their runners were flat in cross section to displace the weight of the sled, and were attached to the runners through counter-sunk holes.

If Clovis bone rods had been intended to be used as sled shoes, they would not have been trapezoidal , they would have been parallelograms. As they are, every other joint would snag on obstacles encountered.

Snow is very abrasive. If the bone rods recovered at Wenatchee (or anywhere else) had been used as sled shoes, their bottoms would have exhibited obvious flattening, polish, and striations. They don’t.

And lastly, round is the worst possible cross section for sled shoes. They would have been extremely difficult to attach, and impossible to maintain.

Dr. Gramly provided a drawing of a sled equipped with these hypothetical sled shoes that looked very convincing. However, archaeologists appear to believe that if something can be drawn, it can be built and used, and that is not the case in real life.

(Dr. Gramly explained to me that, based on the position of the bone rods in situ, their being sled runners was the only logical conclusion that fit all the conditions of the Wenatchee site. – Editor)

LEVERED HAFTED WEDGES

This last statement is also true concerning the proposed hypothesis offered by O’Brien and Lyman that Clovis bone rods were used as “levered hafted wedges”.

I must interrupt the flow of this discussion to explain that I have spent literally thousands of hours making and using stone tools, killing deer with stone tipped arrows, butchering them with stone knives, processing their hides with bone fleshers and stone scrapers, and making clothing with the tanned hides with bone awls and sinew. There may be others out there with more experience making, hafting, and using stone tools. If so, I am not aware of them. In any event, in this discussion, I am speaking from experience, not from hypothesis.

In positing their hypothesis, O’Brien and Lyman made a number of assumptions that if not outright incorrect, are certainly open to doubt. Initially, they made the assumption that the Wenatchee Clovis points were butchering tools because they were larger than most Clovis points recovered from Clovis kill sites. Their observations regarding their size was certainly correct, but their assumption regarding their use, although not necessarily incorrect, was at least presumptuous.

They then described the procedures required for hafting such large points/blades, stating that it took them almost two hours to apply 20 strips of sinew, waiting for them to dry, and then applying tree resin as a sealer. Judging frommy experience, sinew should never such as knife blades or scraper bits. Nor would any lashing, especially sinew, be covered with tree resin. Sinew is universally sized with hide glue, not pitch. Pitch is useful to seat points/blades into in their hafts, but not to apply to the surface of the lashing.

Blades the size of those from Wenatchee can easily be hafted in less than one minute with a stretched length of tanned hide or fiber cordage (hide is better). When the haft loosens, which it invariably does, it simply needs to be unlashed and re-lashed tighter. This can also be accomplished in less than a minute because, unlike sinew, tanned hide does not need to be masticated to reapply it and it is not covered with sticky pitch.

As regards the physics of their concept, I think it is impractical. Unfortunately, as was the case with Gramly and the sled shoe theory, their levered hafting wedge theory was also only illustrated with hypothetical drawings, as opposed to actual images or scale drawings of actual models. In any event, the drawings are of a hafted lanceolate point rather than a broad based point/blade like those from Wenatchee, so I assume that no actual models were ever made or tested. If they were, a stronger argument could be made in their defense.

FORESHAFTS

In regard to the 1936-37 excavation at Blackwater Draw #1, Marie Wormington states in Ancient Man in North America:

In addition to the stone artifacts, two extremely important. polished bone pieces were found in situ. One was lying near the foreleg of one of the mammoths; the second near the tusk of another. These are tapering cylindrical bone shafts with a beveled end.

The fact that two beveled bone rods and two projectile points were found with mammoth remains is not proof that beveled bone rods were used as foreshafts. However, I would think that is does fall into the category of evidence, and it is clearly worthy of further consideration.

POSSIBLE CLOVIS HAFTING STRATEGIES
(TAYLOR, 2006)

THE “V” NOTCH HAFTING STRATEGY

Clovis projectile points exhibit a high degree of variability and size for a single projectile point type. This was undoubtedly due to a combination of temporal and spatial considerations: the range in size of their intended prey, accessibility to raw materials, attrition, or personal preferences. On the High Plains, Clovis points were generally fluted or basally thinned for a distance of 15mm – 25mm. Thinning was accomplished by single strikes, multiple strikes, pressure thinning, or any combination of these. Interestingly, even though Clovis points exhibit considerable morphological variability, they exhibit a surprising amount of conformity through their hafting areas.

The hafting area on Clovis points begins with a relatively sharp basal margin, and as a result of fluting and/or basal thinning, a wedge shaped hafting area is created that expands up the stem at a rate of about 12° – 16° (Figure 2). Uniform hafting areas on projectile points are desirable because they are easier to replace, but possibly of even greater importance to mammoth hunters may have been that foreshafts with corresponding “V” shaped notches were considerably stronger than foreshafts with mortised notches.

A “V” notch is hypothetically stronger than a mortise notch because less mass is removed from the critical notch termination area. Experiments performed by the author to test this hypothesis, though, were inconsistent due to variations in shaft diameters and the inherent strengths of different species of wood. However, the results suggested that foreshafts with “V” shaped notches required 18% to 44% greater sideways force applied to them to initiate shaft failures.

Figure 3. The split “V” shaped notch hafting strategy 3A: Illustration showing how a “V” notch is created in a split shaft

3B and 3C: Profile and face views a point hafted in a split “V” notch. The point is a cast of one of the original Clovis points from the Dent Mammoth Kill site, and the foreshaft is chokecherry.

Interestingly, the surface between the point and shaft mated perfectly without any trimming or fitting. Only the outside of the shaft was trimmed so that it tapered nicely into the surface of the point (Figure 3B)

Replication studies have shown that lashing on spears and darts is best accomplished in two stages. The shaft reinforcing lashing (Figure 3B) is separate and does not need to be removed when replacing points, but the haft lashing (Figure 3C) usually has to be cut off and is consequently destroyed.

This type of notch can be created very simply by splitting the shaft and inserting a projectile point into it. With this approach, no mass is removed from the inside of the notch; instead, it is trimmed off outside to create a smooth taper into the face of the projectile point (Figure 3A and 3B).

COMPOSITE FORESHAFTS WITH “V” NOTCHES

Another method for creating a “V” notch appears to have been used by Clovis craftsmen on bone. Bone cannot be split and bent the way wood can, so bone shafts were created using a composite method. This required that the end of the shaft be cut at an angle that corresponded to one half the angle of a Clovis point’s hafting area (6°- 8°), and that a corresponding beveled piece be lashed to it to make up the other half of the “V” (Figure 4A).

Figure 4. Composite “V” shaped notch Clovis
hafting strategy

4A: Components of a composite “V” shaped notch haft

4B: Profile view of a beveled bone rod, Blackwater Draw, New Mexico (cast)

4C: Rotated view of Figure 4B (notice distal portion is missing)

4D and 4E: Two views of a chokecherry reconstruction of the beveled bone rod shown in Figures 4B and 4C with a cast of one of the original Clovis points recovered from the same site.

CLOVIS BEVELED BONE RODS

What is known about beveled bone rods is that they are generally:

– made from mammoth bone or ivory

– 150mm to 250mm long

– wider than they are thick

– 1 Omm — 30mm in width

– 10mm — 22mm in thickness

– beveled on at least one end (some are unibeveled and some are bi-beveled)

– scored on the beveled surfaces with cross hatching

– found with Clovis points and bifaces in caches and in kill sites

Most Clovis beveled bone rods exhibit some degree of disintegration and are therefore difficult to measure accurately (Figure 4B and 4C). However, after studying a number of originals, casts, and illustrations, it appears that the angles of the bevels on many of them are about 6°- 8° off their vertical axes. Therefore, they would mate quite well with the hafting areas on most Clovis projectile points (Figures 4D and 4E).

Initially, bi-beveled bone rods were thought to be foreshafts, and bone rods with bevels on one end and points on the other end were thought to be projectile points. This is of course a possibility, although personal experience in hunting mammals with pointed arrow shafts has led me to the conclusion that arrows without points that cut are almost worthless. It is more likely that both types of bone rods were foreshafts, and that bi-beveled varieties were attached to their main shafts with the overlapping splice method (Figure 5A) and the pointed varieties were attached to their main shafts by the socket splice method (Figure 5B).

Fig. 5

In light of the fact that beveled bone rods are typically found associated with Clovis points in caches and kill sites, and that, as demonstrated above, they work admirably well as foreshafts, it seems quite plausible that this was their intended use.

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A FURTHER NOTE ON THE EAST WENATCHEE CLOVIS SITE

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:35:00 GMT

By Michael J. O’Brien, Ph.D. and R. Lee Lyman, Ph.D.

In Dr. Leslie Pfeiffer’s excellent article on the East Wenatchee Clovis site (also known as Richie–Roberts) in central Washington, he states that among the most important finds at the site were 13 beveled bone rods made from mammoth or mastodon limb bones.

(Pfeiffer 2008). (There actually were 14 rods, one of which was extremely fragmented.)

He points out that “While there is no doubt that the Clovis people used mammoth bone in many ways, including bone points, the best hypothesis is that these bone rods were lidely foreshafts to mount stone points to wood shafts” (Pfeiffer 2008:76).

This is a widely held proposition in American archaeology, going back to at least the work of Luther Cressman (1942) in the Great Basin and that of John Cotter (1954), one of the original excavators of Blackwater Draw, the Clovis type site. The proposition later received formal expression from Larry Lahren and Rob Bonnichsen (1974) based on their analysis of the Anzick Clovis “burial-cache” materials from Montana (Fig. 1) and even later from Dennis Stanford (1996), who proposed a compound arrangement of beveled rods to create a hunting shaft. After considerable analysis of bone and ivory rods from across the western United States, coupled with engineering-design analysis of the rods from East Wenatchee (Lyman and O’Brien 2000; Lyman et al. 1998), we offer a different proposition—that many of the rods served as levered hafting wedges.

Most of the functions posited for bone and ivory rods—foreshafts, points, sled shoes, and so forth—have been based on suspected analogous specimens, especially those from the ethnographic and late prehistoric records. The problem with such an approach to explaining the archaeological record lies in the requisite assumption that the past is no different from the present—that the uniquely historical development of technology is denied as we force our archaeological observations into some ethnographically documented category ofphenomena. Usually what happens is, the more we start investigating details of construction, the more the arguments start to fall apart. Thus, we began our research without reference to ethnographically documented uses of rods and merely attempted to build a tool that functioned efficiently and simultaneously accounted for numerous features evident in the archaeological record. In short, we employed mechanical inference based on experimental evidence.

Figure 1. Lahren and
Bonnichsen (1974)
models of beveled bone
rods functioning as
foreshafts: (left) single-
beveled specimen,
shaft, and projectile
point; (right) bi-beveled
specimen, shaft, and
projectile point.

One thing that struck us as we compiled data on Clovis points from well-known caches in the western United States was their large size compared to that of points found in association with mammoths or bison at sites such as Black Water Draw Locality No. 1 (New Mexico), Lehner and Naco (Arizona), Lubbock Lake (Texas), and Sheaman (Wyoming) (Fig. 2). In fact, six of the 14 Clovis points from East Wenatchee originally reported by Michael Gramly (1991, 1993, 1996) were larger than any of the other 64 cache or non-cache points in our survey (Lyman et al. 1998). The exceedingly large size of the Clovis points from East Wenatchee suggests they were intended to be used as butchering tools—specifically, saws—rather than as weapons designed to pierce hide. Gramly (1991, 1993), in fact, refers to them as “knives.”

Other attributes of these particular specimens appear to validate such a categorization. For example, they all have either parallel or slightly convex blade edges, rather sinuous edges, and nearly straight to noticeably concave bases, the latter forming either a shallow V or a (sometimes deep) U. We suspect all these features are functionally and mechanically related. The specimens with convex edges could have been resharpened more times than a parallel-sided or distally converging-sided specimen. Further, specimens with convex edges, if used as weapons, would have cut holes through hide that would have been larger than holes made by points with parallel or distally converging blade edges, the former allowing penetration of a foreshaft or shaft.

We believe the association of rods with Clovis points in settings where animals were butchered—such as at Blackwater Draw—and in caches—such as at East Wenatchee—is not simply fortuitous. The fact that 14 fluted projectile points and evidence of 14 bone rods were found in the East Wenatchee cache suggests that a ratio of 1:1 of these two kinds of implements might be significant. Given these considerations, our experimental goal was to build a butchering tool—not a projectile—that employed both the large stone points and the rods. Using the specimens from East Wenatchee ,as a model, we focused on two things: building an efficient butchering tool—one that required minimal maintenance effort during use—and determining the function of the rods.

One critical issue in manufacturing an efficient butchering tool is how the blade is hafted to the handle. Our experimental work indicates that the amount of sinew required to haft a biface depends on both the size of the shaft to which the biface is hafted and the size of the biface. A 6- to 8-cm-long Clovis point that is to be used as a projectile point can be hafted with a single strip of sinew 0.5 cm wide and 30-40 cm long. Seating the point, wrapping the sinew, and allowing the sinew to dry sufficiently to tighten takes about 30 minutes if the air is dry and warm, plus additional time to apply mastic. Hafting larger bifaces—such as those from East Wenatchee—that are to be used as saws requires as many as 20 strips of sinew 0.5 cm wide and 40 cm long. The greater amount of binding is required because the handle has a larger diameter than a dart shaft, and the force applied to the biface during use as a butchering saw is different than that applied to one used as a projectile point. Because more sinew is required, and the haft comprises multiple layers of sinew, the entire process of seating the biface, wrapping, drying, and applying mastic to the haft has, in our experiments, taken almost two hours.

If the sinew binding absorbs moisture (which it does quickly if it is completely dry prior to use of the tool), such as from body fluids of an animal being butchered, the binding expands and becomes loose. Coating the sinew with mastic (e.g., tree resin) tends to waterproof it and extend the use-life of the haft, but a haft will nonetheless loosen through use and moisture absorption, even if coated with resin, which will wear off or flake off if it becomes hard and dry. Because it takes a rather long time to rehaft (particularly) large bifaces—the resin must be removed, the sinew unwound, the point reseated, the sinew rewrapped and allowed to dry, resin applied—the mechanical problem is to prolong the use life of the initial hafting. This can be accomplished by tightening the sinew via a wedge inserted between the sinew and the shaft to which the biface is hafted. Engineering evidence indicates that the beveled rods from East Wenatchee served this binding-tightening wedge function.

In the barest of terms (see Lyman et al. [1998] for details), here is how the wedge works vis-à-vis the complete composite tool. During manufacture of the handle that eventually will hold the stone tool, a groove is cut in the wooden shaft or handle and extended onto the (tapered) nock tang (Fig. 3). This groove, used for seating the rod, should be at least as long and wide as the rod and about half to two thirds as deep as the rod is thick. Sinew is bound onto the shaft or handle as tightly as possible prior to inserting the rod. Before the sinew completely dries, the rod is set in the groove cut for it and is shoved up under the binding (Fig. 4). After the sinew has dried, the rod is levered down into the groove and the proximal end held in place with leather or sinew binding. The fulcrum should be distal to the center point of the rod length. The levering down serves as the final tightening of the sinew. It is this final levering down into the groove that mechanically explains why the face opposite the bevel must be convex rather than straight; were it not, the rod would lie flat in the groove and no lever-enhanced tightening of the sinew would be possible.

Grooves, usually in the form of crosshatching, cut into the bevels of the rod help keep the sinew and rod from slipping during use. As the sinew binding dries, it shrinks and sets down into the grooves cut in the bevel of the rod, making a mechanically sound haft (Fig. 2). (The photograph made by Pete Bostrum of the longest bone rod from East Wenatchee [Fig. 5], is an excellent close-up of the crosshatching found on the beveled portions of many Clovis rods.) Without crosshatching on the bevel, the rod has a tendency to slip out from under the sinew binding when it is levered down. The fewer, generally less deep grooves sometimes evident on the convex face opposite the bevel help secure the rod to the fulcrum area (Fig. 4) of the groove in the handle when a bit of hide is used to raise the fulcrum.

The hafting-wedge function of the rods readily accounts for why they were beveled on both ends. Should the beveled end being used as a binding wedge fracture, one has but to merely turn the rod around 180 degrees, insert the intact edge under the haft binding, and lever the rod down to maintain a tight binding. Beveling of the proximal end-toward the handle-also allows the binding holding it down to be more easily slipped on and off the levered-down end of the rod. The basically cylindrical cross section of the rods can be accounted for by noting that we have found it to be relatively easy to carve a groove for the rod that is curved in cross section using a scraper with a convex bit. Finally, the thick cross section of the East Wenatchee rods would have made for a larger cross section under the bevel, where the most force was concentrated when the rod was being used to tighten the haft binding.

In summary, we believe we discovered a way to haft large fluted Clovis bifaces that produces a mechanically efficient tool, which we have used to butcher large game and cut frozen meat easily. It would be a very efficient tool to use if faced with a proboscidian carcass. Our engineering work takes into consideration a suite of attributes of both the fluted stone points-sinuous convex edges, flutes, large size, concave base-and the bone rods-bevels, scoring of bevels, convex face opposite the bevel-in the East Wenatchee cache. These sets of attributes are functionally and mechanically interrelated in the final tool, which we believe accounts for (1) the co-occurrence of the large points and the rods in caches and in butchering contexts, (2) the breakage and wear evident on some rods, and (3) the varied sizes of both points and rods.

As a final note, we point out that the idea for our work came from Virgil Hayes, who also carried out all the replicative work. He joined us as co-author on the original paper, which was published in Journal of Archaeological Science (Lyman et al. 1998). Hayes never had any formal training in archaeology, but he possesses keen insights into ancient technology and an innate ability to reverse engineer what he sees. His experimental work is yet another excellent example of the significant breakthroughs and discoveries routinely made by nonprofessional archaeologists.

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A Surprise in Bentonville, Arkansas

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:20:00 GMT

By Steven Cooper, Kingston Springs, Tennessee

While Bentonville is just a small city in the northwest corner of Arkansas, it is a place with a fascinating history. It was named in honor of Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton who promoted Arkansas statehood in the early 1830’s. The downtown was burned to the ground during the Civil War. The Peoples Bank of Bentonville was robbed by the infamous Henry Starr Gang in 1893. One hundred years ago this city was dominated by apple agriculture. Benton County produced and processed more bushels of apples, 2.5 million of them, than anyplace else in the nation. There was a large button industry extracting pearls from mussels in the White River. Bentonville was even the county seat, even though Rogers, Arkansas was the largest town in the region. Rogers even tried to have the county seat moved there in 1904, but failed in the attempt. And most recently, in 1950, Sam Walton’s first store, Walton’s Five and Dime opened in the town square of Bentonville. The rest is history. In 1962 the first Wal-Mart opened in nearby Rogers. The region boomed, and today Bentonville is home to more than 30,000 people, triple the population of 1990. Besides Wal-Mart, other industries have moved here, including Tyson chicken and J.B. Hunt trucking.

Today, Sam Walton’s original five and dime store is being turned into a museum. And perhaps museums may be the true legacy of Sam Walton. Planned for a grand opening in late 2011, the new Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville will rival the major museums of the world in scope and art.

But another museum is already open in Bentonville. It too is an art museum. And it will become a do not miss attraction once world attention is finally placed on Bentonville. The Museum of Native American History presents a dazzling display of artifacts and art of the original inhabitants of the Americas.

What is on display in this museum will be new to most visitors. While you may think you learned all about the American Indian in school, this museum will open your eyes. It seems there is a lot more to the Native Americans than just tepees and buffalo. The artifacts on exhibit challenge the long held notion that the Indians were savages, devoid of culture and lacking civilization. After a visit here, you will be asking yourself why this artistic heritage has remained hidden for so long.

Stepping through the doors, you are immediately greeted by two massive tusks coming from the skull of a mastodon, a huge Pleistocene animal. The first inhabitants of the Americas would have hunted these some 13,000 years ago. This full size reproduction is on loan from the collection of the University of Arkansas. The museum has access to the more than two million artifacts in the U of A collection, which, currently is in storage and until now, without any public accessibility.

As you continue into the museum, you pass by a huge painting depicting our traditional view of Native Americans. It is a scene that could have easily come right off the Dances with Wolves movie set.

The visitor then acquires a portable handheld listening device from the museum desk, and that’s when the walk back into time adventure begins.

We live our modern lives, but we rarely think about natural hardships. We drive to the grocery, buy clothes at the mall and spend our spare time watching a football game on a widescreen television. Most people don’t realize the difficulties early man would have had to overcome just to have food each day. Utilizing hundreds of artifacts and artwork, the museum tour takes us back to these early times where the only resources were stone tools and human ingenuity. Game was abundant, but the process of killing it was challenging. Large animals could slay several hunters in an instant. Man had to be resourceful and smart. The visitor discovers the beginning of the arrowhead with the development of Clovis, Cumberland and Folsom points. These uniquely American tools allowed them to take advantage of the large animals and gain a foothold on the continent.

Arrowheads have been a part of our popular culture since farmers first plowed their fields. The museum is attempting (for the first time anywhere) to bring together every known arrowhead type. Arrowheads are far from crudely shaped stones made just to kill bison. The truth is many are wondrous works of art. The visitor passes by a unique display utilizing cast hands to show the production elements of making an arrowhead, a process known as flint knapping. By removing one flake of rock after another, the arrowhead takes shape and evolves from a simple cobble into a tool. The skills of these ancient flint knappers were simply astounding. While we all know the classic arrowhead shape, the museum collection shows there are many forms, sizes and styles. Some are so skillfully made they cannot be reproduced today. Several are smaller than a fingernail and made of clear gem stones. Others have large and thin graceful designs that exceed any usefulness and could only have been created for artistic purposes.

While the journey into the world of arrowheads is fascinating, the tour is just starting. We’ve all seen pottery found at Mesa Verde and throughout the Southwest. But few have seen the pottery of the Midwest. Created by a culture known as the Mississippians, the museum‘s displays show the fine skills of these long gone potters. Since the Native Americans didn’t use a pottery wheel, all of their pottery was made by coiling strips of clay one on top of another. The results were quite remarkable. While they made common utility pottery, their efforts also included animal effigies, whimsical forms and miniature versions of larger pieces. Fish, otters, owls, bears and just about every wild creature has some sort of pottery portrayal. But perhaps the most interesting creations of all are human heads fully sculpted in the round. These are known as “head pots.” With only 138 authentic examples known, the museum shows seven; the largest grouping ever put on display. Some are so real you expect them to move their eyes. Several are large and elaborately tattooed, while others are small with childlike serene faces as if asleep. Most show signs of being held and used, possibly in ceremonies celebrating warfare, ancestors or fertility. We actually do not know their use, as these people left no written records of any kind.

The historic aspect of these ancient peoples started in 1492, when Columbus first landed and European culture began its expansion across the continent. An entire wing of the museum is dedicated to this period, highlighted by real war bonnets, tomahawks, peace pipes and moccasins. One unique object is a huge buffalo robe from the Dakota people known as “Lone Dog’s Winter Count.” Painted in a swirling circle are pictorial symbols for each winter, an ancient traditional way of counting years. It is literally the story of the tribe from 1801-1871, a tool to provide the foundation for an oral history of the tribe. Luckily, Smithsonian anthropologists interviewed the Indian who made it, Lone Dog, during his lifetime and wrote down the oral history behind each symbol. The visitor can view these interpretations and remarkably, in a matter of minutes have an understanding of the struggles of two hundred years ago.

As mentioned before, the museum has access to the University of Arkansas collection. For the first time, many of its most unique and historic artifacts have found a place to be displayed. Included is a large painting on cloth by White Swan, a Crow Scout who rode with the 7th Calvary. He was present at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876 where he was severely wounded in the fighting. The painting, known as a pictograph, is of a battle scene. Soldiers are shown shot, Indians are attacking and a village is off in the distance. This is a very exciting find, as the battle is rarely seen from the Indian point of view. This incredible object was rolled up in a tube, possibly not viewed since it was acquired over 100 years ago.

The battle of Wounded Knee in 1890 marked the end of the non-reservation Indian. At that time, the Plains Indians were being influenced by a new religion whose goal was to bring back the buffalo and return the world to the way it was before the white man. This was to be accomplished with a “Ghost Dance.” They created shirts for this dance said to be impervious to bullets. Ambushed in North Dakota by the US Calvary utilizing Gatling guns, the shirts proved to be ineffective and a slaughter ensued. After this horrific moment, the Indians finally became resolved to live on the reservations. The museum has one such “Ghost Dance” shirt is on display, beautifully made and decorated with long locks of human hair.

Another section of the museum highlights the similar artistic styles of all ancient peoples of the Americas, with wondrous artifacts from Central and South America. Gold jewelry, pottery and even an Incan stone mace with its wooden handle still intact are on exhibit. The displays continue into the modern age including a fine array of Navajo sandpainting textiles, rarely been seen by the public. Actual sandpaintings were made on the ground from sand by a shaman as part of a religious healing ceremony and held great power. They were always destroyed when the event was over in order keep their images from being stolen and utilized for evil. But the modern world has led to a loss of many of these traditional religious practices. While it was once considered forbidden to copy or record these images, there are those now who fear without some preservation they will be lost forever. This brought about the creation of these rugs. Those on display are remarkable in their complexity and size. Only the most skilled rug makers can create them, since the transfer of the ground images are difficult and painstaking to weave into the cloth.

While many museums may have a small room dedicated to Native American art and artifacts, there is really no other museum in the world that showcases the entire story in such an elaborate fashion. If your journey brings you to Bentonville and the newly opened Crystal Bridges Art Museum, a stop at The Museum of Native American History should absolutely be on the trip agenda. You might actually find yourself spending more time here than at Bentonville’s other attractions. It has always been said that history is fascinating, and this museum is proof of that!

The Museum of Native American History is located at 202 SW ‘O’ Street, Bentonville, Arkansas 72712 phone: (479) 273-2456 There is no admission charge. Hours are 9 AM – 5 PM Monday through Saturday

Steven R. Cooper currently lives in Kingston Springs, Tennessee. He holds a degree in History and is the Editor-in-Chief of the Central States Archaeological Journal, published quarterly since 1954. He is an avid collector of prehistoric artifacts and his collection has been pictured in several publications.

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Hunting Glass Trade Beads

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:19:00 GMT

by V Gary Henry, Ashville, North Carolina

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.56, No.2, pg.82 Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.56, No.4, pg.200

In 2005, I submitted a manuscript entitled “A Collage of Favorite Relic Stories” for a book project on collector’s favorite Indian artifact stories. Since that project seems to have not borne fruition, I have decided to submit these stories individually for consideration for publishing. This is the first of these stories. Some of my favorite relic-hunting stories include finding my first Clovis points reported on earlier in this journal (Henry 1993) and which I will not repeat here.

Upon leaving graduate school in 1965 (my graduation and master’s degree in wildlife management would be completed in 1968), I was employed by the Tennessee Game and Fish Commission (now Wildlife Resources Agency) to conduct research on the European Wild Hog in Eastern Tennessee. I was stationed at Tellico Plains, once the Overhill Capitol of the Cherokee Nation. As the local area was rich in Indian artifacts, 1965 marked the beginning of my collecting activities.

I resided at Tellico Plains, in Monroe County, until 1968 and, during this three- year period, one area hunted regularly was the remnants of a burial mound in the bottom-lands along the Tellico River that was farmed by Stokely Van Camp Corporation. In searching this mound area, the most common artifacts to be found were glass trade beads that apparently had been plowed out of graves and scattered throughout the soil. The majority of these trade beads were the very small seed beads 1/8 inch in diameter, which were difficult to see in just walking over the site, with my eyes 5 ¹ /2 feet from the ground. Therefore, I got the idea to crawl over the mound site (between rows when crops were planted but still small) on my hands and knees, thus placing my eyes closer to ground level. I carried a .30-06 shell case in which to deposit the small seed beads. Larger beads that would not fit in the case, when occasionally found, were simply placed into my pockets.

I am unaware of, and never saw, anyone else using the technique, so I assume I was the originator of this technique of hunting seed beads, and it proved very profitable. If my memory serves me correctly, the most beads that I ever placed into one shell case were 198; this probably also represents my best single-day hunting trip using this technique. Figure 1 shows a frame showing 2,777 glass line that was found at this site using this technique.

Figure 2 is a frame of artifacts from Monroe County that includes a string of 125 other types of beads (8 clay, 8 stone — including large one center right in the frame, 61 shell, 16 bone, 12 metal and 20 kaolin pipe stem) around the outside of the frame that I also found on the mound (shown in Hothem 2006: 99).

[Fig 2]

I also found the four rolled copper points at top center and the round metal pendant at top left in the frame on this mound. Another collector also found the 14 glass trade beads at the top of the frame on the mound (shown in Hothem 2007a: 299). The other artifacts in the frame were found by other collectors but it is unknown if any of these artifacts came from the mound. These include the undrilled reel gorget (shown in Hothem 2007a: 60), sandstone incised point effigy pendant (shown in Hothem 2007b: 295), another stone pendant with hole worn through (shown in Hothem 2007b: 187), two clay human face effigies from pottery vessels, five bifaces, one celt and one jasper pipe.”Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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Prehistoric American Indian Beads

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:18:00 GMT

Walter Williams, Eastland, Texas

Left to right: Olivella shell, turkey bone, Pacific Coast shell, Dickson Mounds pearls and various types of shell beads. From the collection of Walter Williams.

At least 15,000 years ago, the first Americans arrived and began adapting to the many environments of North America. In a couple of millennia, they had spread across the continent and increased in numbers. As populations increased, family units became tribal units that developed cultures distinct from other tribes. Anthropologists, to simplify cultural distinction of the 300 tribes, have placed them into geographical categories that range from the Woodlands (Southeastern and Northeastern) to the Northwest Coast. Although each group produced many unique items that facilitated living in their environment and specific culture, they also produced items for personal adornment. The bead was the most ubiquitous item made for adornment throughout Amerind history.

Beads were made from any available material that was not too difficult to shape and drill. Pearls, teeth (including shark), bones, claws, copper, horn, ivory, broken pottery discs, and semi-precious stones and gems were all used, as well as perishable items such as acorns and goldenrod seed pods. American Indians wore beads as necklaces, anklets, and bracelets. They were often worn in the hair or sewn into clothing, which was the case for many of the drilled pearls found in the Dickson Mounds in Illinois. Beads by their size, quantity, and color were a source of respect and wonder. Without doubt, the most common bead material in prehistoric cultures was shell and for a good reason. Shell was readily available in coastal areas, easy to work, and admired for its beauty and ageless appeal.

Assorted Spiro Mounds beads from the collection of Walter Williams.

The Lindenmeier Site, known for the Paleo-era projectile points dating to 8800 BC, produced beads of bone, lignite, coal, and a partially drilled hematite bead, as well as a beautiful shell bead (Wedel, 1986:75). Additional information relevant to adornment at a very early date comes from the Reagan Site in Franklin County, Vermont. Small triangular pendants made from flat pieces of talc were found at this Paleo site. The perforations in the pendants or beads were probably made by a burin or graver in the soft talc material (Gramly, 1996:40).

Life at the end of the Holocene was a serious life and death business with dangerous megafauna still abundant. Nevertheless, these early nomadic people managed to find time to make adornments that added to an individual’s prestige and status in society, identified the wearer as a member of a particular tribe, definitely added personal beauty, and served a spiritual purpose. Beads denoted the wealth or achievement of the wearer. It is important to understand that Amerind people did not just value beads for beauty; they made beads an inseparable cultural component of their lives.

The arrival of the Neolithic Age portended tremendous change as villages appeared along the banks of major rivers and tributaries. Successful agricultural subsistence economies allowed villages to spend more time in artistic expression. This gave rise to a need for bead material that could not be found locally. Extensive trade networks were built around the demand for lithic material and beads. Turquoise from the Pueblo cultures was traded in the West and well into Mexico. Turquoise was also found in the mounds east of the Mississippi River. When analyzed, the beads were found to have come from the ancient Cerrillos mining area in New Mexico. The spiny oyster shell (spondylus Princeps) is found on only one area off the west coast. Yet beads from this oyster were found in excavations of the Anasazi, Mogollon, and Hohokam in the Southwest and in the same Eastern mound excavations in which turquoise was found. Dentalium shells, used as a source of wealth and decoration, were produced in the Pacific Northwest but have been found at several sites in the Plains. Shells from Florida and Georgia have been found up and down the Mississippi, Missouri, and Arkansas drainage areas and were especially common during the Mississippian period (Dubin, 1987:93-94).

Above: Copper beads found at the Reeves site in Lake County, Kentucky.

Amazingly, copper beads from the Lake Superior or southern Appalachian region were found at the Spiro Mounds Complex (McDannald Collection, 1976:13).

Perhaps even more amazing is the story Cabeza De Vaca recounted upon his return to civilization: “The inmates of these abodes came to receive us halfways, with their children on their backs. They gave us a number of pouches with silver and powdered antimony (or lead) with which they paint their faces, and many beads and robes of cow-skins, and loaded those who came to us with all their chattels” (Cabeza De Vaca, www.pbs.org ). The fact that precious beads were given as a gift is not unique. It happened on several occasions according to Cabeza De Vaca’s journal. What is remarkable is this statement: “…There, among other things which they gave us, Andres Dorantes got a big rattle of copper, large, on which was represented a face, and which they held in great esteem. They said it had been obtained from some of their neighbors. Upon asking these whence it had come, they claimed to have brought it from the north, where there was much of it and highly prized” (Cabeza De Vaca, www.pbs.org ). Even among these Indians, probably Jumanos, who lived just above the subsistence level, a trade system had developed that was sufficient to bring copper from the Great Lakes region to the villages around what would become El Paso, Texas, a distance of approximately two thousand miles.

Above: Teeh and whelk shell necklace found in Hamblen County, Tennessee. Bruce Whitney collection.

The Poverty Point Culture, famous for the numerous small, baked clay balls used for food preparation, also developed great skill in lapidary work as early as 1800 BC. They acquired red jasper, amethyst, feldspar, galena, and limonite by following the forest pathways and traveling the numerous rivers and tributaries in their dugout canoes. Contacts were made with other societies in the Eastern and Midwestern United States to procure the needed material for the ornament as well as the material for shaping and drilling the flint or stone (Pope, 1986:108-115). For instance, steatite came from the Appalachian region, and cherts came from the north. These Late Archaic people developed a tradition of working stone, a difficult material to drill or shape when compared to the shell their contemporaries used. Many types of tools used to work the ornamental beads have been found at the site, including chisels, drill points, perforators, and more than 30,000 micro flint tools, some just barely over an inch long. Poverty Point was an agricultural community blessed with seasonal flooding of their fields. In addition, this was an area where nature bountifully blessed the inhabitants with fish, fowl, and game as well as wild seeds, fruits, and roots. It is very possible these people traded their agricultural surplus for the precious stones they needed to make exquisite beads, buttons, and pendants.

The Neolithic revolution not only brought about changes in agriculture and the domestication of animals, but also eventually led to the invention of three types of bows designed for a specific purpose: the fire bow, the bow drill, and the hunting bow. Abundant speculation exists as to which came first. Almost certainly, it was not the hunting bow; nevertheless, all three profoundly affected the way these early Americans lived and related to others.

Above and Below: Two bead necklaces from the Spiro Mounds site in Oklahoma. Photo courtesy of the Gilchrist Museum.

The fire bow consisted of a shaft with a prepared block of wood with a slight concavity in the base and a small bow with sinew string. A coordinated hand movement mixed with a tuft of dried grass could quickly start a fire. The author remembers an old timer talking about finding a child’s bow in a rock shelter on the Pecos River shortly after the Great Depression. It is very probable that what he actually found was a fire bow.

Another invention was the bow drill. Very similar to the fire bow, a wooden shaft was used with a pressure block with a concave depression in it for securing the upper rounded end of the drill shaft. The bowstring was looped around the drill shaft with the bit positioned at the drilling location. Pressure applied by the wooden block, as the drill was drawn forward and backward determined the speed with which the hole was drilled. In experiments by Leland Patterson, wet sand used as an abrasive had to be replaced every few strokes of the drill (Patterson: 10-13). The abrasive allowed the driller to use relatively soft material, perhaps a porcupine quill or a cactus spine to drill through hardened material such as pearls and columella shells. Jamey Allen, an avid collector and researcher, noted, “A drill can be made from any hard material and will be reasonably effective if used properly. It is the slurry (the combination of ground up stone being abraded from the thing being drilled) along with water that is a coolant and medium–all this combining inside the budding perforation that does the real work, more so than the hardness of the drill or bit” (Allen, Sept. 2002).

However, not all beads had to be drilled. At the Nightfire Island Site, Carol Howe discovered a string of notched calcite beads. Calcite in its crystalline form is soft and easily notched. Easily secured with a strand of woven grass or stripped bark by the Modocs, the result was a hastily made, yet durable necklace whose very color and translucency made it appear to be charged with supernatural power (Howe, 1979:220). Furthermore, the common use of the bow drill does not absolutely indicate that it was adopted throughout North America. When John Lawson described his visit to the Occaneechi camp, he explained that the Indians ground the preform bead on “stones and other things till they make it current” (Lawson, 1967:204). But the actual drilling took place with a nail stuck in a cane or reed. The Indian then rolled the cane with one hand and moved the bead with the other until a hole was drilled through.

American Indians in the Northeastern United States used the white shell from the inner whorl of columella of the whelk in conjunction with purple from the quahog shell to make wampum. The small cylindrical beads were drilled through the center and strung in a variety of ways and used as clothing and body decorations. American Indians

used wampum during ceremonies of dance, healing, and religious rituals. Wedding agreements and peace treaties were often made binding by the exchange of wampum. The white beads represented promise and peace. Because the purple beads represented sadness or death, they became valuable for political purposes (Dubin, 1987:169-171). After European contact and due to the scarcity of coins, early colonists used wampum as a source of money. While this definitely affected the native population, the strictly commercial use of wampum was primarily limited to dealings with the colonist. In time, wampum evolved to become a sacred symbol among American Indians.

American Indians possessed a tremendous appreciation for nature. Using natural objects for personal adornment only accentuated and honored this cherished environmental tradition. Today, by studying the beads from numerous places like Spiro Mounds, Dickson Mounds, and Poverty Point, the observer gains an abiding respect not only for the intrinsic beauty of the bead, but also for the maker who found the time to locate the material and shape it into a form that was both pleasant and meaningful. It served as an expression of creativity at that moment as well as hope for the future.

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Chunkee Player Shell Gorget

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:18:00 GMT

by Kent C. Westbrook, Little Rock, Arkansas

Shell gorgets are among the rarest and most beautiful of prehistoric art objects encountered in the United States. Most have been found in the Southeastern United States and are associated with various cultures from Woodland through Late Mississippian. Holmes, in 1 880- 1 88 1, wrote a comprehensive article “Art in Shell of the Ancient Americans.” In that discussion, he delineated the basic types of engraved gorgets: cross, scalloped disks, bird, spider, serpent, human face, human figure, and frog. With regard to the engraved gorgets, Holmes wrote, “I have given much time to their examination, and, day by day, have become more strongly impressed with the belief that no single design is without its significance, and that their production was a serious art which dealt with matters closely interwoven with the history, mythology, and policy of a people gradually developing a civilization of their own.” Of the engraved shell gorgets, those with the human figure are the rarest of all. In discussing the gorgets with human figures, Holmes said, “I now come to a class of works which are new and unique, and in more than one respect are the most important objects of aboriginal art yet found within the limits of the United States.”

This paper will discuss five known engraved gorgets depicting what has been interpreted as a chunkee stone player (human figure with a discoidal stone in hand). Four previously reported gorgets are reviewed, a new one described, these are compared, and tentative conclusions expressed.

Description of Gorgets

Kentucky Gorget (Figure 1) — This gorget was obtained by the National Museum (Smithsonian Institute) from C. A. Nelson of Eddyville, Kentucky who had excavated it from a burial near Eddyville. The gorget was described in detail by Holmes in 1903. It is 5 inches in diameter and is solid with deep engraving. Two holes are present near the right arm. The head is to the right with an elaborate head dress. Arm bands, leg bands, an apron like garment, and a sash complete a complicated ceremonial attire. The right hand holds a discoidal, the left hand holds a baton of some sort, the right leg is sharply flexed, and the left leg is flexed. Moccasins are present on the feet. Holmes concluded that, “It must represent a disk thrower engaged, possibly, in playing the well-known game of chunkee.”

Oklahoma Gorget (Figure 2) — This gorget was excavated from the Spiro Mound in Le Flore County, Oklahoma and eventually wound up in the American Museum of the American Indian. It is deteriorated and details are not as clear as in the other pieces. A photograph and description of it were published by Burnett in 1945.

The gorget is of the cut and engraved variety and is 3 ³ /4 inches in diameter. Two holes are present just above the right elbow. The right hand holds a discoidal, the torso is forward, the right leg is acutely flexed, and the left leg is semi-flexed. Clothing includes an apron-like structure hanging from the waist, a wide belt, a hanging sash, and some sort of head dress. The weeping eye design is clear on the face which is to the right.

Missouri Gorget (Figure 3) — This gorget was one of eight engraved shell gorgets from a cemetery near St. Mary’s in Perry County, Missouri. The pieces were dug by Alfred D. Chandler and obtained for Yale University by Professor 0. C. Marsh. They were described by MacCurdy in 1913. The eight included two with a cross, two with a spider, one with a serpent and three with a human figure. Regarding this piece, MacCurdy wrote, “The rarest of all shell gorgets, and for that matter the gems of all art in shell, are the gorgets with representation of the human figure.”

This gorget is 5 inches in diameter with two holes near the right arm. The profiled face is turned to the right. The individual is clothed in elaborate ceremonial regalia, holds a discoidal in the right hand, and a baton in his left. The right leg is sharply flexed and the left leg is semi-flexed. Details including teeth, fingernails, shell pendant, etc. are accurately reproduced. The gorget has large areas of cut outs which accentuate the figure. MacCurdy summarized his opinion of this gorget by stating, “One of these is perhaps the finest combination of engraving and open work that has yet come to notice.”

Arkansas Gorget (Figure 4 and picture) This gorget was excavated from a Middle Mississippian grave of an adult male from the McDuffee site, 3CG21, Craighead County, Arkansas. It was located near the left shoulder, and additional associated artifacts included a plain bottle and bowl.

The gorget is 5 inches in diameter and has a figure in a position identical to the three previously described gorgets. Two holes are present near the right arm, the head is to the right

the right hand holds a discoidal while the left holds a baton. The right leg is acutely flexed and the left is semi-flexed. A complex head dress of a box-like nature topped with a bird is present. Ceremonial regalia including a ruffled blouse, apron-like skirt, arm bands, leg bands, and sash are evident. A shell pendant hangs from the neck. Moccasins are on the feet. Large areas of cut out are accurately done.

Arkansas Double Gorget (Figure 5) — This gorget also comes from the McDufee site in Craighead County, Arkansas. It was found by Charlie Snell and previously reported by Dr. Charles McGimsey. This is a solid engraved piece which contains two figures in ceremonial regalia (apron, leg bands, arm bands, sashes, head pieces, etc.) with a discoidal or chunkee stone in their left hands. A woodpecker head is engraved at opposite poles of the piece.

Figure 1: Kentucky Gorget

Figure 3: Missouri Gorget

Figure 5: Arkansas Double Gorget

Discussion

The four similar gorgets come from a wide geographic area (Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arkansas). Yet, they are strikingly similar (Table 1). The body and limb position, lower body dress, and presence of discoidal and baton, are practically identical in all four. The Kentucky gorget differs from the others in several respects: no cut out areas, more stylized, less complex dress, beads rather than pendant around the neck, different style of head dress, and reversal of the ends of the baton in the left hand.

The other three gorgets are so similar that they must have been created by the same artist, or at least the same school. The Missouri and Arkansas gorgets are the best preserved and the most detailed. They are so nearly identical that they can almost be super-imposed. The Arkansas gorget has slightly more cut out areas and a more complex head dress. However, comparison of the two convinces me that they were probably made by the same artist. The Oklahoma gorget may well have been nearly identical, but is somewhat deteriorated, making comparison difficult.

The similarities of these gorgets suggest either that: (1) they were made in one place and dispersed, or (2) some idealized game player concept was present in several areas resulting in the creation of similar pieces. The first explanation seems more plausible to me because of the rarity of these pieces, their striking similarity, and their very highly developed artistic features.

The individual depicted must be involved in some game or ceremony. The complex and similar dress suggests that a definite costume was indicated. No such costume is described in ethnographic literature to my knowledge.

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Richard M. Burnett Collection

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:17:00 GMT

Shelbyville, Kentucky

(Richard M. Burnett Photos)

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ENGRAVED MARINE SHELL GORGETS: A REVIEW

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:16:00 GMT

By Jim Glanville, Ph.D., G.I.R.S. Member, Retired Chemist, and Independent Scholar

INTRODUCTION

Stone Age cultures around the world valued mollusk shells for the purpose of making durable ceremonial and decorative objects. For example, according to a recent news report, 100,000 years ago Neanderthals on the Iberian peninsula were wearing painted cockle shells—long before the arrival in that region of modern humans.’

In North America, engraved marine shell gorgets are one of the most attractive groups of artifacts that date from the Mississippian Period (A.D. 900-1600) of American Indian history and are characteristic of the cultures of that time who lived in the southeastern United States. Shell long endures in archaeological settings, particularly in non-acidic soils.

Mississippian gorgets were made from whelk shells and other marine mollusks and are mostly 2″ to 6″ in diameter. Gorgets in modern collections were almost surely recovered from burials and were typically found in close association with the skeletons of the persons who likely wore them when alive. These persons were perhaps religious figures or leaders, and often women or children. The name gorget probably derives from the English use of the word to describe something worn at the throat. Archaeologists, such as the artist Madeline Kneberg, have often pictured gorgets as being worn suspended on cords hung around the necks of their wearers.

Fig. 1, From Holmes, 1883, Plate XXIX, detail

Many gorgets are “plain” or unengraved. The engraved ones discussed here were cut with stone tools to have characteristic designs. The engraved designs fall into a number of distinct types which are called gorget styles. Broadly, engraved gorgets divide into two groups: 1) circular and 2) pear- or mask-shaped, as illustrated by William Henry Holmes ² in 1883 and shown by the dotted lines in Figure 1 at right. Disc beads also were made from conch outer shells, and the so-called chunky beads were made from the central stem (columella) of mollusks. Shell beads are familiar to most collectors of Indian relics.

Engraved circular gorgets typically have the designs on their concave face, while pear-shaped gorgets are typically engraved on their convex face. Gorgets with “cut out” sections are said to be fenestrated, from a Latin word meaning windowed. Many gorgets exhibit a closely spaced pair of suspension holes near the top edge.

Even when lacking detailed provenience information, their strong iconography (style of engraving) ³ gives them special value as markers of Indian cultures and of cultural contacts. After discussing gorgets in general, this article focuses on gorgets which depict stylized rattlesnakes, and particularly those from northeastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia (the region formed by the watersheds of the forks of the Holston River that I call Holstonia), where my studies have been centered, and most particularly on the group of gorgets engraved in the Saltville style.

THE LITERATURE OF ENGRAVED MARINE SHELL GORGETS

There are hundreds of articles scattered widely throughout both the professional and relic collector literature that mention or picture shell gorgets. Nine major works that aggregate gorget studies are listed in this section.

Holmes’ 125-page, 1883 article for the Bureau of American Ethnology (available for on-line viewing) initiated gorget studies with a loud fanfare by showing 70 specimens divided into seven style classifications. An example of each of Holmes’ seven style divisions is shown in Figure 2.

Following Holmes’ magisterial synthesis, many years passed before a new work entirely devoted to engraved marine shell gorgets appeared. However, in the interim, widely scattered pictures of individual gorgets were published both in the professional and relic collector literature. Gorget studies were finally rekindled by the publication of an article by Madeline Kneberg in 1959 that pictured 62 specimens of Tennessee gorgets. ⁶ The Mississippian Period scholar, A.J. Waring, in his review’ of her article wrote: “At last someone has done a long-needed job” of arranging eastern Tennessee shell gorgets into a “sensible chronological sequence”. At about this same time, widespread collector interest in gorgets was generated by the appearance of the books Sun Circles and Human Hands’ and Tribes That Slumber’ Both of these books, which prominently feature pictures of gorgets as well as many other artifacts, proved extremely popular with the public at large and both remain in print today, over half a century after they were originally issued.

Jon Muller’s 1966 Ph.D. dissertation’° was the first thesis devoted to engraved marine shell gorgets. That thesis, together with Muller’s contemporaneous article in Tennessee Archaeologist,” developed the concept of gorget style and defined the names of the sub-styles of the rattlesnake gorget genre. Arguably, Muller’s key advance was to demonstrate the manner in which a study of artistic style (with the case of gorgets as a particular example) could contribute to the development of American archaeology.

The first professional article dedicated to a “pilot study” of engraved, pear-shaped mask style marine shell gorgets appeared in 1989. M.T. Smith and J.B. Smith noted that mask style gorgets were geographically widespread (ranging from Alabama to North Dakota) during the Mississippian Period and interpreted the symbolism of the 69 examples they described as suggesting that mask gorgets functioned in a warfare or hunting related role. Recently, a useful review was published describing the significance of mask style gorgets found in the Ohio River Valley.

In 1996 Jeffrey Brain and Philip Phillips authored a book largely devoted to marine shell gorgets published by the Peabody Museum”’. This book (discussed in the following section) serves as catalog of the exhibited and published specimens of gorgets known to them at that time. As such, it is a benchmark publication and today is the starting point of any serious study of engraved marine shell gorgets. A few are shown front and back, a few are inadvertently duplicated, and seven “frauds” are included—so the precise total is a little uncertain.

A year later, in 1997, Darla Spencer Hoffman published a magnificent survey of West Virginia gorgets ¹⁵ in which she described 70 specimens. The preceding year, Brain and Phillips had reported just eight West Virginia gorgets, so her work was a major advance. She achieved this in large measure by seeking out the collectors who owned over 80 percent of the gorgets she studied. Her work convincingly demonstrated the potential value to archaeology of aggregating images of, and provenience information about, privately held gorgets. My own gorget work has proceeded along similar lines, as I describe below.

BRAIN AND PHILLIPS 1996 BOOK/CATALOG

The Brain and Phillips book catalogs, describes, and pictures about 1,100 engraved gorgets. It also includes useful maps showing the geographic distributions of gorgets in particular styles. Roughly 900 of their gorget total are circular and 200 are pear-shaped. ¹⁶ Table 1 shows the book’s major gorget style classifications and their subdivisions. Most gorget sub-style names were taken from places where gorgets in that sub-style were found.

Table 2 shows the counts and percentages of the principal styles of gorgets listed in Brain and Phillips’ catalog. Rattlesnake style gorgets account for 28% of the total and are the dominant style—being over twice as common as gorgets in any other style.

Table 3 shows the counts and percentages of the find states of gorgets. The Brain and Phillips catalog lists 379 Tennessee gorgets, which account for about 40% of the total. Over 90% of the gorgets in the catalog come from just nine states: Tennessee, Oklahoma, Georgia, Alabama, Illinois, Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Missouri. Within those states, gorget distribution is typically highly localized. For example, sites along the Tennessee River account for most of the gorgets from Tennessee and Alabama; all gorgets from Oklahoma come from the Spiro site; and Georgia gorgets were concentrated at the Etowah mounds.

Table I. Principal Brain and Phillips Gorget Major and Sub-styles

Major Style Sub-styles or Subdivisions

Plain (unengraved) Subdivided by size, shape, edge treatment, and number of holes and hole placement

Annular (ring-like) Subdivided by their size and the size of their center hole

Bird or turkey cock Cox Mound, Hixon, Jackson, Pearce

Square cross or crib Bennett, Donnaha, Moorehead, Warren Wilson, quadrilobed

Circular cross or cruciform Circular cross

Geometric Crable, Dunning, Lenoir, Pickett, Pine Island, Ruffner, Russell, Tibbee Creek, Younge

Human figure, dancer Big Toco, Cartersville, Eddy ville, Hamilton, Houston, Hull, Philbrook, Rhoden, Spaghetti

Mask or human face Buffalo, Chickamauga, McBee

Rattlesnake Lick Creek, Brakebill, Carter’s Quarter, Citico, Saltville

Spider McAdams, Orton, Rudder

Scalloped disk or triskele Nashville I, Nashville II

Turning to rattlesnake gorgets, they are abundant in Holstonia and constitute the single most important category from that region. Table 4 shows the state-by-state counts of rattlesnake gorgets. Tennessee was the source of slightly over 50% of the specimens in the Brain and Phillips catalog and just five states (Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, and Alabama) accounted for over 92% of the total of 260 rattlesnake style gorgets.

Table 2. Principal Gorget Styles by Count and
Percentage According to Brain and Phillips

Style Count Percent

Rattlesnake 260 28.2

Human figure, dancer 125 13.6

Mask or human face 114 12.4

Scalloped disk or triskele 109 11.8

Cruciform (crib) square or circular cross 109 11.8

Bird or turkey cock 78 8.5

Geometric 42 4.6

Spider 32 3.5

Unclassified 18 1.9

Annular (ring-like) 17 1.9

Plain 17 1.9

TOTAL 921 100.1

From Brain and Phillips catalog of gorgets listed by style, pp. 9-128.

Table 5 is a simplified form of Table 4. In Table 5, the sub-styles Citico and Carter’s Quarter are combined into a single group designated for convenience as an overall CCQ (Citico-Carter’s Quarter) style. Additionally, the sub-styles Lick Creek and Brakebill are aggregated into a single group designated for convenience as an overall LCB (Lick Creek/Brakebill) style. Gorgets in the Carter’s Quarter sub-style may be generally regarded as fenestrated Citico style gorgets. Gorgets in both the Lick Creek and Brakebill styles are fenestrated. So doing aggregates the styles into the original styles devised by Jon Muller. The data in Table 5 comes from Brain and Phillips pp. 83-106. Table 3. All Styles of Gorgets Count and Percent by
Reported Find State*

State Count Percent Cumulative

Tennessee 379 39.1 39.1

Oklahoma 130 13.4 52.5

Georgia 111 11.5 64.0

Alabama 90 9.3 73.3

Illinois 46 4.7 78.0

Virginia 37 3.8 81.8

North Carolina 35 3.6 85.4

Arkansas 28 2.9 88.3

Missouri 22 2.2 90.5

Kentucky 21 2.2 92.7

Texas 16 1.7 94.4

Florida 11 1.1 95.5

Mississippi 11 1.1 96.6

North Dakota 10 1.0 97.6

West Virginia 8 0.8 98.4

Indiana 6 0.6 99.0

Ohio 4 0.4 99.4

Louisiana 2 0.2 99.6

South Dakota 1 0.1 99.7

South Carolina 1 0.1 99.8

TOTAL 969 99.8 99.8

GORGET SERIATION

As used by archaeologists, the term seriation simply means a listing of artifacts in chronological and dated sequence. For gorgets, seriation is of enormous value because the approximate date of any individual gorget engraved in a distinctive style can be immediately estimated by referring to a listing such as that shown in Table 6.

Almost from the beginning of my 2004 studies, I have been aware that the limited gorget dating and seriation in the Brain and Phillips catalog was not generally accepted among professional students of gorgets.

Fortunately, gorget seriation has recently been revisited in studies by Lynne P. Sullivan” and by David J. Hally.’ ⁸ Table 6 relies in large part on those studies. However, in preparing Table 6, I have also exercised my own judgment based on conversations with knowledgeable professionals over the past five or six years. As an amateur effort, I label my table a “speculative” seriation. Note that all rattlesnake style gorgets come at a relatively late date and overlap the time of arrival of Spanish conquistadors in the Southeast.

*Data from Brain and Phillips pp. 405-503. Some gorgets (not included in this table) lacking specific find states are simply reported as being from the “Southeast.”

Table 4. The Distribut on of 260 Brain and Phillips Cataloged Rattlesnake Gorgets by Sub-style and State

Style 1 State-> TN GA VA NC AL SE* WV KY MS MO IN SC TOT

Citico 48 17 11 4 9 8 2 3 0 1 1 0 104

Carter’s Quarter 7 8 2 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 20

Lick Creek 14 3 1 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 22

Brakebill 47 9 1 0 2 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 63

Saltville 1 0 7 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 11

Unassigned (generic) 15 7 3 10 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 40

State Count 132 44 25 22 17 9 3 3 2 1 1 I 260

State Percent 50.8 16.9 9.6 8.5 6.5 3.2 1.2 1.2 0.8 0.4 0.4 0.4 99.9

Cumulative Percent 50.8 67.7 77.3 85.8 92.3 95.5 96.7 97.9 98.7 99.1

99.5 99.9

*SE = Southeast, gorgets lacking a specific find state.

From Brain and Phillips catalog of gorgets by style pp. 83-106.

Table 5. Rattlesnake Gorget Counts from Brain and Phillips by Aggregated Sub-styles

Aggregated Sub-style Number Percent

CCB: Citico and (104) Carter’s Quarter (or fenestrated Citico) (20) 124 47.9

LCB: Lick Creek (22) and Brakebill (63) 85 32.4

Unassigned rattlesnakes (not placed in one of the five named sub-styles) 40 15.4

Saltville 11 4.2

Totals 260 99.9

From Brain and Phillips pp. 83-106. Here in Table 5, their styles have been aggregated into the original styles devised by Jon Muller.

Table 6. A Speculative Seriation o Gorgets According to Styles and Sub-styles.

Gorget Style Gorget Sub-styles Date Range, AD

Crib (square cross) Bennett, Moorehead 1100-1300

Human Figure Big Toco (fenestrated, perhaps dancers) 1250-1325

Bird Nixon (facing paired woodpeckers, fenestrated) 1200-1350

Spider Orton (circular with rings of holes, from Tennessee) 1250-1325

Cruciform Ruffner, Dunning 1250-1325

Cruciform Pine Island (cross with quadrilateral fenestrations) 1300-1375

Bird Cox Mound (four woodpeckers around a square) 1325-1400

Triskele Nashville I, Nashville II 1325-1450

Human Figure Spaghetti (distorted human faces, highly fenestrated) 1375-1475

Geometric Taskigi (edge pitted plain gorgets) 1375-1475

Crib (square cross) Warren Wilson (quadrilobed) 1375-1475

Rattlesnake Lick Creek, Brakebill, Carters Quarter, Citico 1400-1600

Mask Buffalo, Chickamauga, McBee 1450-1600Rattlesnake Saltville 1450-1650

THE AUTHOR’S METHODS

Since 2004, I have located and pictured many gorgets not in the Brain and Phillips catalog by three principal methods: 1) A detailed study of the collector literature (books and magazines); 2) By visits to collector shows and the private homes of collectors; and 3) By monitoring the gorgets which have been offered for sale by relic dealers, particularly via those they have shown on line.

Books illustrating gorgets that have been published for the collector community fall into two groups: 1) The important ten-volume series of works with the generic title Who’s Who in Indian Relics ¹⁹ and 2) Various other works that picture gorgets. The ten books published under the title Who’s Who in Indian Relics deserve to be widely known, as collectively they represent a remarkable photographic record of American Indian artifacts. A complete study and thorough compilation of the evidence in these volumes would require a huge effort.

Other books published for the collector community that contain images of gorgets are Fundaburk and Foreman’s book mentioned earlier (footnote 8). In a section titled “Ceremonial Complex” they quote extensively from Waring and Holder, ² ‘ as well as other authorities, and picture many gorgets in plates such as: 20, 23, 28, 31, 32, 41-50, 155, and 156. Bert Bierer self-published a simply produced, well-organized and well-documented compendium of southeastern Indian artifacts including gorgets. ²² Lar Hothem’s shell artifact “value guide” ² ‘ shows many examples of offered-for-sale engraved shell gorgets, some of which are perhaps reproductions. ²⁴ A 2007 book about shell artifacts by two Florida-based marine biologists is a significant work with its many color pictures and its sensible approach to artifact cataloging. Unfortunately, it was not carefully edited.

Over the past 50-odd years, the relic collecting community has produced many magazines. Some have been long lived; others have been fleeting. Also, various groups of collectors have produced, and continue to produce, newsletters. Four long-lived magazines are:

1) Journal of the Illinois Archaeological Society; 3) The Central States ,Archaeological Journal; and 3) Prehistoric American, which began life in a black-and-white format in 1966 under the title The Redskin, was by 1982 being published as Prehistoric Art, and in 1985 with the title Prehistoric Artifacts; and 4) Indian Artifacts Magazine a quarterly relic collectors publication currently in its 29th year of publication that has occasionally published images of gorgets. An example of a collectors magazine that became defunct is the onetime Ohio-based publication called, simply, Artifacts.

Internet gorget resources and auction catalogs reflect the activities of auction houses that deal in Indian relics. Some of these houses publish elegant, glossy catalogs that can be subscribed to by postal mail. Others offer on line auctions with the catalogs being posted on the internet. Some publish both paper and on line catalogs. Collections from the estates of deceased collectors constitute many (perhaps most) of the archaeological artifacts that are offered at auction. In recent years, the author has seen numerous gorgets offered for sale, even on the general interest auction sites such as eBay. It is a reasonable guess that over the course of a year dozens, and possibly hundreds, of gorget images appear in printed catalogs or at the websites of on line sellers. Simply attempting to monitor and record all gorgets among the flood of American Indian artifacts coming onto the market is a time consuming endeavor. Checking to see if they have previously appeared in an earlier, alternative publishing format is additionally time consuming.

My already-published work on gorget studies and the methods I use include an article in the Smithfield Review ²⁶ and two articles in the Quarterly Bulletin of the Archeological Society of Virginia.

SALTVILLE STYLE GORGETS

Saltville, in Smyth County, Virginia, is a small town in the large region that constitutes Southwest Virginia. For various reasons, the region is one of the least explored by conventional archaeology in the entire eastern half of the United States. The only comprehensive work devoted to its regional archaeology is now 40 years old, ²⁸ and it is typically reduced to describing major sites such as Broadford, Chilhowie, Mendota, and Saltville, each in a handful of paragraphs. As its name implies, Saltville is underlain by salt (NaCl) formations, and dissolved salt rising to the surface creates licks that over millennia attracted large animals and their concomitant hunters. Saltville is a concentration site for Paleoindian period Clovis points and from 1895-1970 was the site of a large complex of chemical plants. Mississippian period American Indians no doubt established a salt trading center there with the salt creating a local economic center. Michael Barber (who at the present time of writing is the State Archaeologist of Virginia) learned from working there some 20 years ago that, numerous private artifact collections were characteristic of Saltville and Smyth County. Based on the local assemblage of archaeological prestige objects Barber described the place as a “salt powered chiefdom”.

Table 5 shows that in the 1996 catalog Saltville style gorgets were the rarest of the rattlesnake styles. They were also the most geographically localized. Of the 11 reported specimens, seven came from Southwest Virginia, three from North Carolina, and one from Tennessee. My investigations confirm and extend those conclusions. I have now collected pictures of slightly over 50 Saltville style gorgets of which three or four come from upper East Tennessee, about a dozen come from the Stokes-Surry-Yadkin County triangle in North Carolina, with the rest being assigned to Southwest Virginia. These counts are reasonable but are not, and cannot be, definitive. For example, some of the gorgets I cannot assign to a specific find site, but only to a region, and such limited evidence requires me to draw inferences, or even to make an intelligent guess. Another complicating factor is the slippery nature of style itself, with some gorgets carrying designs that fall between two named styles. In this connection, Saltville style gorgets are not traditionally regarded as being fenestrated, although some now known come with fenestrations.

Prehistoric American has published a number of articles showing Saltville style gorgets. Jim Maus published one of the Saltville style gorgets from his collection. ³ ° Anthony Stein published one in a gorgets survey article,” and said it came from either Southwest Virginia or East Tennessee (personal communication, 2006). Frank Bunce published pictures of an interesting Saltville style gorget in his collection” and displayed another fine Saltville style gorget from Sullivan County, Tennessee at the 2007 Fletcher, North Carolina G.I.R.S. artifact show. Robert and Cammille Matthias published a specimen with a single center hole from Sullivan County, Tennessee in 2008.”

Recently, the picture of a Saltville style gorget from Mendota in Washington County, Virginia was published in a retrospective account of the Ben McCary collection. ³⁴ McCary frequently purchased artifacts from persons in Southwest Virginia.” Also, longtime relic collector and author Jim Maus has posted an article about Saltville style gorgets at his newly developed web site at: http://www.j immausartifacts .com/saltville-style- gorge’s/.

Further examples of Saltville style gorgets depicted in photographs that I have taken are shown in Figure 4. I anticipate that additional specimens of Saltville style gorgets will show up in the future. Perhaps the publication of this article will bring some of those to light.

GORGETS AND HISTORY

One of the most satisfying aspects of a study of Saltville style gorgets is their value as a potential tool for understanding the Sixteenth Century history of the Southeast.

For 70 years before the English permanently settled at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, Spaniards had been active in the Southeast. The conquistador, Hernando de Soto, traveled through the region in 1541; Pedro Menendez de Aviles founded St. Augustine, Florida in 1565. A splendid article describing the events of the Spanish period history of the American Southeast was published in National Geographic Magazine in 1988. ³⁸ Readers of this article will likely be particularly interested in Judge’s well-illustrated essay because it includes a full page (p. 349) devoted to images of engraved marine shell gorgets.

My interest in gorgets was actually preceded by an interest in Spaniards being in Saltville in 1567, when they attacked a palisaded village there. ³⁹ In brief, history tells that that year an exploration party under Juan Pardo, seeking to open an overland route from the mines of Mexico to the Carolina coast, traveled west into Tennessee. Pardo left a detachment of men under Sergeant Hernando Moyano stationed at Fort St. Juan near present-day Morganton, North Carolina. From there Moyano traveled north in search of gold and attacked a palisaded American Indian village at present-day Saltville. My speculation is that people fled from Saltville after the attack to the three county Stokes-Surry-Yadkin triangle region of North Carolina. Of course, it is only speculation, but it does offer a possible explanation for the very distinctive distribution pattern of Saltville style gorgets between those two localities. I presented my detailed arguments to the Virginia History Forum in Richmond in 2007, and they are available to be read on line.

Finally, the question remains as to which American Indian people made Saltville style gorgets. The arguments are too lengthy to develop here, but a very strong case can be made for the Yuchi as their makers and that Saltville was a Yuchi center.

CONCLUDING COMMENTS

Mississippian Period artifacts with strong iconography, such as engraved marine shell gorgets, in private collections—even those whose find sites are unknown—retain considerable archaeological value despite the fact that their detailed archaeological contexts went unrecorded. Members of the collecting community perform a useful service when they collect and aggregate information about categories of such artifacts. The Saltville style of gorget is a very good case in point.

I am pessimistic about the eventual fate of most engraved marine shell gorgets held in private collections. I have approached curators, or other officials, at a number of museums about the possible accession by their museums of engraved marine shell gorgets from private collections. All have been uniformly negative. One wrote “NAGPRA is a serious concern for those involved with museum curation and collections management. This is a very thin ice topic.” NAGPRA, of course, is the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which is now 20 years old. As far as engraved marine shell gorgets are concerned, the effect of the Act has been to strongly inhibit their curation at public museums. In my opinion, it will be an irreparable loss if these objects of high art that honor the American Indian people who made them are not satisfactorily documented and properly conserved.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I gratefully acknowledge the help of Tony Adams, Tommy Beutell, Frank Bunce, Charles Burnette, Duane Esarey, David Fuerst, the late Tommy Hamm, Harry Haynes, the late ‘ Howard MacCord, Jim Maus, Jon Muller, Dr. Presley Rankin, Lawrence Richardson, Darla Spencer, Charlie Bill Totten, the late Tom Totten, and other persons who wish to remain anonymous. None of the foregoing is accountable for anything here. All the errors and opinions in this article are solely the responsibility of the author.

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THREE SALTVILLE STYLE GORGETS AND A CRYSTAL

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:16:00 GMT

Article and Photos by Jim Maus, G.I.R.S. Member

The Engraved Shell Gorget is one of the rarest artifacts made during the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex or SECC (also called the Souther Cult, the Mississippian Period, and the Temple Mound Period). The prehistoric natives began cutting and engraving peices of conch and whelk shell as early as around A.D. 1000 in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Illinois, and Tennessee. As the SECC advanced chronologically, it also moved geographically and eventually reached the Carolinas and Virginia around A.D. 1300-1400. This cultural manifestation was dominated by chiefdoms composed of ordinary citizens and elite family rulers who required the lower class society members to raise their crops, hunt for their food, and also make religious/ceremonial/political prestige objects for the ruling family.

These objects included effigy pottery vessels, zoomorphic stone pipes, and, of course, shell gorgets. Around A.D. 1450 the natives living in the Appalachian Mountains from Georgia to Virginia, began engraving rattlesnakes on their shell gorgets. These mound building and gorget making societies continued to flourish in the mountainous region until the sixteenth century when the Spanish began to enter their lands. At that point the native cultures began to crumble.

In A.D. 1567 the Spaniard, Juan Pardo, led a group of explorers into western North Carolina and built a fort in Burke County, North Carolina near the current town of Morganton. It is believed that Pardo, being threatened by an Indian king in the mountains and also suspecting that he might find gold there, sent some of his soldiers to southwestern Virginia in order to investigate that region.

The leader of this group, Sergeant Hernando MoYrano de Morales, later reported that they had burned an Indian town and killed a thousand natives, which is apparently true, except for the huge number killed. These ancient Americans made a particular style of rattlesnake engraved shell gorget that is named for a Virginia salt springs town – Saltville.

Around A.D. 1600, a group of Indians moved to a site on the Dan River near its confluence with Town ForkCreek in current Stokes County, North Carolina. There they built houses, planted crops, and raised their families in this village that today is called Upper Sauratown. Here they used the Saltville style gorget – the rattlesnake engraved gorget used at the supposed Virginia massacre site. A retired Virginia Tech professor, Dr. Jim Glanville, has done extensive work in Virginia and North Carolina studying and cataloging the elusive Saltville rattlesnake engraved gorgets. He has determined that almost all of the approximately 50 known Virginia and North Carolina examples of this artifact (most of which have been discovered by Dr. Glanville in old collections) were made and used only in a relatively small area in and around two locales, Washington and Smyth Counties, Virginia (Saltville sits on the border of these two counties), and Stokes County, North Carolina. He has developed a viable theory that after the Spaniards attacked the Indian village in Saltville, the natives who survived the disaster gradually moved southeast and after about 30 years, finally settled in a new home – Upper Sauratown. A few engraved shell gorgets have been found in an almost direct line between Smyth and Washington Counties and Stokes County. This provides further evidence that these natives probably made this journey and temporarily settled in more than one location along the route before reaching Sauratown.

The shell gorget was made by laboriously cutting a piece of the whorl of a marine gastropod shell, usually in a circular shape, and then drilling two holes along one edge so it could be suspended around a person’s neck. They were normally made in the size range of 2″ to 3″ in diameter, but some extraordinary examples up to 6″ across have been found. They are named gorget from the French word “gorge” which was a medieval piece of armor used to protect the wearer’s throat. Most Indian-made shell gorgets were not engraved but some were embellished, usually on the concave surface, with various motifs. In the case of the Saltville style gorget, the motif was a stylized snake. The body of the serpent was engraved as coiled around the circular perimeter of the gorget and had cross hatching to simulate the snake’s scales and body markings. At the small end of the body, there are several chevrons to replicate the snake’s rattles and near the center of the gorget are concentric circles used to simulate the head and eye. One or more large triangles are adjacent to the eye circles (pointing to the left or right) and are considered to be a representation of the serpent’s mouth – often complete with teeth – but there are never examples of sharp reptile fangs in the mouth engravings. On the opposite side of the eye, some of these gorgets have two oddly placed small triangles pointing toward the gorget edge. These are generally construed as the “weeping eye” motif which is a documented style of ceremonial art from the SECC. A few of these gorgets have elongated cutouts or fenestrations and/or simple holes adjacent to the body to further delineate the overall shape of the snake. There have been estimates of about 5,000 shell gorgets being found in the southeastern United States, with maybe 15-20% of these being engraved in any fashion. These may seem like large numbers for an artifact considered to be so rare, but since there have been millions of Prehistoric Indian artifacts found in this country, the numbers are rather small, percentage wise.

In April of 1972, two men searched for Indian artifacts in the plowed ground on the Upper Sauratown site. They found a rare artifact—a rattlesnake engraved shell gorget. But their luck continued as they immediately found two more of these Saltville style gorgets along with a rose quartz crystal. This remarkable group could have been from a burial of one of the village elites 300-400 years ago. The three gorgets were, indeed, rare but the inclusion of the red quartz crystal made this grouping amazingly unique. Rose quartz is the only member of the quartz family of minerals that commonly does not grow itself into the crystalline form which makes this little red gemstone exceptional. But other than rarity, why does the crystal make this small cluster of artifacts so unique? The people of the Mississippian and Historic periods had many legends, including one about a giant monster called by many names—including Great Serpent, Uktena, Underwater Panther, and Piasa. This mythical creature supposedly lived in deep lakes and river pools in the southeastern mountains. The fearsome supernatural monster had a physical structure in the shape of a snake or a cougar with wings, and occasionally an antlered head. In the case of the serpent type imaginary being, its body was covered with scales that “glittered like fire light”. In the middle of its head was a shining, red quartz crystal. According to legend, if a human looked at the quartz crystal, he would be drawn to the creature by the shining light to be killed. However, if the human could kill the serpent and take the crystal from its head, he would be regarded as the greatest healer and could also foretell the future. Any society priest and/or healer would certainly have treasured one of the crystals said to have come from the creature’s head, and upon the shamans demise would probably have had this jewel buried with him. This particular rose quartz crystal is very worn, probably from being rubbed and touched and handled for many, many years.

The writer has no knowledge of another grouping of three engraved rattlesnake shell gorgets plus a rose quartz crystal being found together anywhere else in the Southeast. Yes, this was an amazingly unique find, and it leads to some questions. Did these artifacts come from the interment of a great leader or shaman and if so, just who was he or she?

Were the three shell gorgets made in Sauratown, or brought from the Saltville vicinity? And even more interestingly, did the design influence for the rattlesnake shell gorget come from the mythical Great Serpent or Uktena? Remember the two odd triangles beside the snake eye? Are they replicas of the wings of the mythical beast? Did the snake design come from the Mexican deity Quetzalcoatl, also known as the feathered serpent god, as some writers believe? These questions will probably never be answered but that should not be a deterent from enjoying the rarity and beauty of the three Saltville style gorgets and the crystal found with them.

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Overstreet Resources

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:14:00 GMT

Many years ago when all fluted points were called Folsom, before archaeologists began to identify other forms, the literature available to the collector was sparse at best. Over the past 70 plus years, archaeologists and knowledgeable collectors continued to discover and identify new arrowhead types. These new types are continually updated with each new edition of the Overstreet book.

The Official Overstreet Indian Arrowhead Identification Online Database showcases over 60,000 photographs – all of which have been included in the Indian Arrowheads Identification and Price Guide Ed. 1-12 that we, as passionate collectors, all have come to know and love.

By using this online database you will be able to identify arrowheads of all shapes and sizes by comparing your point’s location with the nine geographic regions of the country provided.

With the Official Overstreet Indian Arrowheads Identification and Price Guide, over 1000 individual types have been identified nation-wide. The Overstreet database of tens of thousands of examples, which has taken over two decades to create, is now available on this website for the first time to arrowhead enthusiasts everywhere. There is no other digital library that compares to what you will find here. You will be able to easily identify your arrowhead types by comparing your points to the myriad of examples available here.
Good luck, and happy hunting!

Find more info here.

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A VISIT TO THE LINK SITE

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:12:00 GMT

Article and Link Site Photos by Ellis Whitt, G.I.R.S. Member

The two temple mounds in the background.

It was cold, cloudy, and misting snow on December 1, 2008, but Dwight Phillips of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee and I were excited and eager as we traveled to meet John Broster, Prehistoric Archaeological Supervisor in the Department of Environment & Conservation for the State of Tennessee. A couple of months earlier, Dwight had arranged with John for us to get a guided, narrated tour of the extraordinary Link Site, a well-known Mississippian period Native American site, located across more than 300 acres of rolling hills and overlooking the Duck River in Humphreys County, Tennessee. It is an attractive region for habitation, being situated perhaps 60 feet above the Duck River and a short distance from the Buffalo and Tennessee Rivers. The Banks Link family owned the farm where the site is located in the mid- to late 1800s when the site was named. Its extraordinary significance was recognized after 46 spectacular ceremonial chert artifacts, including sun discs, monolithic axes, maces or batons, hooks or claws, swords (one of which is 27’/2″ long), and two large effigy figures were unearthed in the late 1800s. This find by amateurs was identified as the ‘Duck River Cache’ and labeled then as the best single archaeological find in the United States. Although these artifacts changed hands over the years, the 46 ceremonial artifacts with the male effigy on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City are now on display at the University of Tennessee McClung Museum in Knoxville. The whereabouts of the second (female) effigy figure is unknown. The Duck River male ancestral shrine figure is made of quartz sandstone, weighs 99 pounds, and is 27″ high.

A photo of the Duck River looking northwest
toward the Link Site.

The June 1897 issue of The Antiquarian published in Columbus, Ohio, states that the employee on the farm of Mr. Banks Links who discovered the flint cache in December 1894, made further excavations beneath the exact spot in the following March, resulting in the discovery of the male (Adam) and female (Eve) images. The present whereabouts of the female image is unknown. The Antiquarian states that “it is . . . in a kneeling posture with both arms down and hands clasping the knees. . . . The hair is drawn closely behind the ears, terminating by a peculiar paddle-shaped fillet down the back. . . . The mouth is open, with thin, well-cut lips.”

One of several round shaped dome mounds on the
Link Site.

Much of the raw material for the stone artifacts is thought to have come from the Dover chert quarries in Stewart County, Tennessee sever miles away.

Ceremonial Temple Mound

Escorted by John, Dwight and I walked across the grassy rolling hills that were once the scene of numerous habitation structures amid a civilization fomous for construction of dirt mounds. The habitation structures were likely one-room homes characterized by corner wooden posts, cane reeds sliced in half along the sides, and reinforced by mud, which also provided insulation. The Link Site contains at least two cermonial temple mounds recognized by their definitive straight, slanted sides and corners, and several round-shaped dome mounds. With just a little imagination, as we walked across this rich archaeological area, we visualized the fervent daily activity which must have taken place at the peak of this civilization, during 1100-1400 A.D. In addition to hunting deer and other animals, and fishing, they did some farming; there is fertile, relatively flat land, ideal for agriculture just across the river to the south where they likely grew corn, beans, and squash. Much labor went into mound building; thousands of baskets of dirt were required to build these impressive structures, the two largest being flat-top mounds which probably had temples on top. John estimates the population of the site must have been perhaps 200 during the peak occupation period. Around 1450 A.D., probably because of environment changes, they moved away.

This photo is the only one
reasonably available to use at
this time. For better photos
and more detail, go to:
www.metmuseum.org/toah/
works-of-art/1979.206.476

Photo and paragraphs in
italics are from p.86 of
“Tennessee Archaeologist”
Vol. XI, No. 2, 1955.

In 1974 the State of Tennessee, recognizing the significance of the site, was able to purchase some 90 acres. Due to lack of funding, there has been little professional excavation. Recently, Bill Lawrence, Tennessee State Parks Archaeologist, conducted limited excavation and a few artifacts were found, which are in State storage awaiting analysis. Plans are to protect the site and continue studying and selectively excavating it as funds are available.

We concluded our visit to this extraordinary site with a sense of fulfillment and reverence for the earlier inhabitants. We recognized that the exact areas we walked were the scenes of a highly developed, well organized society in the centuries just prior to the arrival of white immigrants from Europe. Dwight and I thank John for this tremendous opportunity.

John and Dwight

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Review of Folsom: New Archaeological Investigations of a Classic Paleo Indian Bison Kill

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:10:00 GMT

BOOK REVIEW

By Richard Michael Gramly, Ph.D.

Review of Folsom: New Archaeological Investigations of a Classic Paleo Indian Bison Kill by David J. Meltzer with contributions by M. Balakrishnan, D.A. Dorward V.T. Holliday, B.F. Jacobs, L. Scott-Cummings, T. A. Surovell, J.L. Theler, L.C. Todd, and A.J. Winkler. 374 pp., 8 1/2 x 11, indexed, numerous black-and-white photographs and figures. University of California Press. 2006. ISBN-`3: 978-0-520-24644-7. $55.00

University of California Press

2120 Berkeley, CA 94704

It is fortunate that the Folsom site still existed allowing archaeologist and university professor, David Meltzer, and colleagues to initiate fresh excavations during 1997. Their 1997-2004 fieldwork had important goals. Foremost was detailed examination of the bed of extinct Bison bones in order to learn more about Folsom hunting and butchering methods. The 1920s fieldwork by Jesse D. Figgins and Harold J. Cook had, as its principal objective, confirmation of an association of artifacts and extinct animals. For them it was all fresh and new—early excavators at Folsom were interested only in the “big picture”. Studies of bones would come later.

A secondary goal of Dave Meltzer’s re-visit to the Folsom type site was prospecting for an habitation area. Folsom, as we have known it, is a kill site. According to Meltzer it belongs to an exclusive subset (5%) of documented Folsom occurrences, making it very rare and interesting to students of Paleo-American lifeways. However, the place where the ancient occupants of the Folsom site slept and entertained themselves had never been located. Like the Murray Springs Clovis site in Arizona (Haynes and Huckell 2007), the habitations may have been shallowly buried on nearby higher ground and suffered erosion.

In this landmark publication Dave Meltzer furnishes us a synthesis of old and new radiocarbon dates for the Folsom site, a taphanomic study of the ancient bone-bed, and information about the flaked stone industry there. For these expectable results we are grateful. But there is much more.

The reader may find fascinating, as I did, Meltzer’s carefully considered perspective about the nature of archaeological discovery. Why is it that certain scientists carry more credibility than others? How does an important find achieve its proper recognition among scientific circles? Although the Folsom site was yielding important data to Figgins, Cook, and others as early as 1926 (Jackson and 82 Thacker 1992), only after bones and artifacts were witnessed in situ by Barnum Brown, Ales Hrdlicka, A.V. Kidder, and Frank Roberts, did the nation give the site its full attention and respect. Meltzer’s narrative about sequential scientific revelations (Chapter 2) is awfully good reading.

Also, as an archaeological practitioner mindful of the history and leavings of his own discipline, Meltzer and colleagues took the trouble to investigate the 1926, 1927, and 1928 camps of fellow archaeologists who labored at the Folsom site (see Appendix C). One expects that Dave Meltzer suitably demarcated his own campsite for the benefit of fellow researchers of the future.

If there is any shortcoming of David Meltzer’s work, it is only one of omission. We might have hoped for fuller treatment of the Lindenmeier site, which was discovered by amateur natural historians in 1924, just as things were getting going at Folsom. Lindenmeier, after all, yielded a wider range and more artifacts than did Folsom, for it was an encampment. The associated kill site has either vanished because of erosion or still lies deeply buried in the general neighborhood. Lindenmeier and Folsom became entwined intellectually much as the Clovis type locality at Blackwater Draw, New Mexico, became linked to the Lehner and Naco sites in Arizona.

Figure 1. Lindenmeier crew, 1939. Photo by Frank Roberts. According to Ed Lohr, who retained this photograph until 1987, “This was the best crew Roberts had up there during my 4-summer stint. Left to right, Bart Greenwood, Bill Wallrich, Charles Scoggin, Bart Lohr, Bob Stafford, Ted Peterson, and Ed Lohr. Note: Bart Lohr was my younger brother—he was camp boy and helped my sister, who was cook that year.” R.M. Gramly.

Figure 2. Lindenmeier site, 1938. Photo by Ed Lohr. According to Ed Lohr, “Old valleyfloorjust above knees of Davey McAllester (holding rod). We dug this hole to see if anything lay below the Folsom level—nothing there. Underneath the black layer was a whitish clay—tuffs from an ancient volcano. Digging, to left, Larry Oppenheimer, and to right, Ed Lohr. Incidentally, practically all artifacts were just at the bottom of the soil layer, rarely extending more than an inch into the black, which was caused by heavy grass growth. The best of the Folsom points lay the deepest, indicating that the technique of making the points was fully developed by the time this hunting group first came there.” R.M. Gramly.

Part of the reason why Dave Meltzer has given short shrift to Lindenmeier, failing to cite some relevant early publications (Coffin 1937; Roberts 1937; Greenway 1960; Wilmsen 1974), is because it was reported initially by artifact collectors with only local reputations. He may have been as mindful of status as the intellectuals involved with Early Man research during the 1920s appear to have been. Later during the 1930s, a full decade after the work at Folsom, Lindenmeier would receive the publicity it deserved. A concluding report about investigations there, however, would not appear until 40 years later (Wilsen and Roberts 1978). As Meltzer has so carefully noted, it is the status of the messenger—not necessarily the content of the message being carried—that determines if and when it will be read!

The ten year delay in investigating the Lindenmeier site has had both good and bad outcomes. Lindenmeier would have made a much better type site for Folsom industry than Folsom itself as the quantity and range of artifact types there were great. On the other hand, are not we (who are poor spellers) lucky that Folsom points were not named Lindenmeier points! Another good outcome is that Lindenmeier in the 1930s was not as remote as Folsom during the 1920s; consequently, it was visited by many people in automobiles with cameras. Thousands of excavation photographs must still exist in private hands (see Figs. 1, 2, and 3); while, as Dave Meltzer has learned, photographs of the work at Folsom are scarce and are jealously guarded by archivists.

Figure 3. Lindenmeier site, August 1, 1940. Photo by Ed Lohr. One of the best points (found by Charles Scoggin) from Lindenmeier. According to Ed Lohr, “Made of white chert. Large chalcedony scraper to left. Incidentally, some Folsom points were so individually made that it was obvious that the same person had made them. Most of the points were bases only—hunters had obviously broken them while hunting, had brought the shafts back to camp, and thrown the bases away. Roberts did not rule out the possibility that the bow and arrow was used even at that early date (probably about 11,000 years ago). Usually the atl-atl was thought to have been used R.M. Gramly.

In conclusion, no library about Paleo-Americans is complete without a copy of David J. Meltzer’s wonderful publication. I wish that there were more studies like it, to fill the spaces on my book shelves, which I have reserved for work that eventually must be done!

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Mississippian Pottery: A Tribute to Roy Hathcock

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:10:00 GMT

By Rick Fitzgerald

Front Cover

Image: Winged-eyed Hawk

Among artifact collectors, Roy Hathcock was a legend. He popularized Native American ceramics of the central Mississippi River Valley by publishing two significant books: Ancient Indian Pottery of the Mississippi River Valley in 1976 and The Quapaw and Their Pottery in 1983. These publications became the cornerstones of today’s pottery collectors.

The purpose of this tribute is to honor Mr. Hathcock by publishing fifty-five vessels previously owned or pictured by him. Included with each vessel is a page of text discussing provenience, Roy’s comments, owner history, publications, and interesting information that has surfaced since Roy’s original publications. In addition, there are twenty-seven pottery vessels that Roy and I discussed at length during our teacher-student relationship.

Mr. Hathcock was an extremely knowledgeable collector of Mississippi artifacts who was blessed with a charming personality. He was an outstanding educator for over thirty-five years, and he became a gracious mentor to many collectors during his lifetime. I hope you enjoy this tribute to my friend, Roy Hathcock.

Back cover

Image: Tripod Waterbottle

About Rick Fitzgerald (also on Back Cover)

Rick Fitzgerald is an associate editor of the Prehistoric American magazine, the official publication of the Genuine Indian Relic Society. He has written a number of articles for the Central States Archaeological Journal as well. A retired Merrill Lynch financial consultant, Mr. Fitzgerald currently teaches graduate-level finance at Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, Oklahoma. He and his wife, Connie, reside in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

If you are interested in purchasing Mississippian Pottery: A Tribute to Roy Hathcock , please contact Rick Fitzgerald (information below). The cost is $40 which includes postage.Rick Fitzgerald

Phone 405-722-3985

Email address: cfitz1@cox.net

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Two Essays: Chief & Greed by Edmund Carpenter

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:09:00 GMT

By Oliver T. Skrivanie
G.I.R.S. Member

The author, Edmund Carpenter, was a trustee of the Museum of the American Indian (MAI) in New York City from 1973 to 1985. His essays expose the shocking conduct of its founder, George Heye, and the secrecy, concealment, and breach of fiduciary duty of certain directors and officers of MAI.

George Heye was the sole heir to a fortune derived from the sale of an oil refinery and pipeline by his father to John D. Rockerfeller for $35,000 in cash and 150 shares of Standard Oil in 1876. The MAI was the end result of over 85 years of collecting by George Heye. This fascinating writing takes us behind Heye’s wealth and discloses the “real” George Heye.

Heye was ruthless in his dealings and in collecting. As reported: “He expressed no need to explain what he did and didn’t!” The book addresses the process of “accessioning” and “field collecting” with interesting short tales and overviews of “suppliers” by name. Heye actually did all of the cataloging of artifacts, and there were no “provenance unknown” objects, as Heye supplied provenance by guess which became fact! The sheer volume of artifacts and collections accumulated in the early 1900s by Heye is mind boggling. “Chief”, the title of the first essay, is most appropriate!

The second essay is entitled “Greed”, which explores the disturbing and appalling conduct of certain trustees of the MAI. I think we have all wondered what goes on behind the scenes—well, you’ll find out! New levels of secrecy, concealment, and breach of fiduciary duty are recounted by the author.

The sad conversation of George Heye to a leading dealer in Indian artifacts is divulged. Deaccession of MAI artifacts began occurring at a record pace. Even after Heye’s death in 1957, one of his successors, Frederick Dockstader, continued to sell, trade and give away thousands of objects each year from 1960 to 1975. After Dockstader’s dismissal, the Chairman of the Board of MAI permitted the continuation of sales! Even a Collections Committee policy aimed to terminate such conduct was ignored!

The last section of this essay covers the period of time when the author served as a trustee of MAI. There is an intriguing account of Dr. Arthur Sackler’s acquisition of MAI objects and associated litigation. Sackler was a very high profile collector and this reviewer recalls that he endowed a wing at the new National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. (NMAI).

The legacy of Heye and the malfeasance of certain MAI trustees is that between 60,000 and 90,000 objects “departed” from the MAI!

Add this 2005 writing to your bookshelf—and periodically re-read.

Two Essays: Chief & Greed

Soft cover; $35.00

Persimmon PressP.O. Box 821, North Andover, MA 01845

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The Art Gerber Story – A Lifetime of Collecting Along the Ohio River

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:08:00 GMT

BOOK REVIEW

By Oliver T. Skrivanie

G.I.R.S. Member

The Art Gerber Story – A Lifetime of Collecting Along the Ohio River

By Arthur Joseph Gerber

Long before “Indiana Jones” there was “Indiana Gerber”!!! The primary focus of the author’s personal archaeological adventures recounted in this book is the famous Crib Mound located along the Ohio River in Spencer County, Indiana. The Crib Mound was a multi-component site with its lower section composed of shell midden laid down during the Archaic period and the upper section composed of black humus built up later during the Woodland Period. Sadly reflected was the failure of the professional archaeology community to investigate one of the most significant archaeological sites along the Ohio River. The author recounts his and others’ personal expeditions to the Crib Mound and the Raiders-of-the-Lost-Ark-like resulting adventures. The frisson generated by the discovery of 10,000 cache blades at Crib Mound can only be imagined! The sheer volume of artifacts found at or near the Crib Mound is truly amazing, and Gerber, through his professional photographic exp’ertise, documents and allows us to view these mesmerizing treasures—from bannerstones to flint to axes to cache blades to pipes to copper to shell. Equally important is a photographic section depicting the gradual erosion and almost complete obliteration of the Crib Mound site by the mighty Ohio River.

Thus, thanks to this author, the spectacular fluorescence of the Crib Mound has been captured by the author’s personal anecdotes, photos of the site, and photos of the scintillating diversity of artifacts found at the site.

Another section of the book addresses the alleged destruction of the GE Hopewell Mound in Posey County, Indiana which ultimately resulted in the very controversial arrest, conviction, and sentencing of the author under ARPA.

Other chapters cover the author’s collecting adventures along the Ohio River and his accumulation of one of the premier collections of prehistoric artifacts in the United States. The beauty and enormity of the author’s entire artifact collection are also superbly contained in the photographic portion of the book. I am sure you will spend countless hours admiring the assembled artifacts, all of which reflect the author’s genuine passion and enthusiasm as an artifact collector.

Finally, the author includes an interesting section of personal photos of collectors and friends, many of whom you will immediately recognize.

This is unconditionally a must reference for every collector of prehistoric artifacts.

The Art Gerber Story

Hard cover; $100.00 plus $12.00 priority shipping Deluxe hard cover; $150.00 plus $12.00 priority shipping

Caddo Trading Co., P.O. Box 669, Murfreesboro, AR 79158 caddotc@alltel.net • (870) 285-3736

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Bannerstones- An Ancient Native American Art Tradition

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:08:00 GMT

CD-ROM REVIEW

By Richard Sisson
G.I.R.S. Member

Bannerstones – An Ancient
Native American Art Tradition
By Edward Harvey

This study published in CD Rom format by Edward Harvey constitutes a major contribution to understanding the development and appreciation of the art of the banner-stone of ancient North America. This is true for several reasons. The author provides in succinct form both a summary and synthesis of what is known about these enigmatic objects, building upon and extending the majesterial books of Byron Knoblock and David L. Lutz, with a very special debt to the seminal work of the latter. He sets forth various competing theories of ceremonial function and everyday use, with inference elaborated from major archaeological contexts, though admittedly many of the finest examples have been surface finds. Through a wide range of high resolution photographs, he vividly portrays the extraordinary beauty of this major art form of the American Archaic, and by utilizing the wonders of digital technology, he has provided all interested in this art form an exceptional educational tool, given its ease of access and versatility.

It is especially in the latter two ways that the author has given us a work of both immediate and lasting value. While the point is not explicit, he suggests that anyone of any culture on the planet must marvel at how the ancient sculptors who created these objects could see into the dense material that they worked, and with only the simplest instruments in hand, would encourage the material to yield its beauty and magnify the abstract forms that the artist envisaged. This was done through the utilization of banding in early slate banners to accent contours and ridges, and the use of lustrous quartz—cool whites to flaming oranges and reds—to induce wonder and mood. The author approaches his subject with the eye of the artist, which indeed he was, and in so doing has helped to elevate the art of the American bannerstone into the broader realm of the world’s finest prehistoric art. It would seem that he saw these artists, whose names have been lost to time, as the Picassos of the Archaic.

The study has strong and versatile educational legs. The inquisitive learner can easily go from section to section or page to page by simply clicking on the desired venue. One can go from useful and colorfully drawn timelines to more detailed artistic examples elsewhere, or to examples nested in their archaeological context or to other informative and artful sites by a simple “click of the mouse.” The references provided constitute a definitive guide for serious students of the subject.

This important and versatile CD Rom study is essential for anyone interested in the ancient art of the world, but particularly those interested in the ancient art of the Americas, and especially those interested in that of the American Midwest, the East and the South. The study is rich in form and color, it is stimulating to the eye and mind, and it is accessible to the beginner and to the advanced student and connoisseur alike.

Bannerstones: An Ancient Native American Art Tradition Hybrid CD-ROM Mac/PC, $40.00 plus $4 shipping

Terry McGuire, 3926 North Keeler Avenue, Chicago, IL, 60641 (773) 283-9943 • twbanners@aol.com

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COME TELL ME HOW YOU LIVED: NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY OF THE TENNESSEE VALLEY

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 16:07:00 GMT

Author: Charles Enloe Moore

This book is prefaced with a free verse poem where the author asks Early Man how he lived. After his response, Early Man asks the archaeologist what he does. Then readers are challenged to learn from the answers while reading about Native American cultures, from migration into this country to the Trail of Tears in the Tennessee Valley.

There are over 270 pictures of artifacts, site work, and maps illustrating their interesting story. The book introduces several new theories that have never been seen in print before.

B. Bart Henson’s additional appendix on rock art in the Tennessee Valley certainly helps to make the book worthwhile and interesting reading.

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THE HEADPOTS OF NORTHEAST ARKANSAS AND SOUTHERN PEMISCOT COUNTY, MISSOURI

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:38:00 GMT

BOOK REVIEW

By Elmer A. Guerri, G.I.R.S. Board Member

THE HEADPOTS OF NORTHEAST ARKANSAS AND SOUTHERN PEMISCOT COUNTY, MISSOURI

Author: James F. Cherry

One 01 the most interesting aspects of collecting and studying Indian artifacts today is the availability of excellent reading and study materials. A great example is the 2009 book by James E Cherry, The Headpots of Northeast Arkansas and Southern Pemiscot County, Missouri.

Cherry’s passionate interest in and his extensive knowledge of this unique and important niche of North American Mississippian Indian culture is clearly evident as the reader proceeds from historical findings through a most comprehensive inventory of discussions dealing with 138 identified classical style headpots, to the author’s astute observations regarding modern reproductions.

The author’s thorough research has culminated in a separate section dealing with “Mistakes in the Literature”, an inclusion every reader will be left wishing existed for publications and information dealing with other types of cultural material in North American Archaeology.

Cherry’s style reflects the attention to detail and thoroughness of his professional physician’s background. Extensive discussions of motifs and style characteristics including eye surrounds, facial decorative tattoo patterns, hair patterns and other details are both educational and provocative. His attempts to depend upon “original sources” accomplishes his stated goal “…..to present unbiased facts.”

The author raises some very interesting questions for the reader, such as,

“Do headpots portray kinsmen or enemies? The living or the dead? Were the headpots used in ceremonies, in everyday life, or made exclusively for the sepulcher?”

The reader will have to reach his or her own conclusions, based upon the information provided by the author.

Perhaps the most fitting compliments to this outstanding book are found in the Foreword provided by Robert C Mainfort, Jr., an archaeologist with the Arkansas Archaeology Survey and a professor of anthropology at the University of Arkansas. “Jim’s status as a physician and avocational archaeologist (though this volume should warrant an honorary degree in archaeology!) gave him access not only to privately owned headpots, but also to their history. Moreover, that Jim was accorded this level of trust is a testament to his personal character.”

This a great work and a “must have” reference that will take its place alongside other important books dealing with ceramics and pottery. The author includes a comprehensive bibliography with seventy entries, which will be valuable to those interested in the cultural material of North American Indians.

This book has established a “higher bar” that will hopefully challenge other authors, professionals and avocationals alike. In today’s world of collectible ceramics and pottery where it is regrettably often difficult to discern between “new” and “old”, one thing is certain. Cherry’s headpot book may itself be “new”, but it is indeed “the real thing”!

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From Chicaza to Chickasaw: The European Invasion and the Transformation of the Mississippian World, 1540-1715.

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:37:00 GMT

By: Robbie Ethridge

From “UM anthropologist’s latest book focuses on transformation of Chickasaw Indians, Thursday-Friday, December 23-24, 2010.” By Edwin Smith, University Communications

The evolution of an early Native American tribe following European settlement is the subject of a new critically acclaimed book by a University of Mississippi anthropologist.

Robby Ethridge’s “From Chicaza to Chickasaw: The European Invasion and the Transformation of the Mississippian World, 1540-1715” (University of North Carolina Press, 2010) traces the metamorphosis of the Native South from Hernando De Soto’s first contact to the dawn of the 18 ^th century. Although thousands of Indians died or were enslaved and virtually all native polities were radically altered in these years, the collapse of this complex prehistoric Mississippian world did not extinguish them, but rather transformed them, said Etheridge, professor of anthropology.

“While the book is very specialized, I’m hoping it will appeal to the general public because of the mostly unknown history of Native Americans that it reveals,” Ethridge said. “For example, few people know that prior to European contact Southern Indian tribes such as the Creeks, Cherokees and Choctaws did not exist. These groups formed as the survivors of the upheaval at contact and began to regroup and restructure their lives.”

Ethridge, who has established herself as a leader in the field of indigenous American history, uses a new interpretive frame-work that she calls the “Mississippian shatter zone” to closely follow the story of the Chickasaws throughout this period. Using archaeological and documentary evidence, Ethridge illuminates the Native South in its earliest colonial context and sheds new light on the profound upheaval and cultural transformation experienced by the region’s first peoples.

Part of the reason for this upheaval was the commercial trade in Indian slaves that Europeans brought to the New World.

“Just as African groups in later years began to conquer one another to provide slaves to the European slave trade, Southern Indian Tribes did the same,” Ethridge said. “In efforts to escape being enslaved, native groups fled slave raiders and the survivors often migrated all over the region.”

The book received high praises before its Dec. 15 release.

“Robbie Ethridge’s latest book is a logical step in a long-range research program aimed at exploring the transition from prehistory to history in the American South,” said Jay Johnson, UM professor of sociology and anthropology. “It is an important book that will become essential reading for anyone trying to understand the early Colonial period, irrespective of whether they are an archaeologist or historian.”

Robbie Ethridge’s innovative, imaginative work of scholarship provides the only modern, comprehensive survey of all the Southeastern Indians during the protohistoric period,” wrote University of Alabama professor Gregory Waselkov.

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FAKING- The Ancient Andes

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:36:00 GMT

Karen 0. Bruhns Nancy L. Kelker

Originally we planned a single comprehensive volume dealing with fakes, forgeries, and forgers from all across the ancient Americas, but as the project neared completion, it became evident that the scope of the problem of false antiquities and their counterfeiters was much larger than could be dealt justice in a single book; Mesoamerica and the Andes required their own separate volumes. Faking the Ancient Andes, like its companion volume on Mesoamerica, is an in-depth look at forgeries of ancient South American art, the history of this industry in the Andes, materials and techniques of manufacture specific to this region, and of course, the South American master artisans who produce the goods sold by dealers around the world as authentic antiquities.

Because of their relatively greater distance from North American and European markets and scholarship, the forgers active in South America are generally less well known than their counterparts in Mexico and Central America; they are, nonetheless, as inventive, crafty, and as prodigious in their output as forgers who reside nearer to our borders. If anything, distance from the major American and European markets, coupled with a dearth of art historical scholarship (and, if truth be told, relatively little archaeological scholarship as compared with that for Mesoamerica) on the various South American cultures, has been a boon to forgers, if not necessarily raising the prices the middlemen will pay. But most importantly, the collecting and dealing communities have only the vaguest understanding of the Andean cultures; their ignorant bliss makes passage of even the most egregious forgeries considerably easier. In short, the average American has no knowledge of any Andean culture before the Inca. Indeed, many antiquities, real and faux, being offered for sale in galleries and on the Internet are identified simply as “pre-Incan,” a label guaranteed to cloak a multitude of sins.

The history of antiquities forgery in the Andes does not offer the scholar the wealth of original documentation that is to be found in Mexico—unfortunately, no Peruvian or Colombian counterpart to Leopoldo Batres ¹ seems to have been hot on the trail of Andean forgers early on. Yet the antiquities forgery industry in the Andes is surely as old and as ignoble as that in Mesoamerica. Certainly the large numbers of “Inca”-style wooden kenos manufactured during the Colonial period point to an early and robust market for antiquities. Other anecdotal evidence comes from the very early and widespread looting of archaeological sites in Peru—for example, the near eradication of the Huaca del Sol pyramid at Moche in 1602 by Spanish treasure hunters (disguised as “miners”). As always, where there is a market demand for antiquities, enterprising suppliers will step in to provide product either through increased looting activity or through the manufacture of new “antiquities.” Writing in 1886, William Henry Holmes notes that in the large shipments of spurious antiquities being brought into the United States, “Peru is hardly less fully represented [than Mexico], as the factories in that country have been at work for a number of years” (1886b, 264).

Still, 122 years after Holmes, the problem of Precolumbian art forgeries continues unabated and little noted, though substantially amplified in volume, and even more so since Ekholm (1964) wrote his more modern appraisal of the situation. This is a particularly astonishing situation considering that over the same period of time, considerable progress has been made in the discovery and debunking of European forgeries, thanks to the efforts of scholar-detectives such as Oscar White Muscarella, Michel van Rijn, Arthur Brand, and Jerome M. Eisenberg (among many others). Why, then, has so little progress been made in the field of Americanist fake-busting? The answer to this question, the authors believe, lies in the distinction made between the civilized and the primitive, and the relative aesthetic (and monetary) value placed on the art and artifacts of each. Inasmuch as the art of the Classical world is the foundation and continuing inspirational source of European (civilized) art, its value and aesthetic merit are a given. However, the same assumption is not made about the art of the Prehispanic cultures of the New World, or the rest of the so-called “non-Western” world—the politically correct substitution for the older “primitive” but still a term that speaks of separation into “us” and “the other.”

The assumption of un-art-worthiness has long been applied to the work of Native American peoples. In 1896 Aby Warburg, a German national, visited the United States and made a trip out to the American Southwest to visit the Pueblos; there he was to have, unbeknownst to him, the sort of “authentic” experience tailor-made for railroad tourists by Thomas Keams and other trading-post entrepreneurs. Presuming himself unable to speak directly with the natives—as he did not speak any indigenous language and it never occurred to him that some might speak Spanish (or English)—Warburg launched full speed into supposition mode, inventing meanings for decorative motifs found on the reproduction Sikyatki pottery the Pueblo ceramists were making for the tourist market. After identifying what he presumes to be a “bird hieroglyph” on one of these pots, Warburg compounds supposition into cosmology:

The bird plays an important part in Indian mythical perception, as anyone familiar with the Leatherstocking Tales knows. Apart from the devotion it receives, like every other animal, as a totem, as an imaginary ancestor, the bird commands a special devotion in the context of the burial cult. It seems even that a thieving bird-spirit belonged to the fundamental representations of the mythical fantasies of the prehistoric Sikyatki. The bird has a place in idolatrous cults for its feathers. The Indians have made a special prayer instrument out of small sticks—bahos; tied with feathers, they are placed on fetish altars and planted on graves. According to the authoritative explanations of the Indians, the feathers act as winged entities bearing the Indians’ wishes and prayers to their demoniac essences in nature. (Preziosi 1998, 182)

For Warburg, the Pueblo peoples were the essential “primitive”: ignorant and childlike in their superstitions and idolatry (not to mention coterminous with indigenous people from a very distant part of the United States, as described by James Fenimore Cooper some 50 years previously!). This attitude toward art outside the European tradition was pretty much a constant in twentieth-century art history. As Meyer Shapiro notes some three decades later:

In the past, a great deal of primitive work, especially representation, was regarded as artless even by sensitive people; what was valued were mainly the ornamentation and the skill of primitive industry. It was believed that primitive arts were childlike attempts to represent nature—attempts distorted by ignorance and by an irrational content of the monstrous and grotesque. (Preziosi 1998, 147)

Of course, Shapiro, writing in 1953, goes on to point out how much that attitude had changed in his time with the development of modern styles and resulting new ways of looking at art:

As a result of this new approach, all the arts of the world, even the drawings of children and psychotics, have become accessible on a common plane of expressive and form-creating activity. Art is now one of the strongest evidences of the basic unity of mankind. (Preziosi 1998, 148)

By grouping the arts of the non-Western world with that of children and psychotics (two groups whose creations are also not considered real art), and by linking them as expressive and form-creating activities rather than as aesthetic activities, Shapiro, too, dismisses “primitive” art but with less incendiary language than that used by others he criticizes as “in the past.” Unfortunately, such attitudes linger to the present day, particularly among those who study the art of the Western tradition. Not so many years ago, Kelker was asked by a Renaissance art historian from a nationally noted university to explain why Precolumbian works should be considered art at all since they were not like works hanging on the gallery wall, the works she studied. This bias against the “primitive” is one of the reasons that art history and museum studies seem to be so little concerned with authenticity in Precolumbian art. If it is not “real art,” what does it matter if the example is a fake?

A second complicating factor is the rise of the “New Art History” which, since its inception some 40 years ago in the hallowed halls of certain left and right coast universities, has moved ever further from the study of the object (connoisseurship) and from rational exploration of the cultures producing those objects. The focus of the New Art History is on theory and methodology (as long as it isn’t formalism, the tool of connoisseurship); as one newly minted Ph.D. from one of these institutions once remarked to Kelker, “Nobody deals with the object anymore!” Of course, Luddites such as the authors might think that takes all the fun out of it, but the more problematic result is a whole generation of art historians largely unable to deal intelligently with the primary evidence of their field, much less tell the real from the faux.

This approach and its ramifications for the museum world are perhaps best illustrated by Donald Preziosi, who in an article titled “The Art of Art History” in his anthology of the same name (1998, 511-512)), compares the museum to a novel or story:

In essence, both novel and museum evoke and enact a desire for panoptic or panoramic points of view from which it may be seen that all things may indeed fit together in a true, natural, real, or proper order. Both modes of magic realism labour at convincing us that each of us could “really” occupy privileged synoptic positions, despite all the evidence to the contrary in daily life, and in the face of domination and power.

Exhibition and art historical practice (both of which are subspecies of museography) are thus genres of imaginative fiction. Their practices of composition and narration constitute the “realities” of history chiefly through the use of prefabricated materials and vocabularies—tropes, syntactic formulas, methodologies of demonstration and proof, and techniques of stagecraft and dramaturgy. Such fictional devices are shared with other genres of ideological practice such as organized religion and the entertainment—that is, the containment—industries.

Certainly if one approaches the museum and its contents as works of fiction, then the fact that some items are more fictional than others becomes irrelevant: one story of history is as good as the next. Thus it should come as no surprise to the reader that those reliquariums called antiquities galleries and those entertainment venues called museums should be loaded with forgeries. Or that exhibition after exhibition, catalog after catalog, illustrated art book after illustrated art book, should all promulgate the most egregious forgeries as if they were something other than proof of the cupidity and insanity of the art market and its customers.

Still, in the hope that the pendulum of art history, having swung over time away from the contextual study of the object to the polytheoretical extreme of object-negation, will someday find a point of harmonious balance, the authors offer this volume to all who are now, and who might become, interested in the problem of fakes and forgeries of Andean art. In doing so, we would like to emphasize that nearly all of our examples have been previously published in scholarly publications, newspapers, or on websites. The individuals identified and the situations described are genuine and widely known. Other materials, of course, come from our own experiences with law-enforcement agencies, government agencies, and, as well, smugglers, dealers, collectors, and others of similarly ignoble nature. Archaeology and art history have very active information networks, especially with regard to scandalous behavior. We have utilized these when they point to an emerging problem or a problem that, for various reasons, is not going to emerge into the light of day for some time. We have confirmed as best we can the details of these accounts and used them judiciously, discarding what could not be verified. Many people working in the Precolumbian art world are under considerable pressure from politicians, well-heeled donors, university administrators, and museum trustees to ignore common decency as well as federal and international law. They risk losing their jobs if they are honest. We would especially like to thank a number of these brave people who revealed to us the dirty little secrets of the Andean forgeries game. (We promised never to breathe their names in public because, as everyone knows, presidents and directors tend toward paranoid and sometimes vindictive behavior, especially when they know they are in the wrong.) We would also like to note again that in these two volumes, we have barely scratched the surface of the forgeries game. At the risk of being bores ourselves, we would like to remind our readers that every single style we have ever heard of has been faked—even styles you would think no one in his/her right mind would bother with. For example, Momil pottery, a style known only from sherds and bits and pieces from a single excavation, has been faked! This style, once thought to represent America’s first ceramics and found in a place that has been very difficult and dangerous to get to for most of the past 30 years or so, still has considerable appeal as the “Earliest Ever.” Despite the fact that that’s pretty much the only possible appeal it could have, someone, realizing that “early” equates with market share, proceeded to satisfy that demand for these difficult-to-acquire antiquities—with fake potsherds and all! No money-making possibility is ever ignored in the great and wonderful world of looting, smuggling, and vending ancient art.

In this volume we have dealt primarily with the Andes. We have not attempted to cover Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, the Amazon, or the Guineas; nor most of lower Central America—not that these areas are free from forgery. Far from it, and we could cite chapter and verse. But there is simply too much material and far too much good material in our focus area. And not all of this is shiny new While having the pleasure of corresponding with Zenon Gallegos Ramirez, one of the foremost living artists of the Nazca tradition, we went through the catalogs from a major auction house from the late 1960s through the mid-1990s, looking at the Nazca pieces offered up to the market. In our opinion (and that of the several southern Peruvian experts we consulted), perhaps 70 to 85 percent of the pieces were “iffy,” if not downright ludicrous. Apparently they all sold, and many were resold over the years. A fair number have ended up in museums too. Well, that’s Nazca, a flashy style much loved by collectors, especially if a little sex or a little more realistic modeling can be added. But we also ran into forgeries from the nineteenth century, some maybe even earlier, and, of course, many from the early twentieth century.

With the exception of those entirely made-up styles which tend to wax and wane in the market over time, the efforts of donor countries to protect their heritage from First World marauders has only spurred the creation of new forgeries. The human quest for prestige and conspicuous consumption being what it is, there is no end of people wanting exotic things to display on their mantlepiece or to trade for the supposed status of being a benefactor of culture to the local museum. No one, of course, mentions to that benefactor that his esteem has come at the price of the destruction of yet another ancient site or culture. Nor does anyone tell the self-important benefactor, so prideful of his possessions, that his collection consists of a great many fakes.

And, of course, the most outrageous forgeries do end up in exhibits and in museum collections. Despite all the hype by museum public relations departments about the preservation of art and culture, the truth is that museums are, in reality, business entities thinly disguised as cultural institutions. Moreover, the art and museum worlds are perhaps the least regulated of all businesses. The most casual reading of any issue of, say, The Art Newspaper, will show how fraud, forgery, and misrepresentation of all kinds—from the origin of objects to their supposed meaning and, above all, their value in dollars and cents—are standard operating procedure in the very lucrative art and antiquities market. ⁴ However, that is well beyond the scope of this volume. What concerns us are the vast numbers of forged South American artifacts on display and in circulation and how these frauds have and continue to affect scholarship, making a good deal of it nothing more than so much useless hot air. Our aim is to convince you, the reader, to open your eyes to the realities of the situation. Every country in Latin America prohibits the looting of ancient sites for treasure as well as the export of its past. And let us have no more yammering about those imaginary “old collections.” We note with some glee that virtually everything on sale now is claimed to have been out of its country of origin before 1970, the date the American Association of Museums has pegged as the cutoff for ethically importing antiquities. We won’t comment on this, even though Peru, Bolivia, and a host of other countries have prohibited the export of their past at least since the late 1900s (Mexico seems to have been the first, in 1829). Setting a date is a start and certainly better than the old “stolen fair and square” attitude; but considering that the flow of illegal (and fake) antiquities has increased exponentially since the 1970s, one can only surmise that many thousands of overloaded “treasure ships” left South American ports in 1969 and must have been tied up in traffic jams ever since! The awful truth is that enforcement efforts directed toward the suppliers (looters) and manufacturers (forgers) are targeting the wrong end of the business. Until all those well-heeled “benefactors” are rounded up like so many johns in a red-light district, very little is going to change in the art market. Thus, gentle reader, when you stare longingly at the beautiful figurine, the elegant vessel, or the dazzling golden artifact in the dealer’s window, stop and think for a moment before you buy it. If it is authentic, you are as much a grave-robber as the huaquero who dug it up, and if it’s not, then you are about to be swindled. Wouldn’t you really rather buy a nice Andy Warhol?

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The Official Overstreet Indian Arrowheads 10th Edition

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:36:00 GMT

Robert M. Overstreet

Over the years we’ve all grown accustomed to see the appearance every few years of a new Overstreet Price Guide. Just recently the Tenth Edition came out. Like the Ninth Edition, it is printed in a larger format. Some collectors complained when that edition came out that it didn’t conform to the previous smaller size, and looked odd on the shelf with the other editions. While that is certainly true, I find the larger size much easier to manage. Not only are the pictures larger, but the book just handles better. This is important to me, since the number of pages has increased to over twelve hundred, making it a thick and heavy book.

There has been much discussion over the years about the values given to the points as being too high or too low. That just depends on whom you ask. I myself, find it a great reference for relative values and quickly locating a point type. As in the last few editions, the points are split up into regions, not just styles. I like this, since a point style in one region may be called something else in another region. There’s nothing new here in the overall format.

The highlights of this edition are two exceptional articles. At the end of the book is a great article by Duncan Caldwell entitled Col lecting Old World Prehistoric Artifacts. This is very in depth, with many pictures and descriptions of the various time periods all the way back to 2.6 million years ago. If you collect anything in this area, this article is worth the price of the book alone.

The cover article is absolutely fantastic. It was written by Dr. Michal Gramly and entitled The Cumberland Tradition and Earliest Americans. This is a MUST READ for anyone who collects. Some of the information is ground breaking, and he presents some radical new theories about the Cumberland Point Style.

Though this book is marketed as a price guide, it is so much more that it is well worth owning. With a $29.95 list price, and many dealers discounting it, you cannot lose purchasing this. Highly recommended.

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Auction of Prehistoric Indian Artifacts: The Robert N. Converse Auctions 1983-1994

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:35:00 GMT

By Robert Haag, M. Ed.

Available in soft cover and deluxe hardbound limited editions, this illustrated collection contains the Robert Converse Auction catalogs, 1983-1994. There are 30 catalogs in this collection, including sale catalogs for John Sarnovsky, Jack Hooks, and many other notable collectors.

The second in a three-volume set, this book is a handy reference for collectors of prehistoric Indian art. Thousands of relics can be identified from the pictures within the catalogs. The catalogs also provide valuable information on many specific relics.

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Birth of a Culture

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:35:00 GMT

Teresa K. Putty and Don R. Ham

We are living in a truly fantastic time. The past few years have produced some of the greatest books ever written about archaeology and prehistoric cultural material. One such book is Birth of a Culture, by Teresa K. Putty and Don R. Ham, a “must-have” library addition for professionals and collectors.

Birth of a Culture contains a wealth of photos of impressive objects from a previously under-published period of pre-history. The Red Jasper Focus culture (3000 B.C.-600 A.D.) of Middle-Eastern Tennessee was characterized by a sophisticated combination of utilitarian design and creative artistic flair. For many professionals and collectors several images of important objects will be seen for the first time in this book.

This reviewer recalls the skeptical responses of many when the Red Jasper Focus assemblage was first presented at artifact shows—”This material is just too perfect, and there is just too much of it to be real!” But as more people were able to examine the material up-close-and-personal, and as people became aware of how truly remarkable the material had been excavated and curated, the doubts disappeared.

Show sponsors who at first were hesitant to permit the material to be displayed began calling Don Ham to make sure he was now bringing that “awesome case” to their shows, their general opinion having been changed to “Wow! Everyone needs to be able to see this stuff! It’s really important!” Important it is, and the book underlines that fact.

Through the professional efforts of archaeologist author Teresa K. Putty and the benevolent dedication and commitment of the assemblage curator Don R. Ham, Birth of a Culture now makes it possible for every professional and every collector and anyone interested in the Red Jasper Focus people to personally have their own valuable reference with clear images of important cultural material. Upon studying the book one will quickly realize the word “Wow!” only partially acknowledges the importance and the uniqueness of this assemblage.

In addition the tastefully presented photos of the actual Red Jasper Focus sites throughout the book serve as garnishments to the story told by the well prepared photos and text, and they become an additional important contribution of this impressive work. As one studies the riverine settings of those sites the tendancy is to vicariously imagine the excitement of discovery and seeing for the first time in centuries the magnificent remnants of a once thriving culture.

Perhaps the greatest message this book offers to professionals and collectors is that much can be gained through cooperative efforts of those who have an insatiable appetite to see more and learn more and think and conjecture more about those wonderful prehistoric people. Birth of a Culture is an important entrée to help satisfy that appetite.

This most comprehensive and well presented book, like a favorite recipe, will be cherished and often revisited and kept-on-a-shelf-closeby! Enjoy!

Birth of a Culture

ISBN No. 0-9707547-3-6 Published by

Woodburn Graphics www.birthofaculture.com

don@birthofaculture.com or 252-747-5516

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Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:35:00 GMT

Edited by F. Kent Reilly III and James F. Garber

This is an exceptional group of essays. Mississippian artifacts and architecture are reinterpreted and analyzed in ten lengthy essays by leading anthropologists and archaeologists. The results are a fascinating new view of the Mississippian world.

The essays discuss religion, the meaning and use of various ceremonial artifacts, the sacred meanings behind the layout of sites and much more. While this is more of an archaeological book than a collectors volume; if you have a fascination with the past this book is a must read.

The contributors include James Brown, David H.Dye, Alice Kehoe and others. Ancient Objects and Sacred Realms

(6 X 9, 299 Pages with many illustrations) may be purchased from the University of Texas Press www.utexaspress.com (800) 252-3206 cost $50.00 (cloth hardbound) Reviewed by Steven R. Cooper E.I.C.

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Footpaths to Ancient Campsites in Copley Township, Ohio

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:34:00 GMT

By Robert Haag, M. Ed.

This beautifully illustrated, 184 page soft-bound monograph contains 200+ photos of artifacts collected by generations of Copley residents and five never-beforepublished Frank Wilcox revision drawings of the Muskingum, Mahoning, and Cuyahoga war trails that encircle Copley Township. Sixteen color pages of the most interesting and valuable artifacts found in Copley are featured, along with drawings of ancient trails and campgrounds.

Haag, a Copley native, describes the topography of this ancient crossroads, environmental change caused by settlement, and the location of ancient trails and campsites.

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An Owl Effigy Medallion (Tablet) From Northwest Missouri

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:33:00 GMT

by David A. Easterla, Ph.D., Maryville, Missouri

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.56, No.4, pg.200 Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.3, pg.128

Above: Front side of the Owl effigy medallion (tablet) the owl effigy medallion (tablet) from northwest Missouri.

Usually one-of-a-kind artifacts are difficult to interpret. Certainly this is the case for an owl effigy medallion (tablet) found by Harold V. Reed in Clear Creek approximately 1-2 miles east Clearmont, Nodaway County, Missouri, between the 1930’s and early 1980’s. During these early years Clear Creek was straightened by the Corp of Engineers and by chance this straightening went through a campsite of one of the meandering curves which resulted in a great number of artifacts being found, dating from Paleo to Mississippian. Unlike most streams in the area, Clear Creek is spring fed with very clear water, hence, a very desirable area for a campsite and human habitation.

The owl medallion is made from a very find red-grained quartzite. Although rare, this red fine-grained quartzite rock appears occasionally in hardstone artifacts in the four corner area of northwest Missouri, southwest Iowa, northeast Kansas, and southeast Nebraska (see Easterla, 2009, p. 121). The origin of this red quartzite is believed to be eastern Kansas.

The owl medallion measures 4 5/8″ long by 3 1/2″ wide. It is very symmetrical, shows peck marks, and is polished over much of the surface, especially around the eyes and bill. The facial region is very stylistic. Obviously the maker took great pride in creating the impressive eyes and bill. Based upon the large rounded “puffy” head, large eyes, and the lack of feather ear (horn) tufts, the depicted owl is probably the Barred Owl, which is a common permanent resident of the area woodlands today. The back side of the owl medallion shows only peck marks and lacks any markings/ figures (Fig. 2). Not only are owls a fascinating group of birds today by their secretive nocturnal habits, ability to turn their head about 360 degrees, etc.,but they obviously fascinated the Native Americans as documented by owl effigies appearing on pipes, bowls, etc. This owl medallion was probably Hopewellian, and was undoubtedly one of a kind for the clan/family tribe that created it. Unfortunately, we will never know the real meaning of such an effigy. Regardless, one would suspect this owl signified great mystical and ritualistic power to the Native Americans like we still find in certain remote tribal regions in some of the third world countries. In 1985 the author obtained this artifact from the finder who wanted to pass the artifact on for future study.”Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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What is it?

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:33:00 GMT

by Bob Reeves, Knoxville, Tennessee

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.2, pg.97

Back in October of 1982, I was hunting Indian relics along the shores of the Tennessee River in northwest Alabama when I found an object that falls into the problematical category. It is made of a local chert type and is well made and looks more or less complete, or so it seems since I have no idea what it is or what it should look like. It is roughly rectangular with parallel sides that are notched on each end. It is 2 9/16″ long along one side and 2 ³ /4″ long on the opposite side. It is possible that one of the “ears” has a minor ding because it does not terminate in a point as the other three “ears” do. It is 1 3/8″ across the pointed tips at one end and 1 ‘/2″ across at the opposite end. The notches are 5/8″ deep and the inside curves of the notches are smooth as though they have been ground, but more so on the end that appears to be slightly damaged. It is 1 3/8″ wide and 7/8″ thick.

The only theory I have that makes any sense is that it is a double ended spokeshave. The smooth inner edges may be the result of various scraping tasks.

If anyone has found or seen simliar objects or has any ideas to share on this, I would love to hear from you. Email Bob Reeves at breeves@mesaing.com.”Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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Nutting Stones

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:32:00 GMT

by Jim Maus, Advance, North Carolina

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.55, No.2, pg.62

Nuts! Nuts! Nuts! We like them because they are crunchy and they taste good and they are good sources of protein. But what if now was five thousand years ago? Would we be eating these little snacks? By all educated guesses, the ancient inhabitants of the Americas did so but not necessarily because they were good between meal snacks. It was instead because they were readily available in the forests, and since there were no grocery stores from which to procure food, any naturally occurring food source that was easily obtainable was eaten.

Certainly as early as the Archaic Period and maybe before that, ancient Americans ate what was there for the taking including animals and fish and seeds and nuts. But when they had no nut crackers with which to remove the nut meat from the shells, how did they accomplish this task? Well, with Nutting stones, of course.

We have all found or seen these amorphous hard and soft stone artifacts. They are essentially naturally shaped rocks, usually somewhat flat, that have small to large indentations in the rock surface. Careful analysis of these nutting stone depressions clearly shows that the concavities are not natural but were man made by repeated hammering and/or rotary grinding. They are made of many materials from very hard granite, basalt and gneiss to softer schist, limestone and sandstone and they have been found throughout the two Americas. But were they used for cracking nuts? There have been many theories as to the exact usage of these stones, some of which are:

1. Sockets to hold the butt end of a spear or lance shaft during the bark peeling and smoothing and straightening operations.

2. Anvils for fire making using a bow drill. A bow string would have been wrapped around tightly around a shaft to provide rotary motion. The shaft would have been anchored in the stone depression and incased with tinder.

3. As the shaft was spun using the bow and string, friction would have been created to produce heat and sparks and thus fire.

4. Conversely the stone would be placed on top of the bow drill shaft as a weight to force the drill shaft down onto a piece of wood containing the tinder to be ignited.

5. Grinding stones to crush minerals and seeds for the making of paint pigments.

6. Grinding stones for the crushing of plant material to make medicines.

7. Nut cracking devices.

One or some or all of these theories may be correct but most collectors today believe that the primary use of these rocks was to crack nuts. During the Archaic and Woodland Periods in Eastern North America, much nf the land was covered by hardwood forests such as oak, walnut, hickory, beech and chestnut. These trees produced their seeds, as do all plants, for the purpose of reproduction of the species. In the fall of the year, these seeds ripened and fell to the ground where they could have been easily picked up and used as a diet staple by the native humans as well as being eaten by animals such as deer and turkey. The oak trees, of course, produce acorns which are not today considered an eatable nut by us but were most likely eaten by the ancients. The problem with acorns is that they contain tannic acid which is bitter to the taste. The acorns could, however, have been eaten by removing the meat from the shell using a hammer and nutting stone and placing the nut in a basket or shallow depression in the ground and pouring hot lye water (the lye water derived by soaking ashes of burned hardwood trees in water) over the acorn meat which would eventually wash away the tannin. The nut meat could have then been ground on a grinding stone or mortar and used as a flour or meal to thicken stews or to make a type of gruel. The seeds of the walnut, hickory, beech and chestnut trees are very good food materials as well as the nut oils being used for cooking and would have been processed by cracking the shells and placing the nuts in boiling water which would further crack the shell. The shells would then drop to the bottom of the container while the nut meat as well asIthe nut oil would float to the top. These nuts and oil would have been removed and also used in soups as well as the nut meat being simply eaten without further cooking. And as a byproduct, the nut shells would have been burned in the fires to produce heat and as a cooking source. These scenarios were observed and recorded by early European explorers during the Historic Period and there is no reason not to believe that they were also used by natives during the prehistoric periods.

So, regardless of your belief as to the uses of these artifacts that we call Nutting stones, they most likely were used to crack nuts as well as to crush seeds such as smartweed and marsh elder and sunflower. As more nuts and seeds were cracked and ground into the stones, the hollows were, over time, increased in depth and circumference to the sizes as we find them today. Nutting stones are usually found in or around hardwood forests (or at least what were forests a millennium ago) and because of their size and weight factor, they were probably left in a good mast producing area year after year by the aboriginals.

Today we call them artifacts but to the natives hundreds and thousands of years ago, they were simply another item in their inventive toolkit with which to work at the daily task of finding enough of Mother Nature’s bounty to eat. When you find one of these flat rocks with the indentations in one or both sides, stop and look around at the nut producing trees and allow your mind to escape to many, many years ago and envision yourself cracking the tree seeds to make dinner using your hammer stone and anvil — the often overlooked by us but important to the ancients -the Nutting stone.

REFERENCES

Hudson, Charles

1976 The Southeastern Indians

Peacock, Evan

1989 “Microdebitage from Cached Pitted Stones”, Mississippi Archaeology

Ward, H. Trawick & R. P. Stephen Davis, Jr. 1999 Time Before History- The Archaeology of North Carolina

Watts, Steve

1997 “The Nutting Stone”, The Bulletin of Primitive Technology

Wetmore, Ruth Y.

1975 First on the Land •TheNorth Carolina Indians

Witthoft, J.

1969″Pitted Stones and Cup-Shaped Markings”, Publication of the Archaeological So ciety of Maryland “Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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Gamestones: A Mississippian Enigma

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:32:00 GMT

by Col. John F. Berner
Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol. 55, No.2, pg.72

The Mississippian culture which began around 900 AD and terminated in the late 1400’s left an indelible mark on the prehistory of the United States. We know that Coles Creek, Etowah,Cahokia, Spiro and the Ohio Valley Ft. Ancients played a significant part. Phases such as Hiawassee, Mouse Creek, Dallas were established during this period.

Just prior to the Mississippian period the use of discoidals began with the Jersey Bluff culture.They manufactured large, heavy granite and quartzite circular discs. French religious explorers witnessed and documented historic tribes playing rolling games and wagering everything they owned on the outcome of these discoidal games.

Figure 1: Marble 1″, Murray Co., GA., Greenstone 1 3/8″, Bradley Co., TN., Hematite 1 ¹ /4″Mississippi Co., AR., Quartzite 1 5/8″, Floyd Co., GA., Greenstone 1 ³ /4″, Polk Co., TN., Diorite, 1 3/4″, Henry Co., TN.

Figure 2: Diorite, 1 13/16″, Walton Co., FL., White Flint 1 13/16″, Greene Co., TN., Greenstone, 1 ³ /4″, Bradley Co., TN., Limestone 2″, Floyd Co., GA., Greenstone 1 ³ /4″, Polk Co., TN., Golden quartzite, 1 7/8″, TN.

Following Jersey Bluff were Cahokia types Apple types from Arkansas and Missouri, rare Salt River types from Missouri and most impressive single and double cup Tennessee types. These were made of the most impressive and colorful stones including a variety of quartzites and especially a golden translucent quartzite. A few were manufactured from reddish / orange ferruginous quartzite.These discoidals range from 4 to 6 inches.

Being native of Southwestern Ohio, I seldom noticed the Mississippian artifacts called “Gamestones”. They appeared to me to be a miniaturization of the larger and earlier gaming artifacts, but what kind of game would engage these smaller counterparts?

Most gamestones are round and flat, occasionally slightly raised on each side and referred as biscuit types. A few are described as “circle roller” types because one side is a larger diameter causing it to roll in a circle as it comes to rest. One rare type of hematite, from Mississippi County, Arkansas was relief carved on one side ( figure 3 ).

Gamestones are made of diorite, green-stone, hematite, quartzite, limestone and flint. The majority are less than three inches in diameter and one and one quarter inches in thickness. The smallest known made of gray and white marble measures just one inch. If they were used like other types of discoidals, what kind and size of gaming field did they employ?

Figure 3: back side of Hematite 1 VI” example from Mississippi Co., AR.

Perforated and engraved sandstone discs similar in size are found at Ft.Ancient sites in the Ohio River valley. Gamestones (like discoidals) have definite wear patterns on the rolling surface. They are not common and found throughout the southeastern states.

If these tiny artifacts were used like their larger counterparts, then they are truly a Mississippian enigma.

“Used by Permission of the Author”

To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: http://www.csasi.org/ .

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Pestles & Hammerstones

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:31:00 GMT

John Duncan, French Lick, Indiana

These were everyday tools of the natives. The pestles were used for grinding and mashing things such as grain for flour. The hammerstone was used for an array of things from breaking nuts to pecking out axes.

The roller pestle is a pretty rare item. It can be used in several ways. I have the good fortune of owning four of these rollers from the Randall Jones collection. They were all used differently from the wear patterns.

The top one (#1) was used with the polls or ends as a mashing or grinding tool. It is from Ontario County, New York and is 201 / 4 inches long and made of granite. It must have had a mortar or bowl to grind in. The next one (#2) was used by rubbing it over the grain, giving it a flat side that is well worn. It is from Blytheville, Arkansas and is 18-1 / 4 inches long. It is also made of granite. The third one has an angled poll, indicating it was used at an angle to crush or grind. It is also from Blytheville and is 181 / 4 inches long and made of diorite. The last has little or no wear and might have been a ceremonial item as it is very well polished and smooth. It is 18-1 / 2 inches and made from green hardstone.

The next group are personal finds from Indiana. Number (5) was found on the Ballard (now Wilstem) farms in Orange County and is a very well worn pestle made of very pretty hardstone. The shape is uncommon and wear indicates it was used as a grinder or masher. Number (6) is a hammerstone from Orange County. Both ends have wear, indicating it was used to hammer to create a preform for a bannerstone, axe, or other item. Number (7) is a very large “hoof” pestle from Martin County. It is made of flint, which is quite uncommon. It would naturally be very hard, so it could have been used to crush grain to a fine powder. Number (8) is a unique hammer from Martin County. It has dimples on all six sides, making it fit the hand very well. The dimples make it easy to keep a grip. It might have been used to pound sinew or fat. Number (9) is much the same, but long. It, too, has nice dimples and is easy to keep a grip on. Number (10) is one of my favorites. I found the first half in 1995 (in Orange County) and thought I had part of a large roller. I found the other half in 1997 and discovered it was just a nice quartz pestle. The last one (#11) is a smaller bell or “hoof” pestle also from Orange County. Worn on the bottom, it was used to grind or mash, probably with a bowl or mortar.

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Circle Roller Discoidals

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:31:00 GMT

Bruce Butts, Winterville, Georgia

An assortment of circle roller discoidals found in Georgia and Alabama. Top left: green granite discoidal found in Baldwin County, Georgia. Front left: polished golden quartz discoidal, 2 3/8 inches in diameter, from Ft. Gaines, Georgia. Bottom center: gray and white speckled granite discoidal found in Madison County, Georgia. Above that is a polished white quartz discoidal from Rabun County, Georgia. Top right: discoidal found at the Princess Mound complex. Bottom right: black and gray discoidal with white inclusions from Green County, Georgia. Far right: black quartz discoidal from Wilcox County, Alabama. From the collections of C.H. Baggerly and Bruce Butts. Photo by Bruce Butts.

One of the most interesting artifacts is the discoidal, and the circle roller disc is my favorite type. Maybe it is because the majority of the circle roller discoidals come from within 100 miles of my home. When I display my collection, people always ask about the different shape of the circle roller.

Most people have heard the stories about “chunkee,” where the Indians rolled the round stones and threw spears at the point where the disc would stop. Most people quickly realize that the circle rollers would roll in a circle instead of the straight line like the other discoidals. The most often asked question is “why a circle?”

Circle rollers were used for an entirely different type of game. You could probably call it “chunkee bowling.” There have been two “bowling” alleys actually found still intact. One alley actually had seventeen circle rollers found on the alley and in the pockets where the circle roller would curve into, apparently to score points.

In 1932 William Colburn discovered three alleys while excavating the Princess mound on the J. J. Greenwood farm in Rabun County, Georgia. On the south side of the mound, a group of field rocks was discovered. At the same level, a hard baked-clay runway was also found. The runways were about 2 1/2 feet wide and perfectly level. At the end of the runways, groups of rocks were arranged so that when the circle roller was rolled down the alley, the disc would curve into certain pockets. (See the diagram.)

Another chunkee alley was found at another site in Monroe County called Towaliga. This is near where the Ocomulegee and Towaliga Rivers come together. The alleys at this site were 160 feet long and 6 feet wide, but basically built just the same otherwise as the alleys at the Princess mound. These two sites are approximately 80 miles apart.

During the excavation at the Princess mound, there were 32 discoidals found. These included biscuit, barrel, and Tennessee types, along with the 17 circle rollers.

Most circle rollers show some damage along the widest edge, since this is the part that would hit the ground first. Most are found within 100 miles of Rabun County, Georgia. I own one found on the Gulf Coast of Florida, and I have seen pictures of circle rollers from as far away as Arkansas, but it is my understanding that these are very rare finds the farther you go from Georgia. Most of the circle rollers pictured with this article are from the northeast corner of Georgia where the bowling alleys were found.

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The Prehistoric Birdman Tablets of Illinois

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:30:00 GMT

By Elizabeth Agnes Kassly

(Pete Bostrom photos; Elizabeth Kassly drawings)

Fantasy Drawing of Kassly Birdman Tablet

Of the many events that happen in one’s life, small stories begin. It is by these stories that we are enlightened. Each one of us has a story to tell ..

A few months ago, while I was tooling down the road, I drove right into a ‘heck of a storm’ ! I steered my little black truck into a parking lot and decided to wait it out. As I watched and listened to the rain and the wind and the lightning, I remembered back to another time, a time of the prehistoric American Indians. Their grass and mud caulked huts, sitting out in the elements. The woven cattails on their thatched roofs tearing and thrashing about in a dancing frenzied flurry. As I sat in my truck, it moved and swayed with each burst of energy put out by the storm. How the ancients must have felt, fearful that the great bird would come down from the sky and pluck them from their huts and devour them. Only a cave shelter could protect them now, and a strong will to survive.

Can you envision the Cahokians . . . the Mississippian mound culture people who built their earthen structures to the sky? Can you imagine how these people felt during one of those torrential storms? Lightning and thunder taking its toll on the weak-minded. Just as the storm dies down .. . the great Birdman emerges from his water worn lodge high above them all. Shaking rattles made of gourds, he chants to the sky. Would you not fear him and praise him in the same breath? We humans ‘fear’ what we do not understand.

Raptors were powerful symbols of the sky world. In the upper world, they controlled the sun . . . life! They were the ones that decided whether or not you existed. Who were the people that built the mounds? Who was it that envisioned a great Bird-Man that controlled the people through ritual? In North America, many differences existed among the Indians of the Southeast and the Southwest, but there were also ways in which they were similar. It appears that all of the southeastern Indians as well as some outside the Southeast shared basic assumptions and thought patterns. This includes notions of how the ‘cosmos’ was put together, as well as very general theories about why things happened. They also shared a fundamental social transformation that began occurring among them at about A.D. 900-1100. Perhaps they were descendants of the great Mayan culture?

Instead of stone, they incorporated the earth to make their temples.

In southwestern Illinois, just west of the modern day town of Collinsville, is the location of the 1000+ year old prehistoric city we have named `Cahokia’. It is located in the vast flood plains area of the old Mississippi River channels. Here in these bottoms, lie the remnants of the now protected man-made earthen structures. Testing was done on a few of these mounds in the state park during the 1970s under the direction of Melvin Fowler of the University of Wisconsin. While digging a large test trench, near the two eastern lobes at the base of the largest mound (Monk’s mound), a small sandstone figural tablet was discovered by one of the workers. Ken Williams picked up the stone … his heart pounded, as he observed the many rows of two crosshatched lines overlapped on the rectangular shaped stone. As he turned it over . . . he saw the engraving of a Birdman . . . half man, half bird, the only representation to be found in good context at Cahokia. This tablet is 4 inches long by 3 inches wide and depicts a masked figure with a diamond eye and a hook nose (a partial mask) and wearing an oval emblem of shell or copper on his chest. His left appendage is that of an outstretched wing. Many stories and perceptions have been proposed for this stone. This icon now represents the prehistoric city of Cahokia Mounds. Its visual reminder can also be seen on the left and right overpasses between 1-64 and JB Bridge, Illinois’ tribute to the prehistoric Amerindians who once lived below these ancient bluffs of the great Mississippi River Valley.

Could this Birdman stone have been a cult symbol owned by one of the leaders of the People? Perhaps a stone passed down through generations for the purpose of tattoo and/or identification. Maybe to secure immortality or even prestige. The crosshatching on the back of the stone may represent serpent markings or feathers. Similar crosshatched markings are found on depictions of snakes carved on shell cups (associated with human burials) found at Spiro Mounds in Oklahoma. Birdmen are also depicted, as well as an assortment of human forms, animals and plants. Moundville pottery from Alabama depicts crosshatching designs on their winged serpent and bird symbols. A large majority of these vessels also have been associated with burials. Pete Bostrum of Troy, Illinois, once told me, “Art is inspired by something going on at that time.” This portable engraved stone was definitely used as either a `visual’ communication or a ‘spatial’ one. The ‘art’ depicted on these stones attempts to communicate ideas and attitudes within the tribal clans and even into the far outlying villages or ‘satellite’ communities of the Mississippian people.

Engraving Found in Spiro Mound

In the same area, just due south of the great Monk’s Mound (where Fowler estimated a central post pit would be), were also found the remnants of many burials. Mound 72, barely seven feet high, had turned out to be an enormously complex burial site apparently used for the interment of elite individuals. Central in this group was the Beaded Birdman Burial — an individual who was placed (face up) upon an elaborate platform of 20,000 shell beads arranged in the form of a bird. Later analysis would reveal the burial was actually two males. One individual had been placed under the shell beads face down. This corresponds with the native American belief in dualism that holds that there is a division between the world above and the world below.

Each of us has a vision of the world that belongs to us alone, and when one dies that world dies also. Others may share in some parts of such a vision but none will see it exactly as another does, nor will all experience it in the same way, for each is living with one’s own vision of reality. Each person’s vision of reality is based upon life experience, the influences of,people, places, art and dreams — all the various aspects of one’s existence that make up each individual.

As the years go by, new archaeological evidence of prehistoric humans is found, every day, whether in excavations of proposed highway projects by professionals or discoveries made by individuals in their own back yards. I, myself, enjoy surface collecting in my spare time. On November 15th of 2000, another palm-sized Birdman tablet was discovered in the farm fields along a bluff-base terrace south of old Valmeyer, Illinois, about 40 miles south of Cahokia grounds. It is the first figural tablet known to have been discovered outside of the Cahokia Site. Made of fine grained sandstone, the 2-1/2″ x 3-1/2″ tablet is known as the Kassly-Schaefer tablet. (As another small piece of it was found on May 11th of 2003.) The Kassly-Schaefer tablet bears an engraved, stylized raptor image that has a slash across the neck portion where the head would have been. Across the top of the tablet (above the slash mark) is a zone of v-shaped lines reminiscent of a timber rattlesnake or a feather. Like the Cahokia Birdman, this figure has one outstretched wing and single angled hatch marks representing feathers. The chest bears two rows of three dots (the edge of the design was broken by the plow). Below its waist, formed by a single line, is a central dot and a triangular apron tied with a sash. The apron appears to be part of a fan shaped tail or a skirt with feathers.

Mississippian-style petroglyphs (images carved in stationary stone) have been found farther south in the surrounding countryside. One is observed to be a headless falconoid figure, with thirteen dots on the chest area and two outstretched wings. In talking with other people (who hunt sites south along the old Illinois River bottom bluffs), I have come across three other possible tablets. A midsection fragment of sandstone tablet found south of Chester, Illinois, by Margie Erb which was donated to Pete Bostrum. It depicts crosshatching on one side and edge, and is plain on the other. A man named Terry Annin, who is a member of the Three Rivers Missouri Archaeological Society, stopped to chat with me one day where I was walking the Birdman fields. In the course of our conversation, I learned that aabout 2 miles south of where the KasslySchaefer tablet was found, Terry had found a small 2-3/4″ x 1-3/4″ sized rectangular shaped piece of limestone with a few squared lines on one side. The front of the piece was pecked or broken off . . . obliterating any markings that may have been portrayed. Terry was kind enough to let Pete Bostrum photograph and study the tablet. Another bird depiction, on a piece of shaped limestone, was found about 15 years ago by Margie’s sister, Mary Mathews. This stone is from the Fenaiai site (a satellite community of Cahokia Mounds), just a short distance to the south of the Kassly-Schaefer tablet site. This stone is a piece of limestone shaped into the form of a bird. It has a similar engraving of the same crouching raptor depicted on both sides of the 1/2 inch thick piece. The eyes are diamond-shaped, and there are crosshatched feathers represented on both sides. The ruffles represented on the legs show clearly that it is a hawk or falcon. Perhaps these stones are ‘totems’ — objects serving as the emblem of a family or clan and often as a reminder of ancestry.

Could these tablets have been used in ceremony at Cahokia? All of the sites in the American Bottoms were apparently political and ritual centers for local Mississippian populations, as evidenced by the discovery of ritual objects, petroglyphs and associated mortuary sites.

While a number of simple crosshatched stone tablets have been found at Cahokia, three others have been found in-situ on Stirling (A.D. 1100) and Moorehead (A.D. 1200) Phase sites excavated in the surrounding area by archaeologists working for the University of Illinois on the 1-255 and I-270 highway projects that took place in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Years ago, a fragmentary piece of tablet was discovered in storage at the Quincy Museum. It was found west of Monk’s Mound in 1921. It depicts a partial falconoid figure with an extended leg and talons and appears to be superimposed on a crosshatched background. The Wilson Tablet from Madison County is slightly larger than most of the tablets found. Its depiction is similar to a coiled snake. Three lines in the center splits the design of the lightly incised crosshatching that is done on the same side. The back side is plain. Another tablet was reportedly found around the Horseshoe Lake area near Cahokia Mounds. The stone was broken but the finder was sure there was a Birdman engraved upon it. Unfortunately the tablet was sold to someone from the East Coast many years ago. Maybe someday the buyer will realize what he has and the image will again be seen.

I am sure there have been other tablets found in the surrounding countryside and many more waiting to be found. Just remember, someday you may find something unimaginable. Something that will ‘tweak’ your brain and cause you to write a story about it. Louis L’Amour mentions in one of his books that, “Knowledge was not meant to be locked behind doors, but to share. It breathes best in the open air where all men can inhale its essence.”

REFERENCES

Young, Biloine Whiting and Melvin Fowler CAHOKIA – The Great Native America Metropolis

Brown and Kelly

1999 Cahokia and the Southwestern

Ceremonial Complex

Illinois Antiquity

2001 (Illinois Association for the

Advancement of Archaeology) vol. 36 #2, 2001

Illinois website by Pete Bostrum ( lithiccastinglab.com ) Information on Birdman tablets from Cahokia Mounds and surrounding areas

Philips and Brown

Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings from the Craig Mound at Spiro, Oklahoma, Vol. 1 (plates 68-80)

Hudson, Charles

Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun L’ Amour, Louis

The Haunted Mesa

Fragonard, Jean-Honore

The Swing

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What’s in a Spool?

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:30:00 GMT

by D. R. Gehlbach, Columbus, Ohio

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.52, No.4, pg.202

On occasion, certain artifacts resist our attempts at interpretation. Such is the case of the stylistically unique family of artifacts called “Spools”. Likely the product of the Late Prehistoric Ohio Ft. Ancient people, the enigmatic spools like birdstones, lizard effigies and a number of other curious objects in prehistory have long perplexed archaeological researchers. Numerous attempts have been made to explain the significance of the unusually shaped spools, but to date the majority of ideas proposed suffer from a lack of conclusive evidence.

In the case of Ft. Ancient spools there are additional roadblocks which obscure their true identity.

*Spools are extremely rare, perhaps the rarest and least widely distributed among all Ft. Ancient artifacts.

* Spools appear to be individually styled, therefore no two examples provide confirming diagnostic information.

*Since spools occur in very limited numbers, with perhaps less than 100 documented authentic examples, the number of available spools for comparative study is limited.

*The designs depicted on spools (most are heavily engraved) were not reproduced on other Ft. Ancient artifacts. *Most of the spools have been found in contexts lacking related features, or at least the features were not documented and most without associated Ft. Ancient artifacts.

Perhaps, attempts at defining the function(s) of spools have included a number of interesting theories. They range from spools being deployed as divining devices, spiritual or clan jewelry, gaming pieces, children’s toys, weaving devices and even astronomical sighting devices. These observations were likely based on relatively few examples and a fair amount of imagination.

Figure 1: An array of sandstone spools of various designs and forms, all from sites in southern Ohio (Gehlbach)

What’s the old saying? You can prove your point no matter what it is if you try hard enough. One of the main problems with accepting any of these proposals is the unknown significance of the wide variety of design embellishments on spool specimens and their multiple configurations.

Spool Characteristics:

Based upon a personal study of approximately 20 specimens, the following observations can be made concerning Ft. Ancient spools.

*The preponderance of spools were crafted of fine grained or rarely gritty sandstone which facilitated the addition of decorative elements.

*Most spools have been found within 50 miles of the Ohio River, mostly in southern Ohio, and much less frequently in northern Kentucky and northwestern West Virginia. The Ohio counties of Hamilton, Clermont, Adams and Scioto produced by far the most examples.

*Spool shapes in order of their frequency of occurance are: Hourglass, Straight Tubular with a slightly bulbous center section, gently rounded (resembling a beer keg) and Tubular with uniform dimensions (some with slightly flared rims at the top and bottom). The hour glass form is represented in a large majority of examples.

Figure 2: A rare limestone spool (blocked line design detail obscured) Hamilton County, Ohio, formerly Billy Bush collection (Gehlbach)

*Most of the spools have a centrally located cavity at one or both of their flat ends. The typical depths of the circular holes range from a tick mark to a drilled cavity up to one inch deep and one sixteenth inch in diameter. A few have a hole drilled completely through the artifact. Even fewer are un-drilled.

*Spools usually range from one inch to three inches in length.

*Most spools employ multiple engraved designs over their surfaces. While the decorative patterns vary with each example, repeated themes can be identified. They include:

# Wavy parallel lines, zig-zag lines, semi-circular lines, opposing lines

Figure 3: Heavily engraved sandstone spool counter balanced line and circle pattern, Clermont County, Ohio (Gehlbach)

# A starburst or moon design with outwardly radiating lines surrounding the perforation at the end of the spool

# A lightning pattern surrounding the central perforation

# A flower petal pattern surrounding the central perforation

# A distinctive lip feature surrounding the central perforation

# A track-like design featuring opposing parallel lines

#Single or multiple rows of engraved circles enclosed within a parallel straight line pattern

#A combination of two or more of the design features listed above

Possible Spool uses:

The author suggests the listed embellishments appear to have been added for decorative reasons and may not be particularly helpful in identifying spool functions. It is possible the ornamentation may represent a form of symbolic record keeping. The resulting inference is the spools were employed as markers to record significant information. The relatively nondescript or crude markings on some examples tend to obviate this theory.

Another possibility, mentioned earlier, is the spools were gaming pieces used in sort of “spin the spool” game. It is difficult to determine a role for various decorative elements if any, in the game. The Ft. Ancient societies were know for their apparent leisure time activities including the game of “chunkee’ where circular discoidals were thrown down a specially prepared alley to a forecast destination. Spools may have been involved in a similar fashion were wagering was based on their predicted final resting place.

Despite a certain fascination with the discussed possibilities, the real purpose(s) for crafting spools of the Ft. Ancient people may always remain a mystery. Even in light of their anonymity, spools are interesting artifacts and highly desired collectibles.

5 3/8 inch Hardin Barb, Merden Twp, LaSalle Co., Illinois,Collection Bruce & LeVerne Carter “Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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Waco Sinkers

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:22:00 GMT

by Dr. Charles L. Boyd, College Station, Texas

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.53, No.2, pg.71

A group of unique artifacts were found in central Texas by members of the Central Texas Archaeological Society in the early 1930’s. H.G. Moore published a paper, A Sinker Factory Site in the Central Texas Archaeological Society Bulletin No.1, 1935. The name Waco Sinkers was given to these artifacts by Frank Watt who published a scientific paper describing them to specific types (Watt-1938 CTAS Bulletin No. 4). 536 specimens were located on this site. Fewer numbers have been found at camp sites in our counties in central Texas between the Brazos and the Trinity Rivers. The author has documented two thousand and sixty-eight specimens in various collections in this area.

These artifacts are associated with those points and tool forms from the PaleoEarly Archaic period. The material from which they are produced is primarily quartzite, quartz and sandstone. Specimens of hematite are rare.

The colors are creamy white, purple and reddish black.

The shape of the majority of these specimens is rectangular, ovoid or round. Pecked and ground notches are found at each end of the rectangular stones and are opposite each other on the round or ovoid stones. Grooves do not circle the stones as in true bola stone forms. True Waco sinkers are notched only.

The provenience is usually the first or second terrace where the camp site is located. One collector of a large number alleges that all his sinkers came from creek beds. All other collectors indicate upper terraces. One hundred and fifty nine specimens were found by three collectors at a gravel processing plant. (Nolan-1986)

The manufacturing technology involves either abrasion or flaking and abrasion.”Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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The Waco Sinker: A Texas Enigma

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:21:00 GMT

Walter Williams, Eastland, Texas

I have often noticed as guests come into my house and observe a few artifacts that are displayed, how they usually comment on my “nice collection” and then begin to tell about a relative that also has a collection. They display a passing interest and then we move on to the purpose of the visit. On the other hand, let a fellow collector observe the same displayed artifacts and he wants to talk in detail about particular pieces. The collector is not content to just observe, but will want to open the case—inspect, touch, even smell the artifact. The avocational archeologist has an intrinsic interest in knowing who, what, when, where and why the artifact was manufactured. Due to the number of avocational and professional archeologists and their intrinsic curiosity, few artifacts maintain their mystery for long. One of the exceptions is a ground stone artifact commonly referred to as the Waco Sinker.

One of the earliest papers on this unique artifact (Watt, 1938), referred to them as Waco Sinkers because they were initially found in a very limited area adjacent to the Brazos River near Waco, Texas. Because this area was once the home of the Tawakoni, later called Wacoes, and because the relic also looks somewhat similar to modern day fishing sinkers, the name stuck. Also worth noting is that Watt made the connection that the Wacoe people were not necessarily the makers of the artifact by stating, “some sinker camps are not Tawakoni sites and some Tawakoni sites are not sinker camps.” The Sinkers are often found in camps; one camp noted by H. G. Moore in 1935 yielded 536 examples (Moore, 1935).

Time and additional discoveries have shown that the distribution of Waco Sinkers is much greater than originally thought, some being found as far south as Atascosa and McMullen Counties (McReynolds, 1981). They have also been found close to the border with Mexico in Dimmit and Willacy Counties (Hester et al, 1978).

Coastal waterways are of increasing interest to archaeologists because of the number of Early Man sites being discovered and the cultural clues left in stone by the people that lived in these areas. The McFaddin Beach site washed out large numbers of Paleo points, most notably both Eastern and Western Clovis type points. Plummets and Waco Sinkers have also been found eroding from the beach. This would tend to indicate a very early age for the Waco Sinker, quite possibly Paleo. The Gault Site is known for the “absolutely consistent stratigraphic sequence.” Of particular note is a zone with nothing but early Archaic artifacts, specifically Clear Fork tools, Angostura, Hoxie and, of course, the Waco Sinker. Watt noted that “The absence of pottery or sherds in the sinker camps… places them definitely in a pre-pottery horizon.” The Wilson-Leonard site in Williamson County, which would be considered part of the core area of distribution, Carbon 14 dated four examples at 9650-8000 B.P. and was associated with Golondrina and Plainview points (Dial et al. 1994). Certainly, the Waco Sinker was an important tool for people who were making the transition from a purely migratory lifestyle to a more settled or seasonal one.

Some examples are rather simple in manufacture. Others required many hours of pecking, grinding and polishing to obtain a finished tool (see first and second from left, in figure 1). The enigma surrounding the Waco Sinker is determining purpose. For many years, the sinker idea dominated because initially, they were found close to water. The problem is, most Indian camps are also found near water. So, one could easily place too much emphasis on a fishing use. In addition, if used as fishing line weights or fastened to nets, more Waco Sinkers should be found in riverbeds and creeks.

A bolo concept has more recently been accepted. The Poverty Point site in Louisiana has provided many examples of plummets that are broken in the field and brought back to camp where the drilled ends were regularly replaced. Used for waterfowl, it is believed the plummets were part of a bolo rig. The five stone rig was very effective, and the transition from drilled to notched stones was a geographic and material modification. Since hunting was a lifetime skill and the same tools were often used for years or until they broke, great pride was often taken in their manufacture. According to Russell Long, “Because of the amount of work involved on the ‘sinker,’ it is difficult to imagine any use other than a personalized Bolo.” (Long, 1977)

Some have suggested use as a charm for the more notable examples, but this seems unlikely because of their frequency, spatial patterning, and the fact that they have not been found in burials. Many are isolated finds on flat surfaces of the Blackland Prairie. This would suggest they were lost individually, which could indicate use in a net, but a land net rather than a fishing tool. Originally, it was believed that the sinkers with notches all the way around the artifacts were bolos, the examples with notched ends, but not around the entire artifact, were used on nets. Today, several “Potbellied Sinkers” have been found that are both notched on the ends and grooved all the way around the artifact. This might indicate a use in either manner depending upon the need on a particular day (see figure 2). Robert Talley, a Texas collector, believes hunting groups would come together, each bringing a net that was then fashioned together forming a very long tool that could stretch a couple hundred yards. Controlled fires or animal drives forced the animals into the nets placed in strategic locations. The sinkers maintained the net near the ground after the animal was entangled. After the kill, the nets were then returned to the family groups and to facilitate transportation, the sinkers were removed from the nets.

Avocational collectors must always keep in mind that the environment today, may not be what was prevalent at a given point in the past. The climate 9000 B.. in Central Texas was more similar to what Kansas is like today. The Brazos River would not have been cut as deeply and would have been much broader than at present, creating a short-grass, wetland environment that provided the possibility for the exploitation of riverine fauna (Waters and Nordt, 1995).

Waco Sinkers are usually more or less the same weight and size. This leads some to believe they were used as part of a hunting tool at the end of the Holocene to trap a particular type of animal. When the animal disappeared with the changing environment and possibly becuase of excessive hunting practices, so did the need for the Wako Sinker. This would explain why, at least in some areas, they disappear from the archaeological record about 7000 years ago. The Waco Sinker is an enigma, perplexing but captivating. We will probably never have all of the answers, but each documented example allows us to ask the right questions which will finally and ultimately lead to a better understanding of this wonderful Texas relic.

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Indian Artifact Magazine

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:20:00 GMT

In July 2008, during a Group email discussion of copper Paleo-like points Don wrote: “Jack Steinbring recognized and named this type of copper projectile point as the McCreary. Steinbring (1968) characterized the McCreary Points as, “…utilizing a technology and material of the Great Lakes Archaic, and a style reminiscent of the Paleo- Indian lithic styles may have fused at many points with aggressive manifestations of Boreal Archaic reflected in copper.”

Don goes on to write; “The original McCreary was found by Donald Kreiser (1966) near McCreary, Western Manitoba. Other McCreary Points were found in Wisconsin and Michigan. Because of the point’s similarity in characteristics to the lithic Agate Basin (8500-7400 B.C.) and because lithic Agate Basins were found in the same general area, Steinbring described the McCreary as: “a possible generalized flint Agate Basin, hammered from native copper.”

There is still much ongoing discussion as to whether or not Agate Basin lithic points are Late Paleo, Plano, Transitional Paleo or Early Archaic. The future will resolve the issue.

Doctor Spohn has also acquired, and curates, 2 Agate Basinlike (McCreary) copper points at The GLCR Group (Photo #5). In photo #5 the longer point, recovered in Wisconsin, is 5-1/4” long, while the shorter one is 3-3/4” long (no provenance).

Next we have a slightly different style of copper point (5-1/2” long), reflective of the lithic Hell Gap points, considered to be from the period 12,000 to 9,000ybp from the Mid- West, and described as: “contracting stem…the widest part of the blade is above mid-section” (Overstreet 2nd edition, INDIAN ARROWHEADS), which is reflected in this point (Photo #6). Lithic Hell Gap points are often found in association, and concurrent with lithic Agate Basin points (11,500 to 10,000ybp).

This copper point, like the McCreary, was also found on the western shore of Ancient Lake Agassiz, near Grand Forks, ND, which is only about 360 kilometers SSE of McCreary, Manitoba, home of the named McCreary point. It was acquired by Gregg, a member of our Discussion Group, in April 2008. I suggest that this point, and others like it be named the Agassiz point, reflective of its recovery location.

Steve, another Group Member, in Wisconsin Rapids, sent me a couple of photos.The first is another McCreary type copper point recovered by Rich, a friend of his (Photo #7, two views). Rich tells me that this point is 5-7/8” long, 1-3/16” wide, and 1/8” thick, no median ridges, and weighs two ounces. He recovered it on private property (with permission), in Vilas County, WI, about 100 feet from, and 10 feet above, the river.

The second photo that Steve arranged for me to receive, is a pair of points, a large lithic point along with a copper point, with similar attributes, that Steve’s friend Gary Weimer, of Wauwatosa, WI recovered in Winnebago County, WI, a year apart in an area within 2 miles of each other (Photo #8).

Gary tells me than an archaeologist advised him that this style is named the Dalton, and has been found around the Lake Winnebago region. It may be appropriate to name the 3-3/4” copper point theWinnebago point, also reflective of its area of use and recovery.

Noel D. Justice, Stone Age Spear and Arrow Points of the Midcontinental and Eastern United States, in a Distribution Map on page 35, shows the Beaver Lake type of the Dalton Cluster as having been recovered as far north as the extreme SW corner ofWisconsin and a very small corner of SE Minnesota, neither area close to LakeWinnebago. Both of Gary’s points suggest more of a Dalton Classic look, which according to Justice (1987) does NOT appear that far north. He shows on page 41, the Dalton Classic as being a southeastern point reaching only as far north as mid-Iowa and Illinois. Justice notes the age and Cultural Affiliation as being around the Transitional Period between Paleo and Archaic, suggesting 10,500 to 9,900ybp. You be the judge.

In my first article I showed you a photo of a frame of lanceolate points from the Hamilton Collection, curated by the University of Wisconsin (Madison). I’ve extracted photos of four of the 24 points from that collection to show you. You will note that there are slight differences in the profiles of each of these points, although each is a McCreary-like copper point (Photo #9).

Terry, another of our Group Members, recovered a lanceolate-like blade (Photo #10) a number of years ago on Dog Lake, a site about 25 miles northwest of Lake Superior in Northwestern Ontario, Canada, that has also, archaeologically, yielded many trihedral adzes; “…40% of the artifacts recovered were adzes and gouges (McLeod, 1978:78), suggesting that the area may have had a valuable wood resource…”

Materials from all periods including the Contact, have been recovered there. However, there is discussion amongst professionals, as well as we avocationals, as to whether or not the trihedral adze is Plano, or Early Archaic, or both. Some of the comments from one of five reports by McLeod (1976-1981), THE EARLY PREHISTORY OF THE DOG LAKE AREA (1981, p27), discusses the similarity of materials on this site, as being comparable to the Caribou Lake Complex, East Central Manitoba, (Steinbring, J. and Buchner, AP., 1980)…suggested dates of 7500 to 6500ybp, are worth repeating here: “…projectile points that are a crude version of Plano…broad range of large biface variations, and the trihedral adze.” McLeod goes on to say: “….it appears that a complex exists at Dog Lake related to the Caribou Lake Complex and shares similarities with the Reservoir Lakes area”. Larry, another of our Discussion Group Members in Minnesota, and his brothers, have recovered numerous trihedral adzes, as well as many Paleo-like points in the Reservoir Lakes area of Northern Minnesota, over the years.

In a personal communication with archaeologists Steve Mullholland, (Duluth Archaeology Center, L.L.C., Duluth, MN) he advises me that at the Misiano Site (unpublished at this time), in Northern Minnesota, a trihedral adze and gouge chipping site, is adjacent to an apparent dugout canoe building site, where trihedral adzes and gouges are Photo 11 Photo 12 found in a level at, and below, the Archaic level. All very indicative of a Late Paleo age for the trihedral adze, extending into the Early Archaic.

Terry’s lanceolate-like blade is 3” long x 1” wide x 1/8” thick at mid-blade, and closely resembles the McCreary points, although Terry himself sees it as a side scraper from the Archaic Period. It is very similar to Gregg’s first lanceolate-like point I discussed in my second article. Here’s a comparison of the two blades (Photo #11).

Steve also advised me of another McCreary-like point that was found by Jim, a friend of Doug’s. I asked Doug about this and he acquired a photo and permission from Jim. It is a very nice example of a McCreary Point recovered in Ionia County, MI (Photo #12). This McCreary point measures about 5-3/4” long by about 1-1/2” wide, and perhaps 3/16” thick.

Although rare, there are a few ancient copper lanceolate-like points, being recovered (mostly the McCreary style), but unfortunately none from a dateable context. This suggests to me that copper use was in its infancy in the Late Paleo, and that possibly the population was quite small in comparison to the later Archaic.

Reading in WONDERFUL POWER (Susan R. Martin), in Chapter six, the question “How Old Is It?” appears as a heading and discusses various known Archaeological sites, from which I quote as follows:

“Many researchers have noticed a distinct overlap of marker artifacts from different cultural stages at many sites throughout the western Lake Superior basin (Buckmaster and Paquette 1988; Clark 1989; Salzer 1974; Steinbring 1974.:”, and; “Buckmaster and Paquette (1988) and Clark (1989) analyzed 22 artifact clusters of likely Late Paleoindian and more recent ages from the south shore of the Lake Superior basin in Marquette County Michigan. Some included copper, which demon- strated an equivocal association of copper with the better-known and better-evidenced lithic industries and technologies prac- ticed in Late Paleoindian times.”

And finally; “Some researchers suggested that Late Paleoindian hunters occupied the southerly glacial/copper drift area, learned to manipulate the copper material, and essentially replicated traditional lithic projectile point forms in copper…McCreary points occurred over a road geographical area from southern Michigan to Saskatchewan (Steinbring 1991:27).”

As early as 1894, Cushing, Frank H. (1894: 93-117 in AmericanAnthropologist), suggested that copper technology trans- ferred logically from stone working (Martin: WonderfulPower, p.117), and wrote: “It is safe to assume, as a general proposition, that no new art was ever practiced by Aboriginal Americans as strictly new..” and further commented on by Jack Steinbring (in note 1), “the prehistoric copper industries of central North America adopted formal attributes in tool shape from earlier Paleo lithic industries” (Martin: p.225)

Martin then summarizes: “The seventh millennium western Lake Superior sites were the homes of the earliest copper users on the continent. It is likely that they quickly incorporated raw copper from riverine and streambed drift deposits into their com- plex of useable material resources.”

It is imperative that those of us recovering these types of copper points, and in fact all copper artifacts, especially when found in conjunction with lithics, carefully observe and record the context within which it is resting, and recover, preserve, and record, any dateable materials which may have been preserved by the copper. We owe it to those coming after us to secure that which we hold so dear.

Article provided by: MAY 2010 INDIAN ARTIFACT MAGAZINE 67

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John McCurdy

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:15:00 GMT

Since finding bannerstones is such a rare occurrence, most collectors turn to buying banners. As with all artifacts, the more desirable the relic type, the more reproductions one must wade through to find the authentic ones.

While certain more established artifact auction houses and online auction sites tend to always seem to have scores and scores of beautiful undamaged banner-stones available made from the finest materials in the rarest of styles, finding authentic documented examples with good solid history is not quite as easy a task. If you are new to collecting, it is important that you know Indian artifacts are reproduced in modern times at an astounding pace. Bannerstones being one of the more valuable types of artifacts automatically makes it a favorite of the reproduction con-artist.

One of my closest friends and business associates is a gentleman named John McCurdy who resides in Mississippi. I met John several years ago and what he was going through at the time reminded me of exactly what I went through over 20 years ago when I first began collecting. We both share the common bond of being burned on reproduction artifacts we thought were the real thing when we began collecting. This has happened to hundreds if not thousands of other new collectors.

The defining moment of whether a person continues to collect or decides to drop from the hobby altogether comes quickly after the realization that while you thought you were beginning to build a valuable artifact collection, in reality you only have in your possession an accumulation of worthless fakes. At that critical point, most people drop from the hobby. John however, like myself years ago, maintained his love of artifacts and the study of the ancient past, and has gone on to put together a wonderful collection of authentic artifacts.

Collector John McCurdy with an assortment of artifacts he bought in his first year that were represented as being authentic, but in fact were reproductions. John has kept all his reproduction as study tools and remind ers that when buying artifacts, especially from auctions with no solid guarantees, you cannot be too carefull

One of John’s favorite artifact groups to collect are bannerstones — predominately southern style banners. When I told John I was considering doing a page or so on reproductions and some of the pitfalls of collecting bannerstones, he related to me that he had kept every single reproduction he bought that first year he started collecting, and he would be glad to send me a photograph of them to use here. Knowing that John has since put together a quality collection of banners, I asked him to also send photos of his current collection to show newer collectors that between the pitfalls that are waiting out there for anyone trying to purchase artifacts, quality collections can still be assembled.

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Gary Fogelman

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:14:00 GMT

COA’s (Certificate of Authenticity) Mostly Worthless

Certificates of Authenticity perhaps meant something at one time, back when only one or two people were doing it, worthy people too, trying to provide a service in an honest and forthright manner. There are still a few that do this, but most you haven’t heard of. The ones you have heard of, the ones with their names on everything floating around today? Those papers would best be of use in the hunting camp outhouse. The genre has been so polluted with fake papers, and fakes being papered, it’s hard to wade through the mess.

It’s a shame that there is no main data information center for people to access for the latest news, information, etc. IAM does this very thing, but those that need this information the most are often the ones who feel they don’t need it. In that regard it’s almost tempting to say that some of these deserve what they get but then, that’s just what the fakers and con artists use as justification for their actions.

Last year in Vol. 31-4 we showed some fake bannerstones that were making the rounds. We knew they were fakes because Paul Frey had witnessed the guy making some and saw others he had already made. These were fashioned after the forms from the Koens Crispin site in New Jersey. Later, in Vol. 32-2 we again mentioned the fake bannerstones and also showed some fake Adena points. These were also mentioned in Vol. 323.

An initial scam with the banner-stones saw a collector/dealer here in PA purchase a number of these, only to find out that he had been taken with the modern reproductions. I’m not sure how that turned out, if he got any of his money back or not, but it caused a lot of anguish and this guy later passed away.

Meanwhile, we attended Bennett’s Collector Rendezvous in 2012, and three showed up there, but now they had COA’s! I alerted Jim about them and he pulled them from the auction. When the consignee was informed on why they were not sold, there was no fuss and no muss, for that guy already knew they were modern.

I wrote about this then and opined that many offering COA’s are selling out, and/or are in cahoots with each other. Some bad things are papered, and this is backed up by a COA from someone else! How many stinking COA’s does a piece need? So, if these fakes are getting by these people, the ones who handle more than anybody else, are they really competent to be offering COA’s???

These same bannerstones then went through another auction house, with more COA’s, and some people paid good sums of money. Keep shipping them around long enough and finally they will reach someone who is out of the loop, was never in the loop, or doesn’t care to be connected with any loops. More’s the pity. So the fakers and con artists get bolder.

To wit: As noted, in Vol. 32-2 and 3 we showed some Adena points that were coming on the market, supposedly from the DelMarVa Peninsula, particularly from a site that produced the material that noted collector Earl Townsend ended up with. That assemblage was well documented. Flint Ridge flint as a material used for this assemblage was very rare.

But, all of sudden, there’s a number of these being offered for sale, with Townsend collection attribution, and even Townsend-like writing on them. Recently 7 of these were shown on the cover of a forthcoming auction brochure for a major auction house in Ohio. I did hear that these were pulled from that auction. But, as seen above, that just means they will be shopped around elsewhere until they reach someone who is out of the loop, was never in the loop, or doesn’t care to be connected with any loops. And get this, later in that same auction, what else should be offered? Yep, those darn fake bannerstones from PA, with more COA’s.

These authenticators set themselves up as experts, and believe me, most are. Once again, they’ve pretty much seen and handled it all. Yet, time and again, they paper bad things and then claim they were fooled too! This doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. If they’re getting fooled all the time, they’re no more expert than anybody else.

But rest assured, they’re not being fooled. The profit margin between selling a modern fake and a good old piece with a verifiable history is, quite literally, astronomical. With no one stepping up and taking someone to court, this will continue. The problem there is that it becomes a case of he says, she says so to speak, with each side rounding up their ‘experts’. As most of you are aware, much of the ‘justice’ in this country isn’t about right and wrong. It’s about who can put up the most persuasive argument while following ‘procedures’. All this takes $$$$$$$. The more money one has, the more ‘justice’ you get in our court system. For most, such an experience more or less ruins your life. Some, not wanting to face it, commit suicide. Some endure, like Art Gerber, but then suffer financially, socially and health-wise.

Thus, for those that do get burned, it’s easier to try and re-sell to someone to re-coup the loss, or take the loss and shut up. And so it goes.

People take a liking to artifacts for various reasons. They come along at various stages of their lives. Most of us are fascinated with finding remnants of prehistoric cultures that inhabited this land before us, and learning how these remnants were made and used, and when. Some are, quite literally, miniature works of art in stone, and we appreciate that as well.

Some take a liking to the value of things and a way to make money and some as a means of investing some money. It’s a recipe for disaster when someone without knowledge jumps in with both feet and begins buying things up. They go to auctions and just buy, buy, buy. Naturally they end up with lots of stuff, some good, most mediocre or worse and they can never hope to recoup the value of what was expended as they overpaid in their eagerness to acquire.

The worst scenario of all is when a person with no connections hooks up with a shyster dealer. And I’ve seen this; some will actually have cabinets or rooms full of bogus things, the most fanciful and sometimes gaudy things you can imagine. These were fed to them over the years as the seller became bolder with what he could get away with and what he could charge. The ‘mark’, being unconnected, ferrets things away and never finds out, or his heirs do, that the stuff is all modern.

So, the best I can leave you with from this, and I’ve emphasized it before, is that you have a circle of friends to share things with and get opinions from. Try to get to artifact gatherings and shows. Visit historical societies and museums and other collectors. Get books appropriate to your area of interest.

There’s no reason you shouldn’t buy some of these things. I realized early on there were things I would probably never find. I began by augmenting from local collections and collectors I knew. This helped build knowledge of the local artifact assemblages.

Your area of expertise can be expanded from the local knowledge base into other areas. But always, gain some familiarity and knowledge of that/those areas before buying things.

Reprinted with Permission of Gary Fogelman, Editor of Indian Artifact Magazine.

Originally published in Indian Artifact Magazine, February 2014, VOL.33-1 page 20-21.

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David Rowlands

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:13:00 GMT

Over the course of the last year, and especially during the past six months, I’ve been confronted with the most basic of decisions. Was I going to run my company like a business or was I going to go out of business altogether? Or as William Shakespeare once quipped, “To be or not to be, that is the question.”

As the owner of an auction service that specializes in authentic, pre-historic artifacts, I recognize the pitfalls associated with a hobby where so many modern facsimiles are offered for sale on the open market. It is for this reason that I aggressively screen my sales and deny entry to any item I feel to be, shall we say, less than old. In addition, I enlist the aid of two experienced hobbyists in the vetting of each and every sale. However, it has become an impossibility to keep my head above water in an atmosphere where return privileges are open-ended, and based on the sage advice of a never-ending list of neighbors, co-workers, relatives and in-laws, barbers, butchers, drinking buddies, other hobbyists, artifact show-goers, friends, competitors, and the growing corral of Authenticators, who often disagree with one another. Everyone has an opinion, and someone, somewhere, at some-time, isn’t going to “like” the item you just bought. But that’s not the question. The question is: do you like it?

The service I provide — and the service I need to be paid for — is a platform whereby Indian artifact collectors and dealers; buyers and sellers, interact with one another in the never-ending pursuit of the coveted rock. Simply put, I can no longer have the proceeds of my business disappear based on a single opinion among a chorus of “referees”, AFTER THE GAVEL FALLS. There will always be a naysayer, and the naysayer cannot win the call.

Collectively as a hobby, we need to return to the notion that it is the BUYER, and no one else, that needs to be satisfied with what he or she buys. In the case of Rowlands Relics Limited, a full complement of auction lots, with multiple, high-quality photos is posted on-line five to six weeks prior to any sale. Likewise, the print catalog is in the customer’s mailbox’s two to three weeks beforehand. There is plenty of time for a frank conversation pertaining to any lot, or better still, a visit, as all merchandise is open to public inspection. Given sufficient notice, I will gladly arrange for, as I have done many times in the past, a second opinion from a neutral party of the bidder’s choosing. Did I mention that I also have a preview?

In short, collectors need to decide the suitability for purchase BEFORE the sale, not after. In the end, the hobby will be healthier if we return to the age-old adage that sales at auction are “As is, Where is”, which is the defining character of auctions everywhere, and which provides the primary factor in determining prices realized. Before the year is out I predict most, if not all, of the auction services that specialize in the sale of these Stone Age treasures will return to this as a matter of policy. The other side of the coin, of course, is that auction services will need to re-double their efforts, to the best degree possible, to protect their respective customers by refusing to sell questionable and problematic pieces.

David Rowlands, Owner and Manager

Rowlands Relics Limited

06-05-13

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The Natchez Prehistoric Canoe

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:12:00 GMT

During a spring flood in 1974, a rescue party in search of two missing persons made an unusual discovery. While searching along the sandy banks of the Homochitto River south of Natchez, Mississippi, party member Jerry Haney noticed a large wooden object that had been partially exposed by the surging waters. Upon further investigation, he realized the wooden object was in fact a vessel in the form of a canoe. Though at the moment Mr. Haney did not fully understand the importance of his discovery, he did feel that it was worth keeping for further investigation. After the arduous task of freeing the canoe and transporting it to the nearest vehicle access, Mr. Haney and his associates placed it in storage at their local fire station.

Over the next several months, the small town residents were continually surprised at the attention garnered by their investigations into the canoe’s past. After contacting the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, they were advised to have several tests done on the vessel. Samples were sent to The University of Georgia’s Geochronology Lab for carbon dating, and also the US Forest Service for species determination. The results showed that the wood from the canoe was Bald Cypress and had been harvested in approximately 1465 A.D., which proved it was of Native American origin.

These findings meant that this was not only one of the oldest boats ever discovered, it was also strikingly well-preserved. Following this realization, the Department of Archives contacted Senator Thad Cochran, who felt that the discovery was important enough to confer with the Smithsonian Institute about preservation and care methods, which were used to stabilize the canoe and protect from pests or decay. Over the next several years, newspapers, magazines, radio shows, universities, museums, and Native American tribes from all over the country came to view and study this rare artifact. Many interested parties made offers to purchase it, but Mr. Haney decided to keep the canoe. Over the years it gradually faded out of the spotlight and was all but forgotten. Upon Mr. Haney’s passing, it was handed down to his son and subsequently stored in a garage where it sat for two decades. Luckily, in the spring of 2014, the family decided it was time to pass this piece of history along to a new owner. Oxford Trading Post is proud to give the world a chance to view this amazing artifact once again.

The Natchez Canoe remains to date one of the most intact, well-preserved, and well-built prehistoric watercraft ever discovered. Hewn from a single log using stone tools, it measures 13.75 feet long, two feet wide, and 18 inches deep. Though missing a small section of one end, it is estimated to be 90% complete. The wood is surprisingly sturdy and solid to have lain in the ground for over 500 years. The canoe was expertly crafted with a flattened u-shaped bottom that would have allowed for at least two passengers and cargo. Another interesting feature is the extended platform at the end with its large notch (perhaps even originally a hole) of unknown use. This could possibly have been used for mooring purposes or in conjunction with steering or propulsion tools such as a push pole or paddle.

For sales inquiries and further information, please contact Brock Smith at:

Oxford Trading Post OxfordTradingPost.com

709 N. Lamar Blvd. 662-801-1786

Oxford, MS 38655 brock@arrowheads.com

Arrowhead hobby becomes business

BY LAREECA RUCKER @oxfordeagle.com, January 2016

When Brock Smith was a young boy, he found his first arrowhead in Lafayette County, MS.

“I think I was probably around 7 or 8 years old when I started looking for them and collecting them,” he said. “Of course, you used to find them in f lea markets and stuff, and my dad would go out and hunt for them in creeks.

I can still remember the first one I found. It was around 6,000 years old.”

Smith learned more about arrow-heads by studying The Official Overstreet Indian Arrowheads Identification and Price Guide.

“That’s probably the longest running publication about Indian arrowheads,” he said. “ When I was young, I had one of those, and I about wore it out just flipping through it, hours and hours spent looking through that thing and trying to identify and type which ones there were.”

Brock Smith stands behind the counter of The Depot Antique Mall, which includes a section devoted to Native American artifacts such as a table full of arrowheads.

Today, Smith, now 35, is co-owner of The Depot Antique Mall at 709 North Lamar Blvd. in Oxford. There is a section inside the store that specializes in selling arrowheads.

Walk into it and you’ll find a table covered with arrowheads priced at $1 each that were collected from Mississippi and many other states. You’ll also find some arrowheads and Native American artifacts behind glass cases and frames on walls with arrowheads ranging in price from $10 to $700.

The name of the business is Overstreet Arrowheads, and it carries the name of the man who once owned The Official Overstreet Indian Arrowheads Identification and Price Guide that Smith used to research arrowheads as a child.

When Bob Overstreet, owner of the guide, retired, Smith’s partner and co-owner of the antique store and arrowhead business bought the business and book. Overstreet, who is well known in the comic book industry, also started a comic book price guide in the 1970s.

Smith, a Tupelo native who has lived in Oxford since 2002, said they buy, sell and trade arrowheads and Native American artifacts, which are big collector’s items for some.

“My partner in the store here actually owns Arrowheads.com, so we get a lot of people through the website that say, ‘Hey, we inherited a big arrowhead collection, and we want to sell it.’ That’s how we get leads to different places all over the country and travel to buy them.

‘The past couple of years, we’ve been to Wisconsin, Los Angeles, Florida a couple of times, and pretty much all over the Southeast. We are probably one of the biggest, most well-known websites for them.”

Obey laws

Smith said arrowhead hunters must abide by the law.

“The main thing is just to make sure you do it on your own property,” he said. “It’s illegal to pick them up on federal property or public property in Mississippi. Definitely do it on private land with permission.

“A lot of people just hop in a creek and look in the creek bottom. A lot of times, they wash down in the bottom of the creeks. And even if you don’t find an arrowhead, it’s good fun and exercise, and you’ll find other things, like antique bottles and Civil War items a little bit around here.”

He also recommends purchasing one of the Overstreet pricing guides to learn to identify arrowhead types and values.

Smith said it’s legal to pick up or dig for anything on private property, as long as you are not digging in graves or burial mounds. He said most arrowheads are found near water.

“The natives had to stay near a water source, so they wouldn’t stray too far from a creek,” he said, “but they didn’t want to stay right next to the creek, because they might get flooded if a big rain came.”

Arrowhead hunting

What should arrowhead hunters look for?

“Usually, it will be the first big hump or ridge off of a creek or river,” he said. “Of course, they were here for 12,000-14,000 years, so odds are they’ve walked on just about any spot you look at.

“Most of the stone artifacts, except for the very recent ones, actually predate all of the known tribes. Most of ours are probably 2,000 or 3,000 years old, so they are from totally different tribes than what were here when the whites settled here.”

Smith said Overstreet Arrowheads has a few Lafayette County pieces for sale in their collection. They also carry a few Panola County pieces. Most of the arrowheads are $15 to $20, but some have sold for as much as $700.

“We’ve actually sold some in the past that were up to six figures,” he said. “You get a really rare unusual one, they can bring a lot of money.

“Generally, the older types are more sought after, and the size and quantity matters. It’s kind of like a work of art. If it’s real finely made, real symmetrical, it’s worth more generally.”

Smith said most arrowheads were created as hunting tools.

“Most of what people call arrowheads, are actually spearheads,” he said. “Only the most recent tiny ones are real arrowheads, because the natives didn’t discover bow technology until very late compared to Europe and Africa. So they were using spears a lot longer than the rest of the world did.”

Smith said he enjoys finding Mississippi arrowheads, and Florida is his second favorite place to hunt.

“They have really nice unusual materials and colors,” he said. “A lot of the Florida stuff is translucent. The prettier the rock kind of adds some value to them as well.

“North Mississippi and Eastern Mississippi, they have a lot of this brown. They call it chert. And you’ll also get a lot of this red jasper. A lot of people like the Mississippi stuff because the reds are colorful.”

Smith said once you’ve handled a few large collections, you can kind of tell by looking at a rock where it was likely found.

He said in southern Mississippi, near Meridian, you’ll find arrowheads made out of tallahatta quartzite. Others are made of fossilized coral.

Other artifacts

Smith sells other artifacts, such as trilobite fossils that date back 300 million years, and megalodon shark teeth that are around 30 million years old. He said most prehistoric shark teeth come from the East Coast states of North Carolina and Georgia and are found by scuba divers.

“You can find some shark teeth in Mississippi, but usually they are pretty small,” he said.

Smith’s two best personal finds were banner stones.

“They are an interesting artifact because nobody knows what they were used for,” Smith said. “They are made of stone, and they always have a hole drilled all the way through.

“Some archaeologists used to say they were a hole for a spear-throwing device, but they are leaning away from that theory because there’s just not a lot of evidence for that.

“I personally don’t know. You find a lot of them that are partially drilled, so the hole only goes a way and stops. You can Google ‘banner stone’ and ‘purpose,’ and there are tons of debates of people wondering what they were for.”

Digging Up North Mississippi’s Prehistoric Past

Brock Smith hunting arrowheads in North Mississippi

Filled with famous people and events, Lafayette County’s recent history has been quite a colorful one.

Thoughts of Lafayette’s past might be filled with images of the Civil Rights movement, The American Civil War, or the fanciful stories of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County. Though more well-known, these events are a mere eye-blink ago in comparison to a mysterious and much older span of Lafayette County’s history –– its pre-history to be more exact.

The prehistoric period of North America generally consists of the events that happened here before European contact. Native Americans had populated North Mississippi for thousands of years before the first explorers set foot on American soil.

Throughout the United States, including Lafayette county, there is archeological evidence of native occupation that dates to at least 10,000 BC. While much of this evidence is lost to decay and decomposition, luckily, the stone items such as tools, weapons, and adornments survived the years quite well.

From the earliest days of European settlement and westward advancement, these stone artifacts have been regularly discovered as land was disturbed by erosion as well as the building of home sites, farms, roads and other infrastructure.

Lafayette County arrowhead find.

The discovery and collecting of these Native American artifacts has led to a diverse and rapidly growing hobby throughout the United States. Collectors usually begin specifically with stone arrowheads, which are the most commonly found and easily recognizable artifacts.

These projectile points were largely used in the construction of spears and darts that predate the invention of the bow in North America, with only the tiniest (and most chronologically recent) ones actually being used as arrow points. Stone projectile points offer a myriad of shapes, sizes, colors, materials, and styles.

Some were crude and roughly made, while others were finely crafted in artistic forms that often belie their lethal nature. This great variation allows collectors to enjoy the hobby for different reasons and according to different budgets. Some specialize in collecting certain artifact types based on visual appearance, while others may collect only points from particular time periods or geographic areas.

North Mississippi Arrowheads

Most collectors eventually branch out into other artifacts that are ornamental or ceremonial in nature, and therefore more rare and valuable. These include beads, pendants, pipes, gorgets, bannerstones, discoidals, and others. These artifacts are interesting because of their high-quality finish, more intensive construction methods, and often unknown use. As well as these ornamental items, another category of artifacts is the utilitarian tools that were of agricultural or industrial use.

Examples of these are axes, hammers, grinding stones, scrapers, hoes, and celts. One of the unique aspects of collecting Native American artifacts is being able to readily go and find them. While some collectors prefer buying and trading for specific artifacts to build a collection, others are only interested in the artifacts they find themselves. Artifact hunters spend hours walking along fields, creeks, and lake beds in search of artifacts. Trudging through mud and rough terrain is not only fun and good exercise, but it can be very rewarding if a hunter is lucky enough to find an arrowhead that has lain untouched for thousands of years.

Group of North Mississippi bannerstones

Anyone interested in Native American artifacts can find a wealth of information at artifact shows, on the Internet, and in print. One of the most popular websites is www.arrowheads.com, which features educational articles, collector forums, and a store site where dealers sell a wide range of artifacts and related items. There are also books, magazines, and field guides that cover all aspects of artifact collecting.

The oldest and most well-known artifact publication is The Overstreet Indian Arrowheads Identification and Price Guide. This book contains educational articles as well as pricing information and actual-size photos of thousands of projectile points and other artifacts.

Story by Brock Smith. Photos by Brock Smith. For more information about buying, selling, or collecting Native American artifacts, he can be reached at 662-801-1786, or by email at brock@arrowheads.com

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The Certificate of Authenticity and Prehistoric Artifact Collecting

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:10:00 GMT

Pioneers of Artifact COA’s

The Genuine Indian Relic Society (GIRS) began a program in the 1970’s where they issued “certificates of authenticity” (COA) at artifact shows. The idea was to help newer collectors purchase authentic artifacts, and create a revenue stream for the organization. The process was fairly simple. Three esteemed members of the GIRS would volunteer at GIRS sponsored events to evaluate the artifacts. Famous collectors (now deceased) Gordon Hart and Earl Townsend were mainstays on the panel. For an artifact to earn the “authentic” stamp, all three panel members had to be in agreement. This system worked well, but raised eyebrows amongst a different crowd.

In the 1980’s, Gregory Perino of Oklahoma became the first single recognized face to put out a COA. He was well versed in Oklahoma relics, and had a working knowledge of other areas. His ethics were without question, and people began to trust his evaluations. This trust led to a market value on his COA. Unfortunately, by the late 1990’s Mr. Perino lost his eyesight, but continued to accept money for his evaluations. A large conglomerate of fraud artists began to prey on him for his valuable COA’s. More and more Perino COA’s were produced for modern reproductions until the Perino COA became worthless. The attitude among learned collectors today is that a late stage Perino COA usually means that the piece is modern. In this regard, the COA is less than worthless, and the effect of the COA is exactly opposite of its intended purpose.

COA’s of Today

From the GIRS and Perino roots of the past, today there are well over 100 commercial artifact authenticators. The techniques vary widely from the ridiculous (smell tests and laser tests) to the more accepted (hand tests and microscopic tests). The “authenticators” range from well known to obscure artifact collectors. The explosion in popularity is due to three key factors. Most importantly, artifact collecting is an exploding hobby, with new collectors entering the market on a daily basis. The internet has also created an easy access market through the “Ebay Revolution”. Thirdly, the internet is still considered a scary place, and the COA gives the comfort that a learned expert is assisting your decision to purchase.

There is a very interesting dichotomy that exists between collecting groups and their attitudes towards the COA.

Today, the COA is one of the first lessons that many new collectors are made aware of. New collectors are constantly told “don’t buy unless it has a COA”, or “until you know what to look for, only buy with a COA.” The people giving this advice are either the people producing the COA’s, the people who collect with COA’s, or the sellers who use them to produce trust. The system itself might have a chance to work except for the inherent crookedness that the COA system causes.

Why COA’s fail

The COA is used as a selling tool by the artifact communities’ worst fraud artists. This is not a mutually exclusive statement. Let me explain. Not everyone who uses COA’s is a fraud artist. However, every fraud artist uses the COA. One needs only a little common sense to understand why this is true. To use an old con term, the COA creates a perfect “straw man”. Here is a hypothetical that explains how it works. Authenticator X produces a COA for a modern reproduction after Seller Y pays them for the COA. Seller Y knows the piece is modern, and has sent the piece to several authenticators until one finally passed the piece as authentic. This gives Seller Y the green-light to sell the piece as authentic. They sell to Buyer Z, who purchases the piece b/c of the COA. Sometime down the road, Buyer Z figures out the piece is modern. (most buyers never gain the knowledge or relationships with competent collectors to discover the piece is modern. More on this in Point of Reference section). He calls up Seller Y and informs him the artifact is modern. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART – Seller Y acts surprised and makes the statement “I am so sorry, I sent the piece to Authenticator X b/c they are the expert. I just sell the pieces and rely upon the opinion of Authenticator X. I will gladly refund your money.” Seller Y has effectively used Authenticator X as a straw man for his con. The end result is that Buyer Z respects Seller Y even more for returning the funds, and acting so upset that Authenticator X made a mistake. Buyer Z places the blame for the modern piece on Authenticator X, and tells everyone how great a guy Seller Y is.

COA’s add value – The statement that COA’s add value is the most common reason given by people using an authenticator. From my perspective, COA’s only add value to worthless reproductions. Authentic artifacts do not need COA’s to sell for a market price. Ask yourself why a knowledgeable 25 year artifact dealer would use a COA. If the artifact was real, they would know a buyer who would pay a retail price for it. However, if the artifact was a reproduction, they would need a COA to add value.

Supply v. Demand

In the world of artifact collecting, there is a much higher demand for authentic pieces than supply. Basic economics dictate that in this situation, two things happen: 1) Prices go up for authentic examples. 2) Substitutes (modern reproductions) are created to fill demand. Within some styles and types of artifacts, the purchasable market may consist of up to 90% modern reproduction being sold as authentic. Some collectors buy for years without acquiring a single authentic artifact.

Point of Reference

The “point of reference” problem is the slippery slope of artifact collecting. Without a proper point of reference, a collector/authenticator/dealer will never understand the obvious differences between authentic and modern artifacts. A proper point of reference is the ability to study an absolutely authentic example of a type, and the ability to distinguish its characteristics from a modern reproduction. It remains a fact that modern reproducers cannot get anywhere close to the style of the ancients and natures processes after thousands of years in the ground. While this sounds simple, if a collector has never acquired an authentic specimen, they will compare pieces offered to them with reproductions already in their collection. With this type of analysis, modern reproductions will look like the modern reproductions. The problem is that both modern reproductions are represented as authentic. The snowball just gets bigger and bigger as it rolls down the hill. The point of reference problem is not limited to only collectors. In fact, Authenticator’s are the number one cause, b/c they create point of reference by deeming an artifact authentic. Any mistake, purposeful or not, an authenticator makes is amplified ten fold when the piece makes its way into the market. Every new, inexperienced, or ignorant collector who purchases the piece will use it as a point of reference for future examples. This author has viewed several of the well known authenticators caught in the point of reference trap. Usually, the problem starts when they branch out beyond their area of expertise (point of reference). After the fraudulent artifact seller group figures out the authenticator can be easily fooled by an artifact type, they will flood his business with examples. This is currently happening on a large scale to a very well known authenticator who used to specialize in one geographic area, and then decided to accept pieces from other areas.

Fraudulent Authenticators

The dirtiest COA scenario is the authenticator who doubles as a fraudulent artifact dealer. The best example of this problem can be seen in the court documents attached to this article. The sad ending to the story in the court documents is that the buyer took a settlement to get his money back, and the alleged offender went right back to his business. Anyone that mentions a word against the alleged offender, receives threats of libel lawsuits.

A second scenario that dealer/authenticators take advantage of is the selling of their own artifacts with a COA. Many critics have pointed out a conflict of interest when the authenticator is “authenticating” and selling the same item. Similarly, ethics committees within appraisal societies disallow their appraisers to purchase items they were paid to appraise. In an open letter written to all commercial authenticators, this author challenged them with a partial solution. The idea is simple, and creates credibility. Any commercial authenticator that also sells artifacts should produce two different certificates. One would be your traditional COA for artifacts not owned and sold by the authenticator. The other would be a “certificate of origin” that states the authenticator sold the piece along with the information that the artifact is authentic. By distinguishing between pieces authenticated and pieces sold, the authenticator is putting their reputation on the line with every piece sold. Although I was on Mr. Perino in the opening of this rant, I did take this idea from him. Mr. Perino’s ethics were beyond reproach. I have noticed an extreme unwillingness to even mention on the dealers COA’s that they owned the piece with a simple “X: Authenticator.” The end result of the open letter is that not one of the dealer/authenticators even responded to the letter.

The post The Certificate of Authenticity and Prehistoric Artifact Collecting appeared first on Arrowheads.com .

Authentic Clovis points in private & museum collections.

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:09:00 GMT

by Col. John F. Berner, Roswell, Georgia

It has been estimated by professional archaeologists in United States that the average flint knapper can produce about 500 to 2500 flint reproductions per year. With more than 500 active knappers throughout the 48 states, that equates to about 25,000 to 125,000 new reproductions every year. Unfortunately with 167 “authenticators” at present, about 10,000 to 20,000 COA’s are also produced to accompany this spurious inventory.

It is fact that authentic Clovis points identified and registered throughout our 48 states is limited to12,790 specimens. And they average approximately 2 1/2” to 3” in length.

68 percent of which have been discovered east of the Mississippi River; including over

1000 in Northern Alabama along the drainage of the Tennessee River. The balance of Clovis points known have been documented in the Western states including Minnesota. Erosion and human expansion continue to uncover remnants of the past, but numbers of discovery continue to decline.

The significance? Desire to own a piece of our ancient past continues to drive the authentic collector market with increasing values. And the reproduction market for attractive colorful and significantly large Clovis type projectiles continues to escalate.

Regarding the availability of colorful Clovis type projectiles, it can be proven that ancient Paleo makers did not heat treat their tool stone. Heat treating is a physical method that produces strong vibrant colors in flint projectiles. Paleo people sought the highest qualities of raw materials to fashion their weapons, choosing flint and chert that is mundane in color. For example, in the midwest quality white burlington flint chosen for ancient Clovis is always the highest grade, as is the popular gray hornstone from Illinois and Indiana and Kentucky.

One of the foremost identifiers of authentic Clovis specimens was the late Gregory Perino who published 3 volumes identifying varieties of flint types, each specimen carefully documented and hand illustrated. Large and fine collector specimens exhibited in publications and elsewhere with exotic coloration and workmanship were nowhere to be found. Why ?

A particular “authenticator/dealer” currently on the web always features a dozen and a half large Clovis types of colorful material; available at bargain prices; most are seriously suspect!

Another prominent authenticator COA’d an unusual huge fluted point of a size never before seen; proclaiming it exhibited three layers of patina. Would not each successive layer have covered the previous layer?

An authenticator from the west now authenticates any form of stone world wide; as well as Florida types, midwestern types,etc. Would it be a good idea for him to visit a few regional collectors and study some of their field specimens?

Just in case the idea of 4”, 5” and 6” plus Clovis points are not a serious concern; think how many appeared in the Payne collection of the 1930’s. That included 8 railroad box cars of artifacts, still some of which is being sold today!

In case we forgot, the majority of marketable large and pretty Clovis types are generally without blemish; obviously they were lost before usage? And no nicks or damage!

If we were to hypothesize, just what percentage of large, fine colorful Clovis in the market are authentic, real and ancient? It’s mere speculation but we would like to think less than 10%! Then perhaps we would like to ask you, just how many authentic ones do you think are in your collection or your local museum display?

The post Authentic Clovis points in private & museum collections. appeared first on Arrowheads.com .

EARLY MAN IN THE NORTHERN GREAT BASIN

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:08:00 GMT

By Leslie S. Pfeiffer, Associate Editor

The Great Basin is a large, arid region of the northwestern United States. The northern Great Basin includes south-central Oregon, northern Nevada, and the northeastern border of California. The Great Basin is mainly high altitude desert, but during the Pleistocene it was quite different. Lake Lahontan covered a large part of the northern Great Basin. At its peak around 12,700 years ago, the lake had a surface area of 8,500 square miles and was 900 feet deep at present-day Lake Pyramid and 500 feet at the Black Rock Desert. Lake Lahontan, during the early Ice Age, was one of the largest lakes in North America. Around 12,800 years ago a bitterly cold period known as the Younger Dryas occurred, and as it ended around 11,500 years ago the climate warmed considerably. This climate change around the end of the Pleistocene led to a gradual desiccation of the great bodies of water, and Lake Lahontan broke up into a series of smaller lakes and marshes by 9,000 years ago. Early man hunted large game such as mammoth and mastodon, camel, and horse at the end of the Pleistocene, but subsisted also on smaller game such as hare, sage grouse, and waterfowl, and also gathered plants and seeds. More than anywhere else on the continent, the most important subsistence patterns were tied to foraging around available water sources: lakes, springs, rivers, and most importantly, marshes around the edges of these great lakes.

Steve Wallman at the DeLong Mammoth Site, Black
Rock Desert, in July, 1992.

There are a number of important sites in the northern Great Basin and northwest. At the Mani s Site on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, a broken bone point made from an elk antler was ‘found imbedded in a mastodon rib. This has been radiocarbon dated to 14,000 years ago, but further testing is being done to verify this very early date.

At the East Wenatchee Site (Richey Clovis Cache) in central Washington near the Columbia River, a cache of the finest Clovis artifacts known (finished bifaces, preforms, adzes, and endscrapers) was found in an apple orchard in 1988. New radiocarbon dates at 13,125 years ago from ash found around the cache fit perfectly into the Clovis time period.

At the Dietz Site in Lake County, Oregon, a classic obsidian Clovis was found with abrasions in the flutes to help adhere the very slick obsidian to a haft.

Found near Harney Lake, Oregon, this Clovis point has caliche on one side.

At the Buhl Burial Site in Twin Falls County, Idaho, the skeletal remains of a 17 to 21 year old woman was found and radiocarbon dated to 10,675 years ago. A classic Windust point made of obsidian was found with the remains, and it gives us an excellent early date for the stemmed-point tradition of the Great Basin.

At Fort Rock Cave in central Oregon, Luther Cressman of the University of Oregon excavated dozens of stylistically distinct sandals dating between 10,500 and 9,200 years ago.

The Marmes Rockshelter, in southeastern Washington (Franklin County) at the confluence of the Snake and Palouse Rivers, is one of the most important sites in the Pacific Northwest. The site was excavated from 1962 to 1964 by Richard Daugherty of Washington State University. The site was occupied over 8,000 years, with the earliest dates at 11,230 years ago.The people living at the site hunted elk and deer with atlatls, hunted beaver, and gathered mussels and caught salmon from the river. There were at least 36 humans buried in the rockshelter between 9,000 and 680 years ago. One child burial had five matching stone knives with it.

In 1950 Daugherty excavated the Lind Coulee Site on the lower Snake River in Washington. It was a very important site used for 100 to 150 years around 8,700 years ago, and the stemmed Lind Coulee point was named for the site. The site had a huge artifact assemblage made primarily of agates and chalcedonies, and included three types of stemmed points, the base of a Black Rock Concave, two crescents, endscrapers, and a bone tool assemblage including eyed needles, serrated and unserrated bone points, beveled bone shafts, and bone beads.

This basalt Black Rock Concave point was found in

Warner Valley in southeast Oregon.

Black Rock Concave points. The longest point is 4’/2″
and is the longest the finder has seen. The second
point from the lower right has a needle tip. It was
found in five pieces in 1976.

Paisley Five Mile Point Rockshelter in south central Oregon was excavated by Dennis Jenkins of Oregon University, and was possibly inhabited 14,000 years ago (from the dating of human coprolites), but this very early “pre-Clovis” date is still in the process of being verified.

Cougar Mountain Cave in south central Oregon was excavated by John Cowles between February and June of 1958. In the lower levels were a number of Haskett and Cougar Mountain points.

The Witt Site was a surface-found collection by Donald Witt at Tulare Lake in the San Joaquin Valley of California. In addition to the artifacts, Mr. Witt collected the fossilized bones of horse, bison, and elephant. The site was backed by a high ridge, and there was a limestone “pavement” by which large mammals could travel to-and-from the swampy shoreline of the lake; it was a good ambush site. There were a number of Black Rock Concave points and a considerable number of crescents found at this site, and it is the best association of these two types known.

The point type chronology of the northern Great Basin is much debated. My arrangement begins with Clovis because, even if Paisley Five Mile Point Rockshelter is a legitimate 14,000 year old site, there is no lithic material.

Clovis artifacts in the Great Basin are scarce, scattered, and have not been found with animal remains, or in the area’s caves and rockshelters where there is much evidence of the Great Basin stemmed points. The best evidence of Clovis is to the north at East Wenatchee (with excellent radiocarbon dates of 13,125 years ago) with the Richey cache, to the west in Idaho with the Simon cache, and to the south with the Fenn cache. During the terminal Pleistocene the northern Great Basin was very cold, windy, and wet. It is likely the Clovis people were “just passing through” following big game and, depending on your point of view: 1) crossing the Bering land bridge and traveling through an ice-free corridor south and east, or using watercraft and came down the Pacifc coast, making landfall at river mouths and inlets—Loren Davis of Oregon State University is exploring coastal sites in Oregon and southern California hoping to find evidence of early entry; 2) “backflowing” from the northern High Plains into the Great Basin. One of the great mysteries of American archaeology is where Clovis and its unique fluting technology arose. The accepted theory is probably in the southern High Plains because of the presence of core blade technology with Clovis assemblages there.

The Black Rock Concave point type was named by C. W. Clewlow, Jr. in 1968 for examples he collected in the Black Rock Desert of northwest Nevada. It is a thin, finely flaked point similar to the Plainview/Goshen point types. They are usually transversely flaked with edge grinding, but no grinding in the concave base. The base is thinned with vertical pressure flakes. Black Rock Concave points have long been associated with crescents and have been found together in good numbers at the Witt Site in California, and a Black Rock Concave point base and two crescents were found at the Lind Coulee Site. There was one crescent with the Fenn Cache, and there have been two small crescents reported from southeastern Wyoming. The majority of crescents are found on the edges of extinct lakes and marshes, and their use is much debated. They may have been used to harvest tule rushes growing in shallow water, but from the variety of crescents seen, they had many uses. I have seen them serrated, burinated, with graver tips, heavily ground in the concavity and/or on the convex surface, and unifacial or bifacial. More crescents were made from agates, cherts, and jaspers than from obsidian or basalt.

Some of these crescents were found the summer of
1965 when the finder was 16 years old. None are
obsidian, and the largest is about 2 ³ /4″ long.

Haskett points were named by Robert Butler in 1965 from a collection found at the Lake Channel Site in Idaho. They are long, non-shouldered lanceolate points, up to 9″ long, and flaked by percussion, leaving scalloped flake scars on both sides of a median ridge. The stem is heavily ground, but the convex base is not. The cross section ranges from thick lenticular to diamond-shaped. Two radiocarbon dates at the Red Fish Rockshelter in central Idaho range from 10,100 to 9,860 years ago.

I will begin the Great Basin Stemmed (shouldered) point series with Cougar Mountain points, which were named by Thomas Layton in 1972 for points found at Cougar Mountain Cave by John Cowles. Cowles found Haskett and Cougar Mountain points in the lowest levels of the cave, raising the possibility that Haskett and Cougar Mountain were different cultures or complexes that co-existed at the same time. They are long, stemmed lanceolate points with definite sloped shoulders and a convex base. The stem is heavily ground and has a thick lenticular to a thick oval cross section. The blade is lenticular to diamond shaped.

Windust points were named by H.S. Rice in 1965 from the oldest deposits at Windust caves in southeastern Washington. There are excellent dates for Windust points from the Buhl burial in Idaho (10,675 years ago), and from the Marmes Rockshelter (near the Windust caves) at 10,810 years ago. Windust points are shouldered lanceolate points with the basal edge ranging from straight to deeply concave.

Parman points. These types are all percussion-flaked, thick, and the stems are usually ground, but not highly refined. There is a good radiocarbon date for Lind Coulee at 8,518 years ago. It seems to me that Lake Mohave and Silver Lake are definitely the same type, and Parman and Lind Coulee are also the same. It is very possible that they are all one point type, the differences in length, stem shape, and workmanship being due to lithic sources available, heavily reworked points resharpened repeatedly in the field and rehafted versus a primary form, and regional variation. Both Lake Mohave and Silver Lake points, and the Windust point from the Buhl burial, are often modified with a chisel tip. These points are purposely modified to leave a sharp, transverse chisel edge to the point. A proposed chronology would be: Clovis – Black Rock Concave/Crescent – Haskett – Great Basin Stemmed (shouldered) Series: Cougar Mountain – Windust – Lake Mohave/Silver Lake – Parman/ Lind Coulee. New studies show Pinto Basin points (small points with a split or bifurcated stem) fitting into the time period of Great Basin stemmed points, with the dates being obtained from hydration analysis on obsidian artifacts. It is possible that the Great Basin stemmed points changed from the larger types 10,600 years ago to the smaller types around 8,500 years ago with changes in game and weaponry. Or they may have all coexisted with the larger types being lance points and knives for bigger butchering tasks, and the smaller types being dart points and smaller knives. I don’t favor this second theory because it would mean that the stemmed point series survived as a culture or complex for 2,000 years. With the climate becoming warmer and dryer, the lakes began to dry up, and the surrounding marshes and the people who lived by foraging around them also disappeared. There is an excellent new book titled Paleoindian or Paleoarchaic? Great Basin Human Ecology at the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition edited by Kelly E. Graf and Dave N. Schmitt for anyone wanting to learn more. Dewey Dietz’ six-part series “Northern Great Basin Paleo Points” in Indian Artifact Magazine remains one of the most important studies on this subject.

Leslie S. Pfeiffer D.D.S. has had a life-long interest in archaeology, with his main interest being the Paleo and Early Archaic time periods. He founded the Lone Star State Archaeological Society in 1998, the same year he started the Temple, Texas artifact show. Leslie has served the G.I.R.S. as Treasurer, Co-Editor in Chief, member of the Board of Directors, and is Vice President-elect for 2009-2010. He has written numerous articles for both Prehistoric American and the Central States Archaeological Journal. He is also Chairman of the Board for The Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A & M University, and is a board member for The George Frison Institute at The University of Wyoming.

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PAISLEY FIVE MILE POINT ROCKSHELTER:

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:07:00 GMT

PRE-CLOVIS EVIDENCE FROM COPROLITES?

By Leslie S. Pfeiffer, Associate Editor
Photos courtesty of University of Oregon website

I was fortunate to be invited to attend the Paleo American Origins Workshop in Austin, Texas February 1416, 2008. With 47 leading archaeologists from the United States, Canada, Russia, and Denmark in attendance, the purpose was to attempt to answer the questions surrounding the first people to migrate to the Americas, including when, where, and how they came. Although the conference ended with no consensus reached, one of the most promising reports was on the Paisley Five Mile Point rockshelter in south central Oregon.

View of the opening of one of the Paisley caves.

The Paisley caves are located in the Summer Lake Basin near Paisley, about 220 miles southeast of Eugene on the eastern side of the Cascade Range. The series of eight caves are westward-facing, wave-cut shelters on the highest shoreline of pluvial Lake Chewaucan, which rose and fell in periods of greater precipitation during the Pleistocene.

Dr. Dennis Jenkins of the University of Oregon-Eugene, and Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark gave the presentation. In 2002, Dr. Jenkins led the excavations of this series of shallow caves overlooking an ancient lake bed in the Great Basin.

Eske Willerslev, Professor in the Biology Department at the University of Copenhagen and leader of the Ancient DNA and Evolution Group.

This site was occupied at least twice during the Late Pleistocene, with the older dates being from human coprolites (fossilized human excrement) at about 14,000 years ago. There was also a mountain sheep mandible with butcher marks dating to 14.000 years ago, a hammerstone with horse DNA on it, and cordage (tightly woven grass sewing thread) dated at 12,880 years ago, which would be from the second occupation and possibly associated with an obsidian stemmed lanceolate point found nearby. Bones were found of fox, horse, camel, bison, swan, goose, sage grouse, mammoth, mountain sheep, and also evidence that biscuit root was a dietary staple.

Human coprolites

Dr. Willerslev is the DNA expert, and he extracted human DNA from six of the fourteen coprolites with genetic signatures typical of Native Americans. Human hair was also found in the coprolites. Other than the one stemmed point there was no lithic material found. Sage grouse DNA was also present in the 14,000 year old coprolites.

Critics of the site have a few problems with the evidence: 1) there is contamination, with DNA from people of European origin present; 2) there is no diagnostic lithic material; 3) there is canid (dog, coyote, or wolf) DNA in three of the coprolites, suggesting the coprolites may be canid.

Dr. Jenkins answered, “Whether the coprolites are human or canine is irrelevant, since for a canine to swallow human hair people had to be present in that environment”.

Dennis Jenkins in his University of Oregon lab, displaying a drawer full of artifacts, including ropage and threads, found in the Paisley caves. Photo by Jim Barlow.

Proponents of the site and its pre-Clovis evidence say that the Paisley Five Mile Point rockshelter supports the theory that the first Americans used a Pacific Coast route, because the inland route would have been blocked by ice sheets 14,000 years ago.

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The Hi-lo Point

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 15:00:00 GMT

by Patrick L. Mooney, Peru, Indiana

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.56, No.4, pg.200

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.2, pg.70

The Hi-lo Point is a late Paleo Early Archaic style common to the Great Lakes area. It was named by James Fitting from points found at the Hi-lo Gun Club Site in Ionia County, Michigan.

The point is lanceolate in form with a base that may be either thinned for even fluted. Specific radio-carbon dates have not been established, but they seem to correlate with the Dalton horizon of 8500-8000 BC. Perino suggests the point was still being manufactured as late as 6000 BC, but this date has not received much support from other authors.

Three forms of Hi-lo points are recognized, each having heavy basal and lateral grinding. The first has parallel sides, the second triangular in shape and the third has a constricted stem and slight shoulders.

Varying degrees of re-sharpening leaves some variations to display left-hand beveling, but re-sharpening without beveling also occurs. Some variations appear to be side-notched, to have slight shoulders or have weak stems. Re-sharpening may remove these characteristics. The high degree of beveling and heavy re-sharpening suggests these were used as knives and butchering tools rather than projectile points.

They may be related to the Dalton Point, as it possesses many of the same characteristics and is from the same time period. Aqua-Plano and LeRoy points are considered to be Hi-Lo points. All of these points were probably used in caribou and elk hunting.

The ten Hi-Lo points pictured were found in either Miami or Cass County, Indiana. They range in size from 1 3/8 to 2 1/16 inch. The point 2nd from the right on the bottom row is a personal find of the author. It is fluted on the reverse side nearly two-thirds the length of the point. Center-top and bottom far-right would be considered pristine examples of this point type. The point on the top row, 2nd from right would be considered nearly exhausted due to extensive re-sharpening.”Used by Permission of the Author”
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Two Previously Unreported Fluted Points from the North CarolinaPiedmont

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:59:00 GMT

by Peter G. Murphy and Alice J. Murphy, St. Johns, Michigan

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.56, No.4, pg.200 Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.1, pg.12

Our surface collections from 83 sites in six Piedmont counties yielded more than 6,000 artifacts (Murphy and Murphy 2009) but only two of those were fluted points. Lanceolate points with one or more flutes running longitudinally along the blade are usually considered to be diagnostic of the Paleo-Indian period: 11,500 — 10,000 B.P. The six Hardaway points we found may also date to the Paleo period, as suggested by some (e.g., Peck and Painter 1984), but our focus here is on the two fluted points we found in Durham and Chatham counties in the late 1960s. These points have not previously been reported.

Fluted points are found widely throughout temperate North America and have been of special interest to archaeologists since at least 1927 when a fluted Folsom point was discovered in clear context with the bones of a now-extinct Pleistocene species of bison. They have become the hallmark of the Paleo-Indian period, for years considered to be the earliest period of human habitation in North America. However, the notion of pre-Paleo-Indian (or pre-projectile-point) cultures in North America goes back many years as well (e.g., Krieger 1962, 1964). Relatively recent findings from a small collection of stratified sites, such as Topper in South Carolina (see Meltzer 2009 for a review of the earliest sites), have provided what appears to be increasingly solid evidence in support of pre-Paleo-Indian theories. But the artifacts attributed to such cultures are not as distinctive or skillfully made as those left by Paleo-Indians. Hence, fluted points of various types, many of which hold enormous esthetic appeal because of their remarkable workmanship, remain as sought after as they are elusive.

The two fluted points that we found were collected on different sites, about 40 km apart, and are different in both form and lithic material. The point in Figure 1-A, only the lower half of which remains, is what might be considered typical Clovis in form. Composed of clear (or crystal) quartz, the base is 28 mm in width and 8 mm in thickness. It has prominent fluting on one side, extending 19 mm up from the concave base, and a lesser flute on the reverse, extending 8 mm up from the base. About 20 mm of the edges of the basal hafting area have been dulled by grinding, typical of Clovis and other fluted points (Peck 1998). We found very few clear quartz projectile points of any type: less than 1% of the total. But the published literature clearly suggests that clear quartz was a lithic material admired by Paleo-Indians Peck (1998, 2003, 2004), for example, shows a number of clear-quartz Clovis or Clovis-like points, several of which are similar to the one in our Figure 1-A.

The other fluted point (Figure 1-B) is complete except for the basal auricles (or ears), both of which were partially broken in modern times. The breakage areas clearly show that the interior of the point is of a dark material, probably a form of rhyolite (see Ward and Davis 1999) whereas the patinated surface is cream to light tan in color. The patina of this point (measured at the break points as penetrating 0.2 – 0 3 mm into the surface of the point) is different in color and texture from all other points found at the same site and, in fact, different from virtually all other points in our collections from the east-Piedmont region. Relative to other points found on our sites, the flaking is more precise and delicate. The point is 49 mm in length, 20 mm in width, and 7 mm (max.) in thickness. On one side the fluting is prominent and extends 24 mm up from the base, about half the length of the blade. On the other side, there is flaking for about 10 mm up from the base. The blade edges near the hafting area of the base show only slight smoothing or grinding.

The clear quartz point (Figure 1-A) was found in a plowed field near a small stream in Durham County, about 10 km from the city of Durham. A full spectrum of Archaic period point types were represented at the site, including (using the nomenclature of Coe 1964): Palmer, Kirk, Stanly, Morrow Mountain, Guilford, and Savannah River, as well as Rowan (Cooper 1970; Overstreet 2007) and miscellaneous others. Other sites within a 25 km distance, including some near the Eno River, produced Hardway side-notched and Hardaway-Dalton points, in addition to the other Archaic point types mentioned above.

Figure 1.
Two fluted points found on the surface of plowed fields, North Carolina (A) on the left, Durham County.
(B) on the right, Chatham County.

The point in Figure 1-B was found in a plowed field in Chatham County, on a low ridge near the New Hope River, now nearly inundated as part of Lake Jordan Recreational Area. Other point types found on and immediately adjacent to that site included a Hardaway side-notched, as well as virtually all the other Archaic point types described by Coe (1964) for the Piedmont. At two other sites within 5 km, two additional Hardaway side-notched points were found. Excavations by Claggett and Cable (1982) in the vicinity of the nearby Haw River clearly documented a strong early Archaic element, with Hardaway, Kirk and other early Archaic points represented, but apparently produced no fluted points. The point in Figure 1-B is distinctive in appearance, both in form and workmanship — as well as in patina, from all other points in our collections. It is similar to small Clovis and “Clovis-like” points from the Southeast pictured in various publications (e.g., Peck 1998; Peck 2004; Ward and Davis 1999; Daniel 2006). The two fluted points reported here, and the many early Archaic points with which they were associated, further reinforce the fact that the landscape of Piedmont North Carolina has been continuously inhabited for a period of time stretching back 10,000 or more years.

But the rarity of the earliest artifacts and their scattered occurrence is suggestive of sparse and mobile populations. McReynolds (2005) summarized the available data from various studies concerning the distribution of projectile points (by cultural period) in North Carolina. She refers to the studies of Daniel (1997, 2000, 2001) who showed that fluted points are known to occur in all three physiographic provinces of the state (i.e., Mountains, Piedmont, Coastal Plain) but are most concentrated in the eastern Piedmont, which would include the region of our sites. Peck (1998) reported that 643 fluted points were known to have been found in the state. Of those, nine were found in Durham County and eight in Chatham County, the counties in which we found the two reported here. The precise number of fluted points found state wide is not particularly relevant, and we can assume that many more have been collected over the years but never reported or documented — as, for example, the two that we report here for the first time. What is clear, however, is that fluted points from the Paleo-Indian period are exceedingly rare relative to other, later types, and that most occurrences of these points are as individual artifacts, rather than as assemblages as found at a very limited number of Paleo sites in the eastern United States (see Meltzer 2009). For that reason, we feel it is important to report isolated finds such as those in Figure 1. Over time, such reports will add to the data bank on some of the earliest humans in the Southeast and elsewhere, sharpening our understanding of their habitation, dispersion, and tool-making patterns.

“Used by Permission of the Author”
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Glass Points of the California Indians

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:59:00 GMT

by C. J. O’Neill, Monroe, North Carolina

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.55, No.3, pg.128

Protracted contacts with white settlers in the 19th Century in what is now California offer a boon today for those interested in historic Indian relics. While the contacts proved disastrous in virtually every way to groups of American Indians such as the Wintus and Wiyots, for a relatively brief period it gave them a ready supply of bottle glass that augmented the native use of volcanic glass (obsidian) and other natural stones for their arrow, knife and harpoon points. Small groups of bottle glass Wintu and Wiyot points today reflect a surprising array of colors.

The Wintu lived primarily on the western side of the northern part of the Sacramento Valley, from the Sacramento River to the coast range. The land of the Wintu also included the southern portions of the Upper Sacramento River, the southern portion of the McCloud River, and the upper Trinity River. They also lived in the vicinity of Chico, on the west side of the river to the coast range.

The Wintu lived by fishing, hunting and gathering. Judging by the collections of points attributed to Wintu village sites, these people favored the use of varieties of desert side-notch and Gunther barbed points.

Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially. Alfred L. Kroeber estimated the combined 1770 population of the Wintu, Nomlaki, and Patwin as 12,000. Sherburne F. Cook put the population of the Wintu at 5,300. Frank R. LaPena increased this to 14,250.

By 1821, many Wintus were indentured to wealthy Mexican land holders. The Wintu were first encountered by Euro-Americans in the 1826 expedition of fur trader and explorer Jedediah Smith, followed by an 1827 expedition led by Peter Skene Ogden. Between 1830 and 1833, many Wintus died because of malaria in an epidemic that killed off 75 percent of the indigenous population of the upper and central Sacramento Valley.

In following years the remaining Wintu fell victim to the onrush of settlers, who destroyed the Wintu food supply by polluting the rivers with gold mining and with sheep and cattle ranching. The Wintu were forced as laborers in gold mining operations. By 1856 the east fork of Clear Creek had at least 1,000 miners.

In 1846, John Fremont, who would become the military governor of California in 1847, and Kit Carson killed 175 Wintu and Yana. Further efforts tried to control Wintu land and relocate them to west of Clear Creek. In a “friendship feast” of poisoned food served by whites in 1850, 100 Nomsuus and 45 Wintus were massacred. This was followed by another massacre and destruction of Wintu land in 1851.

Regular and civilian troops engaged the Bald Hills and Trinity Wintu in the “Wintoon War,” lasting six months in 1858-59. Some 100 Indians were killed and 300 sent to the Mendocino Reservation. By the 1930 census, only 380 Wintus could be accounted for.

A similar fate awaited the Wyots on Gunther Island, California. Gunther Island, also known as Indian Island or Duluwat Island, is located within Eureka on Humboldt Bay. Duluwat Island (the original Wiyot name) was the site of the spiritual center of the Wiyot people. On Feb. 26, 1860, a hundred Wiyot men, women and children were massacred during a renewal ceremony. The massacre was carried out by Europeans who had settled in the area since 1850 as part of the Gold Rush. The attackers used hatchets, clubs and knives to kill. They purposefully avoided using guns so that local residents in nearby Eureka (several hundred yards across Humboldt Bay) could not hear the slaughter. Only one person, an infant, survived the attack. The island subsequently was known as Bloody Island for a significant period.”Used by Permission of the Author”
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A Remarkable Engraved Elbow Pipe

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:58:00 GMT

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.3, pg.140

A huge unique elbow style pipe from East Tennessee. This is highly engraved 7 inch in length pipe is made from steatite. The engraving covers all the outside surface areas of the pipe, and it is remarkable and complex in its artistic presentation. Crosshatching, squares and drilled holes all line up in what appears to be a planned execution. This pipe was surely the pride of its original maker. Collection of David Davis, Stanton, Kentucky. “Used by Permission of the Author”
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Earliest Archaic Smoking Instruments

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:58:00 GMT

B y Col.John F. Berner, Roswell, Georgia

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal , Vol.57, No.2, pg.73

The earliest dated prehistoric North American smoking instrument is identified as a mid-archaic tapered tubular pipe. Often found with Glacial Kame burials in the Northern states of Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, these finely crafted stone pipes are made primarily of quartzite, diorite and occasionally banded slate.

The design consists of a tapered tubular device with a large orifice for the bowl and a constricted end for the stem. These instruments were smoked without a supplemental stem. On several instances of discovery, the small inside end of the tube was restricted by a pebble or tapered antler plug to prevent burning substances from entering the mouth of the smoker. The tubular orifice was carefully enlarged by the use of various sizes of solid stick drills with the application of quartz sand with animal tallow as a drilling lubricant.

The particular example shown above illustrates the remnants of the pecking process and a finished polish overall. This archaic tubular pipe shows evidence of slight minor damage at the bowl edges, probably caused by the removal of a hardened cake of smoking substance.

It is not known if the users of these particular early smoking devices employed tobacco as we know it today. Ancient smokers used a variety substances which included fragrant barks and plants, many which produced a variety of results; some for medicinal purposes, others induced trances and sometimes encouraged vomiting for internal purification. The details surrounding these early smoking devices is critical to understanding their authenticity and recognition.

At top: An archaic tubular smoking pipe, made of dark greenish black Diorite, found around 1945 at LaGrange County, Indiana; 2 miles west of Stroh. It measures 4 3/4″ in length with a 11/16″ bowl orifice, 1/4″ exit stem hole.

“Used by Permission of the Author”

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Three Woodland Pipes

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:57:00 GMT

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.3, pg.141

Above: A Late Woodland Vase Style Pipe from Fulton County, Indiana. It is made from Petosky Stone, which shows fossil coral inclusions. This small 2 3/4″ in length pipe shows wonderful form. The Vase Pipe style continued to be utilized in Mississippian times. The pipe was found by Leroy Eshelman near the twin bridges on his family farm, six miles west of Rochester, Indiana, in 1935. Collection of Jim Felke, Rochester, Indiana.

Above: A Late Woodland pipe featuring an angled bowl and made from a grey pipestone. It measures 3 inches in length and is from Newton County, Indiana. It was formerly in the Ft. Wayne, Indian collection of Leslie Hill. He was known at the turn of the century as a collector of exceptional quality artifacts. collection of Len and Janie Weider, Westerville, Ohio.

The Above two images are of a huge bi-conical tube pipe from Meiggs County, Tennessee. This pipe dates to the Early Woodland Period, is highly polished and finely made. It was found near the Hiawassee River. It measures 7 1/2 inches in length and is made from a dark greenish steatite. Collection of Philip Helms, Decatur, Tennessee.
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Understanding the Intrusive Mound Pipe

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:56:00 GMT

by Col. John F Berner

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.3, pg.142

Above: Intrusive Mound pipe made from steatite. It measures 2 1/2″ in length and was found near Elizabethton in eastern Tennessee. Photo: courtesy of JohnPafford.

This focus is on one of the briefest cultures of Prehistoric America. Scholars identify this period as the Intrusive Mound culture, which lasted a few hundred years from about 650 to 900 AD. It followed the demise of Hopewell and preceded the Mississippian phase in the ninth century. What we know of the Intrusive Mound people is mostly from their unique artifacts and their trait of burial in prior existing Hopewell mounds. Squire & Davis, mid-1800 explorers, mention the discovery of intrusive burials within Hopewell edifices at Mound City, Chillicothe, Ohio.

These people were obviously acquainted with Hopewell, as they emulated a form of platform pipes that had only existed in those previous prehistoric times. Diagnostic artifacts of this distinctive culture include antler/ bone harpoon projectiles, antler hafted Beaver tooth incisors, stone pick instruments of diorite or granite (whose application is yet unidentified), shell beads, trapezoidal slate pendants, and distinctive platform pipes such as the one shown above.

These platform pipes are “self pipes”, designed to be smoked without an additional stem. Most are made from a blackish green steatite, found in North Carolina. They feature a rimmed bowl which expands from the stem upward and is gouged to extreme thinness. Two distinct styles have been identified with Intrusive Mound. One an elbow type, the other is the platform type with the bowl situated near the end of a thin ridged stem platform, often have a distinctive fin or handle below the bowl and platform. I speculate its purpose is to hold the instrument while smoking.

Similar to Hopewell platform pipes, the stem of Intrusive Mound pipes are bored about 1/8″ in diameter. This negates the use of a supplemental stem. The platform also extends beyond the bowl, for which I assume may be for appearance rather than utilitarian.

Students of prehistoric smoking pipes and their archaeological compatriots have long been puzzled by the strange and interesting work marks on the platforms and bowls of both Hopewell and Intrusive Mound artifacts. It has been suggested by some that these striations appear as though they might have been made by modern abrading tools. Nothing could be further from the truth!

In 1959, Earl Townsend Jr., author of”B irdstones of North America”, commissioned the Nicholson File Company to examine these marks, and they reported that they were inconsistent with their metal rasps.

Early explorers of Hopewell mounds reported finding the teeth and jaws of the Gar fish (indigenous to the Ohio River valley) among the burial furniture, and suggested that they could have been used to produce the work marks evident on these pipes.

Steatite selected for the unique Intrusive mound pipes is soft when first quarried. Subsequent smoking and later burial in the earth for hundreds of years produces a particular hardness.

Efforts by clandestine artisans over the past 150 years to recreate replicas have been a failure. The Elizbethton, Tennessee Intrusive Mound pipe is both unique and quite rare. In forty years of prehistoric pipe study and examination, I have seen but five authentic specimens, two of which were damaged and restored. This one has graced the collections of Byron Knoblock, Tommy Beutell and Eric Walters. Thank you for listening.

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The Hopewell Curved-Base Monitor Pipe

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:56:00 GMT

by Steven R. Cooper, EIC

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.3, pg.144

Above: Hopewell Pipe from Ohio, 4 inches in length. Len and Jamie Weidner Collection, Westerville, Ohio.

Pictured above is a Hopewell Monitor pipe that displays the form common to this style, a spool shaped bowl resting on a platform. The material is almost always a brownish-green pipestone found in the Ohio area, and as noted in the picture at the right below, the variation in size is not much. These pipes have been found together in mound excavations, and radiocarbon dating of such examples point to a date of around 125 AD. All exhibit a high polish and show evidence of use in their bowls. The pipe below left is from a Wisconsin Hopewell site, but since it is nearly identical to the Ohio examples, it must have been traded or brought there. Most of the known examples of these pipes were found in excavations of the Hopewell Mound sites around 1900 and only very few reside in private collections.

Above: Hopewell pipe from Wisconsin, 4 inches in length. Authors Collection.

Above: The nine pipes shown in this plate are practically of the same type and size and with one exception are of Ohio pipestone. All are from the Hopewell Group, Union Twp., Ross Co. Ohio “Used by Permission of the Author”
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A View Inside a Woodland Elbow Pipe

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:55:00 GMT

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.3, pg.145

An amazing Elbow style pipe that has broken in half and shows the internal drilling. This pipe is huge,measuring more than 6 inches in length. This remarkable pipe appears to have broken in ancient times, and was not sawed using modern machinery. Collection of Floyd Ritter, Collinsville, Illinois. “Used by Permission of the Author”
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Uncovering an Exquisite Woodland Frog Pipe

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:55:00 GMT

by Rickey P Brumfield, Tell City, Indiana

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.3, pg.146

My buddy, Randall Hansen and I went artifact hunting on December 1st, 2009. As we walked through a field in Warrick County, Indiana, something caught our eyes. The object was barely visible as it looked more like a lump of dirt than an artifact. Luckily, we had our digital camera along, and took pictures as we uncovered it.

The pipe it is of a very fine sandstone with nice edging. It measures 4′ inches in length, 2’/2 inches wide and a little more than 2 ‘/2 inches in height.

There has been pottery found in the same area that appears to be from the Yankeetown Complex (grit tempered), smooth with very little if any design. As of now we can call it early in the Late Woodland Period. Without a carbon date we cannot pin point the time line exactly.

The pipe now proudly resides in the Randall Hansen and Rickey Brumfield collection.
“Used by Permission of the Author”
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Idol Pipes: Review of Some Examples

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:54:00 GMT

by Richard Michael Gramly, Ph.D., North Andover, Massachusetts

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.55, No.3, pg.143

Above: Two idol pipes of steatite pictured in the 1890 publication

The Antiquities of Tennessee and the Adjacent States by Gates P. Thruston

Collecting ancient North American stone artifacts began during the eighteenth century, if not earlier. One of the earliest illustrations of a collected artifact may be seen in Luigi Castiglione’s Viaggio. This work is a narrative of the botanist’s 1785-1787 travels in the United States. A Cumberland fluted point is shown in his Plate IV (Pace 1983: 38). The spearpoint may have been presented to Castiglione by distinguished naturalist, Manessah Cutler — a resident of coastal Massachusetts who hosted his Italian colleague.

Of somewhat more recent vintage are several impressive, large ground stone axes with findspots and dates in the first quarter of the nineteenth century painted upon them that once resided within the Dorothy Middleton (Nelson) Collection. The Middleton Collection contained many thousands of ethnological specimens (Figure 1) plus scores of sub-collections of stone tools from New Jersey, Pennsylvania and elsewhere in North America. Groups of artifacts appear to have been gifted to Ms. Middleton for display in her private Thunderbird Museum, which was open to the public during decades before and after WWII.

Figure 1: — Interior of Dorothy Middleton’s (born 1903) Thunderbird Museum, Moorestown, New Jersey
(near Philadelphia) showing small portion of her ethnological and archaeological collection.
1947 photograph. Photo courtesy of O. Kirk Spurt; PhD.

Among Dorothy Middleton’s holdings was a curious ceramic or smoothly finished stone pipe of a seated male human figure, legs extended, holding a bowl. The bowl was meant to contain a smoking mixture; while, a stem for the smoker’s mouth was inserted between the figure’s feet (Figure 2). This pipe is attributed “to a mound in Tennessee” (Kirk Spun, personal communication). It belongs to a class of smoking pipes, known as “idol pipes” — a term that according to McGuire (1899: 541) was first applied to them in 1873 by Georgia archaeologist, Charles C. Jones (1873: 401).

What inspired Jones to coin the term may only be guessed. It is my belief that he may have likened pipes with figures holding bowls (pots) to the molded “rain god” statuettes made at Tesuque Pueblo, northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico (Figure 3). The trade in these little ceramic figures has early roots (Tanner 1968: 166), and they were carried far and wide during the late nineteenth century — if not earlier. Too, Jones might have been familiar with African ritual figures of wood, well-known for the Luba people of the Congo, for example, that show a seated or squatting person holding a vessel in the lap or upon the knees (Figure 4). Artifacts from the Congo collected by Christian missionaries and brought home at the end of their term of service would have fascinated an anthropologist like Jones.

Figure 2: — View of an idol pipe “from a mound in
Tennessee” thatformerly was part of the Dorothy
Middleton collection. Photo courtesy of 0 Kirk Spurr.

Whatever the inspiration, the term “idol pipe” is somewhat a misnomer.

We do not know if the figure holding the pot or bowl was a mythical being, a hero, god or just a commoner. The fact that the figure on many idol pipes is looking upward at ascending vapors when the pipe is held in a smoking position is an obvious convention. Its meaning must have been well understood by both the pipe’s sculptor and the smoker. Perhaps the “idol” was meant to represent the smoker himself making a religious offering of tobacco smoke? Tobacco ceremonialism has deep roots in eastern North America (Gramly 2006), and it may have been introduced from Meso-America along with the sacred calendar — the tonalamatl (Gramly 2008).

Based upon a review of standard texts treating native American mythology (e.g., Alexander 2005, Curtis 1987), it seems unlikely that the human figure on idol pipes was meant to portray a culture-hero or god-like being nor is it connected with a specific tale. Since the archaeological contexts of most idol pipes are inexactly known or went unrecorded, there is little help with interpretations to be had from that quarter. In point of fact, we are unsure if idol pipes were personal property and accompanied individuals to the grave. I know of no idol pipes with attributions to specific archaeological features; at best, provenience is to a mound, an archaeological site, or a farm. It is a possibility that idol pipes were communal property, used by many smokers, and not deposited within cemeteries.

Figure 3: — “Rain gods,” manufactures of Tesuque
Pueblo, New Mexico. After Tanner (1968: Figure
6.13). Approximate heights = 7 inches.

Dislocations

Idol pipes are generally regarded as artifacts at home in the Southeastern United States (e.g., Miles 1963: 218) but rare even there except at major sites and mound centers. Therefore, reports of their occurrence outside Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama should be regarded with healthy skepticism. Some of the pipes discussed here at one time were owned by collectors in Michigan, New York, and Massachusetts. It is doUbtful that these artifacts were, in fact, discovered upon archaeological sites in those states; it is interesting to speculate how they may have entered collections so far from their native hearth.

One possible mechanism that caused the dislocation of idol pipes is looting during the Civil War. As cited by West (1970: 187), in 1859 the archaeologist Charles C. Jones observed three fine idol pipes that had been plowed up at Etowah, near Cartersville, northern Georgia. The pipes were part of a collection at the residence of a Col. Tumlin. These same pipes disappeared in 1864 or shortly after the invasion by General Sherman’s Army of the Tennessee. Two of the Tumlin idol pipes recollected by Jones, both fashioned of steatite (soapstone), later surfaced in the collection of Gates Thruston who published them for the first time (1890: 184-186). Thruston, it should be noted, served with the Union during the Civil War.

Perhaps the only idol pipe ever discovered in Michigan (West 1970: 185 and frontispiece; see Figure 5 here) was, in fact, another spoil of war looted from a collection like Tumlin’s? Union regiments in the Army of the Tennessee were drawn from several states including Michigan, as for example, the 15th Regt. Michigan Volunteer Infantry. (See michiganinthewar. org/infantry/15thinf.html.) The incredible tale about this sandstone pipe being plowed up in 1885 on a farm in Calhoun County, Michigan (Brown 1905: 108-9) may have been fabricated to mask its true origin. By 1885 a full generation had passed since the Army of Tennessee marched through Georgia and memories of events may have faded and principal actors were deceased.

Figure 4: — Wooden “idol” holding a vessel, Luba, southern Zaire (Congo). Figures of this sort were used by shamen for holding ceremonial ointment. Height = 40.5 cm (16 inches). Author’s collecion.

Figure 5: — Massive sandstone pipe (height = 17 cm, seven inches),purportedly plowed up in Calhoun
County, Michigan in 1885 (Brown 1905: 108-9; West 1970: 656 and frontispiece). This specimen may
have originated in Georgia or Tennessee. Photo courtesy of Susan Otto and the Milwaukee Public Museum.

Likewise, another sandstone pipe with equally clouded origins (the Morgan/Weiss pipe) turned up in a household sale in rural Pike County, upstate New York, during the 1920s. This specimen (Figure 6a and b), which is remarkably like the Calhoun County, Michigan idol pipe in terms of style and execution although differing somewhat in the attitude of its figure, was on exhibit with other ancient Indian artifacts for many years at a Pike County fair building.

Figure 6a: and 6b: respectively:
Top and side views of the Morgan/Weiss idol pipe of sand-stone, which was for many years on exhibit
at the Pike County, New York fair. The pipe was purchased by John Morgan among attic contents of an
household sale in Pike. J. Weiss collection, height = 14 cm (5 V2 inches). This specimen could have origi-
nated in the Southeast, perhaps northern Georgia or southern Tennessee. R.M.Gramly photographs.

Finally, a third sandstone pipe (the Wistariahurst pipe) — similar enough to the idol pipes of Michigan and New York to have been made in the same workshop if not by the same hand — turned up at auction in Massachusetts during 2007 (Figures 7a-c). It was once part of a late nineteenth century Massachusetts collection that was gifted to The Museum of Natural History and Art, at the Holyoke Public Library, Holyoke, Massachusetts during the first decade of the twentieth century. Its vintage, then, is equivalent to the Michigan and New York pipes. In the Museum’s catalogue this pipe is attributed to Lee County, Virginia.

An hypothesis that these three sandstone idol pipes may have survived a terrible march through Tennessee and Georgia and afterward even longer journeys by foot or railcar back to the Mid-West, New York and New England might cause some readers to scoff. Yet, stranger things have happened during wartime. These fine pipes would have been appreciated then as they are now and carefully curated.

Variation among Idol Pipes

Idol pipes are scattered among North American collectors and museums with no more than two or three examples per collection. For the purposes of this study, attributes of 23 specimens are presented in Table 1.

Where the sex of the figure on the pipe can be ascertained, it is almost always male. The sole pipe showing secondary female characteristics is attributed to the Spiro Mounds, Oklahoma (Hamilton 1952). Another feature that is characteristic of most idol pipes (19 of the 23 in our sample) is the position of the figure, which faces the smoker rather than away towards onlookers. In the few cases where the figure faces away from the smoker, as for example the pair of Tumlin Collection pipes described by Jones and illustrated by Thruston, the stem hole through the rear/back of the figure tapers tapers rapidly towards the pipe-bowl.

Another common attribute (17 of 22 pipes) is that the figure is portrayed looking upward. The metaphor of allowing tobacco smoke to ascend to a plane above an earthly one is obvious, but its exact meaning is conjectural.

The idol pipes in our sample are about equally divided between figures holding pots or bowls and figures holding elbow pipes. Among the latter group, however, the pipe-bowl is usually sculpted to resemble a fired earthenware vessel with a pronounced collar or rim. The pots or bowls on some idol pipes are very exactly modeled and may exhibit strap handles, usually a pair, bridging lip and shoulder. The perforation under the strap handles could have been used for attaching decorations to the bowl or for tieing up the pipestem itself — keeping it from being disassociated.

As for more minor details — such as hair style, facial features, definition of the upper and lower limbs, etc. — we note considerable variation. Transcending their significance perhaps, is the observation that some details are exactingly sculpted in relief; while, on other pipes features are simply indicated by incising. Idol pipes with simpler, incised features are sometimes branded as modem forgeries, although there are no prior grounds for such an opinion.

Stone of various sorts (sandstone, soapstone or steatite, ironstone, etc.) apparently was favored over ceramic for idol pipes; however, no premium seems to have been set upon the use of precious or exotic raw materials. This fact alone suggests that there once may have existed idol pipes made of wood. Likely these pipes were devoid of copper decorations and bowl liners, as some examples would have been preserved by contact with metal salts.

That idol pipes were important to late prehistoric societies in the Southeast cannot be doubted. We could make more sense of this class of artifats and appreciate its significance, if only there were more facts about their discover, better photographs and proper measurements. It is surprising how few idol pipes have been adequately documented – despite their being known to archaeologists since the middle decades of the nineteenth century.

The neglect in recording provenience and other facts, which I perceive has been intentional, stems from a view that idol pipes are fantastic, modem creations. Familiarity with pertinent literature, scattered though it may be, reveals this view to be erroneous. Readers will contribute to our evolving understanding of idol pipes by reporting in this journal any examples known to them.

“Used by Permission of the Author”
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A Payne Collection Pipe Finally Seen in Color!

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:54:00 GMT

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.3, pg.147

This wonderful 2 ³ /4 inch long Hopewell Pipe of purple pipestone depicts a frog sitting. It was originally part of the Edward Payne Collection, and is shown in black and white in Photographs ofinteresting and Outstanding Speimens of Indian Relicsfivm the Edward W Payne Stone Age Collection on page one hundred eighteen ( inset ). It is from Iowa, and exhibits a high polish and the wonderful and natural styling of all Hopewell effigy pipes. Collection of Len and Janie Weidner, Westerville, Ohio. “Used by Permission of the Author”
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THE SIOUAN DISC PIPE

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:53:00 GMT

By Toney Aid

This red Catlinite “Siouan” disc pipe was found at the Campbell site in Pemiscot County, Missouri. The Campbell disc pipe is large for its type. It’s base measures 7 ³ /4″ and the oval shaped disc is 4’/2″ wide at its widest point. The bowl is small ( ⁵ /8″ in diameter and 1″ deep) and would have held only a small amount of tobacco. The prow of the pipe extends beyond the disc away from the smoker and has five protrusions cut into its end. The middle one is partially missing. The stem opening is opposite the prow and under the large disc. Most of the surface of the pipe was anciently polished. Below the disc, where the base and the disc join, the stone appears to have been worked with a leather thong or something similar in this hard to reach place. The surface there is cut with grooves. There is no evidence on the pipe that it has ever been worked with a file or a saw as later, historic Catlinite pipes were. The disc of the Campbell pipe was broken during its excavation, but all the pieces are present.

The Campbell disc pipe was found with a large stone paint disc and was part of a group of artifacts recovered from a shaft or pit burial in the Campbell mound. The single mound at Campbell was situated on the elevated ground of the natural levee. The height of the levee plus the dirt of the mound was high enough that a pit was sunk 15 feet deep in its middle. Most of the ground at Campbell was only 4 feet above the prehistoric water level and thus the artifacts were buried less than four feet deep. According to verbal accounts from 1977 when the pit was excavated, numerous burials were found within the ancient shaft. It was said the outline of clay steps descending the pit’s wall could also be seen. Unfortunately no inventory of the other artifacts found in the pit was kept. A similar shaft type burial was later excavated in the mound at the Chickasawba site in Mississippi County, Arkansas 15 miles southwest of Campbell. The Chickasawba shaft contained three large Catlinite disc pipes (the largest was 9 ‘/2″ long with a 5″ disc), two large flint blades, a Kaolin biscuit discoidal, a greenstone spud, a hematite plummet, a cache of Nodena blades, and several small pottery cups (Jack Roberts, personal correspondence, ND).

Catlinite disc pipes are interesting in many different key points. They clearly demonstrate how Native Americans traded “merchandise” in the form of raw and finished material over long distances. The Catlinite material from which the Campbell pipe is made was probably mined at the famous quarry in Pipestone, Minnesota. The distinctive Catlinite stone is named after the artist, George Catlin, who first described the stone being mined and made into pipes at that site in the early 1800s. Catlinite pipes are also a marker of Native American sites that were occupied very late in the prehistoric period. While Catlinite disc pipes are reported from Spiro mound in Oklahoma and Moundville in Alabama, the archaeological context for these finds is confusing. They cannot be clearly placed in the same timelines as other artifacts from these two sites. Where disc pipes can be placed in their proper archaeological context in the southern Mississippi Valley, they can usually be dated to the period from 1400 A.D. into historic times, ending by 1800 when they had been replaced by Catlinite elbow pipes. Swanton points out that the early French explorers in the 1600s and 1700s report Catlinite disc pipes as figuring prominently in the famous calumet ceremonies performed for them. However, a century earlier De Soto and his fellow explorers do not mention the calumet ceremony at all in their travels made between 1539 and 1542. It will be interesting to see if archaeological investigations bear out a date for disc pipes in the lower Mississippi Valley as being post-De Soto.

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MISSISSIPPIAN PIPES

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:53:00 GMT

By William C. Meadows, Missouri State University, Department of Sociology-Anthropology-Criminology

Native Americans have a long tradition of smoking tobacco and other natural substances. Tobacco was one of the most widely gathered and cultivated plants in North America. The genus Nicotinia contains more than 60 species, most from tropical America. In North America at least six species of tobacco and more than 60 other plant species were used by indigenous groups for smoking. The inner bark of the slippery or red elm was one of the most common materials that was scrapped and dried for use in pipes. While tobacco is generally believed to have diffused from the south—most scholars believe via Mexico, although others suggest Gulf and Caribbean routes—the Missouri and Mississippi rivers were important in its transmission throughout North America. Thus the presence of pipes does not always indicate the use of tobacco since many others plants were used (Wagner 1998). The earliest known tobacco seeds in the world (probably N. attenuata) come from a Late Archaic village site near Tucson, Arizona, with a calibrated date of 387 to 205 B.C. (Winter 2000:114). In the Midwest, the earliest known tobacco dates to the Middle Woodland period from four sites near the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers in Illinois. The earliest well-dated site in Illinois is a Middle Woodland site dating to 80 to 240 A.D. Because tobacco seeds typically require flotation for recovery from archaeological sites, and flotation was not a standard procedure until the 1970s, gaps in the archaeological record concerning tobacco probably exist. Furthermore, because tobacco seeds are around 1 mm in maximum length, they are so small that they are often even missed by flotation (Wagner 1998; Winter 2000:115, 310).

Although early historical sources describe native pipes made out of pottery, stone, bone, wood, reeds, and even lobster claws, some of these forms rarely survive and thus the temporal and spatial extents of certain pipe forms are probably not fully represented in the archaeological record. Pipes have been made out of Catlinite, steatite, flint clay, slate, shale, granite, hematite, limestone, greenstone, sandstone, limonite, fired clay (ceramic or pottery), and other materials. The earliest surviving smoking implements in eastern North America date to the Late Archaic period and are tubularin form. Often referred to as tubes or so-called “cloud blowers”, some contain tapered entries from both ends, while others exhibit overall straight internal channels. Without residue analysis it is difficult to determine which were used as pipes and which may have served as shamans’ doctoring or ‘sucking’ tubes (von Gernet 2000:73). Some tube pipes have been recovered with a small stone in one end of the tube suggesting a sphere to allow the smoke but not the tobacco to pass to the other end of the tube. As von Gernet (2000:73) notes, some forms have been used as both:

I have suggested that the two were once symbolically and functionally equivalent. It is not difficult to imagine an ideational homology between sucking and blowing “medicine” and the inhaling and exhaling of smoke, since both practices involved the transfer of spiritual powers.

Heavily influenced by the Early Woodland Adena culture, pipe styles quickly began to evolve around 200 B.C., resulting in a wide variety of animal effigy tube forms as well as the larger and well-known human effigy Adena pipe. Many effigy pipe styles evolved into forms situated atop simple platforms. Platform pipes and a variety of effigy pipes with centrally or near-centrally positioned bowls reached their apogee in the Middle Woodland Hopewell culture. Many of the more elaborate Woodland pipes were placed in the burials of high ranking individuals in earthen mounds at major mound centers, which suggest their use in important religious and political ceremonies. This artistry and cultural importance would continue to increase in the Mississippian period from around 900 to 1400 A.D.

During Mississippian times, pipes were made for smoking in both private and public settings. While some Mississippian pipes appear utilitarian in look and function, others were both functional and great works of Mississippian art. As in historical times, smaller pipes were likely for private use while larger and more elaborate pipes were designed for tribal and ceremonial purposes. Most surviving Mississippian pipes are made of two materials, clay and stone.

The largest and often most ornate Mississippian pipes are made of stone. Flint clay from Arkansas, Catlinite from Minnesota, steatite (soapstone), and other stones were exchanged through trade networks across much of the continent. Hematite, limestone, sandstone, limonite, slate, and shale were also used from a variety of locales.

These stones tend to be soft when first quarried, later hardening with exposure to air, use, and heat—important qualities for making pipes. Some of these stones change color with exposure such as steatite (green to black) and Catlinite (pink to darker red). From his travels in the 1830s Loop pipe made of clay.

George Catlin (1973:1:234-235, II:160-173) recorded several traditions, beliefs, and observations about the famous pipestone quarry in Minnesota. Catlin (1973:1:234) observed Indians in the 1830s shaping out the bowls of Catlinite pipes with a knife and using a stick drill with sand and water for an abrasive to drill the holes.

The Indians shape out the bowls of these pipes from the solid stone, which is not quite as hard as marble, with nothing but a knife. The stone is of a cherry red, admits a beautiful polish, and the Indian makes the hole in the bowl of the pipe, by drilling into it a hard stick, shaped to the desired size, with a quantity of sharp sand and water kept constantly in the hole, subjecting him therefore to a great labour [labor] and the necessity of much patience.

Several forms of Mississippian pipes exist, particularly elbow, disc, and effigy forms. Widely distributed throughout the Mississippian region but most frequently encountered in Missouri and Arkansas, clay elbow pipes are the most common form. They are usually made of grayware pottery with little or no ornamentation. Ornamental clay pipes tend to exhibit incised decorations such as engraving, edging of the bowl, or other simple designs. Some elbow pipes were made of stone, such as those of the Dallas phase Mississippians in northern Georgia and eastern Tennessee.

Disc pipes are named for the round disc carved and extended horizontally above the body of the pipe housing the stem hole and prow. This form was made during

late Mississippian times and range from just over 2″ to around 9″ in length. Disc pipes are commonly made of limestone and, reflecting the widespread trade in exotic materials, Catlinite.

Stone effigy pipes contain or are made in the shape .of humans, a wide variety of animals including many varieties of birds, and in some cases combinations of both humans and animals such as the Raptor and Man pipe from Mississippi.

In the Mississippi River drainage a “Cahokia style” of pipe-bowl making developed. Frequently made of red flint clay this style of pipe is characterized by large human figures accompanied by elaborate ceremonial regalia and ritual symbolism. Examples of Mississippian effigy pipes include the Chunkey Player pipe from Muscogee County, Oklahoma, the Conquering Warrior and Resting Warrior or Big Boy pipes from Spiro Mounds in Oklahoma, and the Frog Effigy pipe from St. Clair County, Illinois. This form represents some of the best in Mississippian artistry and are found through the Mississippian cultural region.

One of the most important aspects of Mississippian pipes are the glimpses they provide into various aspects of Mississippian culture including: men and women; dress; activities such as horticulture, games, and warfare; and religion. Like stone and pottery effigies and figurines, several Mississippian pipes provide images of hairstyles, clothing, Frog pipe from Spiro Mounds tools, weapons, and made from fine flint clay. Jewelry such as earspools, necklaces, and headdresses. The Piasa Creek pipe from Illinois depicts a kneeling male (presumably a shaman), with a gourd rattle in one hand and a snake or snakeskin around his neck. The cosmology of many historic southeastern tribes was filled with rituals related to warfare, horticulture, fertility, and recognition of the three worlds (upper world, this world, lower world). The presence of domesticated plants, gardening hoes, serpents, raptors, warfare, half human-half animal, half bird-half serpent, and other Mississippian themes are depicted in effigy pipes. For a sample of these forms divided into the upper world, this world, and the lower world see Galloway (1989:325-363) and Townsend (2004). One of the largest assemblages of effigy pipes has come from Moundville, including four of the “Bellaire” style, which depict the Piasa, the supernatural creature comprised of elements of all three worlds (cat, snake, bird, and sometimes human or deer).

Beyond common Mississippian era symbols, some pipes resemble known entities in the history and mythology of historic tribes. The Resting Warrior pipe from Spiro is believed to represent Morning Star or Red Horn, also known as He-Who-Wears-Human-Heads-In-His- Ears, a central character in the mythology of several tribes in the eastern plains-prairie region such as the Ho-Chunk and Iowa. Other pipes are believed to represent the culture hero Morning Star in other activities including the Conquering Warrior pipe, depicting an armed warrior taking a head as a war trophy, and the Chunkey Player pipe, depicting a man with chunkey equipment (Reilly 2004:132-134). The McGehee pipe, from near the mouth of the Arkansas River in Desha County, Arkansas, depicts a kneeling female with stalks of corn growing from her outstretched hands and sunflowers laying upon her back. From the same body of tribal mythology, this figure appears to be Corn Mother, the provider of plants and horticultural knowledge. Corn Mother, Our Grandmother, and other related feminine deities were wives of Red Horn or Morning Star (Reilly 2004:125).

Closely related to the large effigy pipes of the Mississippian Period are effigy figurines commonly

recovered from temple mounds (Angel Mounds) and mortuary contexts (Cahokia, Spiro) at larger Mississippian towns. Many of these have been interpreted as effigies of religious deities or former high ranking political leaders. The Figure At Mortar pipe from Spiro, which is interpreted as a kneeling woman (due to a lack of earplugs and the task of grinding corn) with an ear of corn in her left hand and her right hand on the side of a mortar. This image appears to have been a figurine that had a second hole added into the side of the mortar to make it a pipe (Galloway 1989:54-58).

One style of early Caddoan clay pipe is the Coles Creek style pipe. These pipes are typically long, thin, delicately made, up to 10″ in length, and tan in color. Often their stems are broken, usually in more than one place. The small size of the pipe bowl, which often shows signs of smoking use, suggests they were used as personal pipes. This style of pipe is mostly found in southwestern Arkansas. Later Caddo era clay pipes typically have shorter stems and larger pipe bowls. Still another form of Mississippian pipe is the “Coffee Bean” style pipe, named for the rounded projections on the pipe bowl that resemble coffee beans. This style is most commonly found in southeastern Tennessee and northern Georgia and is associated with the Dallas culture. This form tends to have small personal pipe bowls that could have been used with a stem. Although the longest bean pipes exceed 4″, the majority range from 1 ¹ /2″ to 3″ in length.

Following their Mississippian forebears, the use of beautifully carved pipes (elbow, T-shaped, and other forms) from Catlinite, steatite, and other valued stones continued to be made and were used in religious and political spheres throughout the historic period. Today tobacco and pipes continue to be widely used in the religious bundles and ceremonies of many contemporary Native American and First Nations (Canadian) tribes.

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CADDOAN PIPES

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:52:00 GMT

Article and Photographs by Sam Johnson
Murfreesboro, Arkansas

Styles of pipes are a significant marker in the archeological record of many cultures. It seems as though Caddo pipe styles stayed the same for longer periods of time than the quickly evolving and overlapping styles attributed to ancient pottery types of the same period. This is very true in the Caddoan culture that spanned the geographic areas of the current states of Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana.

Haley Pipe

The earliest pipe forms from this region were made mostly of stone, but pottery was also a source of manufacture during the early period. These early pipes, called “Poole” pipes, had long, sometimes tapering, stems and fairly tall bowls with notched tally marks around the rim. These early forms, especially the stone examples, were of the woodland period and are sometimes found with boatstones.

Long-stemmed Pipes

The next style of pipe noted in the area was the very delicate pipe known as the “long stem pipe”. Many of these were documented by C.B. Moore in his early expedition of the late 1800s and early 1900s and M.R. Harrington’s expedition and excavations for the Heye Foundation during the 1920s in the same area. This style is attributed to the Coles Creek culture as well as early Caddoan peoples. The bowls were very delicate; about the size of a modern thimble. The stem was small in diameter and ranged in length from 6″ to 15″.

Haley Pipe

The next style of pipe is called the “Haley” pipe, named after the site where C.B. Moore first discovered this style. This is the style most easily recognized by collectors. It is a medium length stem with a pointed tip and a medium size bowl. This style is always made from pottery. It is usually a blond to red color clay and sometimes has attractive fire marks. Bowls are slightly tapered and the stems are usually in the 4″ to 7″ range in length. The only exception is the “Long Stem Haley”, which may have a stem length of 8″ to 12″. This style is the transition style from the long-stem to the classic Haley style.

Poole style pipe

Haley style with pointed end

Poole style pipe with flat base

Elbow loop pipe

This style was used over approximately a 500-year period. It began in about 800 A.D. and finally evolved into the elbow style about 1300 A.D. The “elbow” style pipe was the last style used in the region. It was used in conjunction with a wooden or cane stem. This stem was inserted into the pipe while in use and then stored away for later use or discarded in favor of a new one. Many times, the drip end of these elbow style pipes had a loop applied as a handle for the person to hold during smoking. This loop style is found during the later period of 1350 up to contact with the white man in about the 1500s. This was when contact brought white-man-made, mass-produced pipes. When these were traded, the Native Americans unfortunately stopped producing the clay pipes that had been their artifacts for hundreds of years. Any Caddo pipes are fairly rare, but the earliest examples are the most rare, with the middle and later period styles being the most common. I have been asked to define the ratio of pipes found to pottery vessels. This does vary from site to site, but most sites would produce 100 plus pottery vessels before it produced the first pipe.

Elbow pipe

Clay engraved elbow pipe

The Caddoan people lived and were at their artistic height during the middle Mississippian time period. The Spiro mounds, with its many fantastic effigy “art” pipes, located in eastern Oklahoma within a few miles of the Arkansas state line, was a Caddoan Site. The basic pipe forms and shapes I have described are a great time period marker and many are well made “art” examples. However, some of the effigy pipes made of pottery and stone are certainly worthy of high art status and will stand with the best of sculpture from any time period.

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MISSISSIPPIAN POTTERY ELBOW PIPES – “EVERYMAN’S PIPE”

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:52:00 GMT

Article and Photographs by Toney Aid

Shell tempered pottery pipes are found at hundreds of Mississippian sites across the southeastern United States. From Clarence B. Moore’s early explorations, through the WPA surveys, to modern archaeological excavations, the number of pottery pipes found has been prolific. The majority of them are bi-conical with a flaring bowl on one end and a flared mouthpiece on the other. Typically the mouthpiece and the bowl are at a 90- to 120-degree angle to each other.

Who used these pipes? Gregory Perino noted in his report on the excavations at the Banks site in Crittenden County, Arkansas that clay pipes found there were always with male burials, but that in his earlier excavations in Illinois, clay pipes had been found with both men and women. C.B. Moore found one clay pipe in Louisiana with an infant’s burial, but noted that this was a rare finding. In Webb and DeJarnette’s Survey of the Pickwick Basin (1942) in Tennessee, they observed that clay pipes in that area were “from the general excavations” and not associated with graves. The assumption proposed is, because of the numbers of pottery pipes found and their wide distribution, that pottery pipes figured prominently in the daily life of the Mississippian world.

Most stone pipes, from the platform style, to steatite great pipes, to Catlinite disc and elbow styles, appear to have been made to be smoked with the use of a ceremonial wooden stem. In contrast, pottery elbow pipes were held in the smoker’s hand and smoked directly from the wide flaring mouthpiece. Typical stone pipes have a small diameter hole back of the bowl with a gentle taper that would have snugly fit a carved, wooden stem.

Pottery pipe with human face on the bowl
found at the Big Eddy site in Cross
County, Arkansas. This pipe features a
human face with bulging eyes, nose, and
protruding lips. It is 3″ tall and 4 ³ /4″ long.
Ex C.T. Love and Len Weidner

These separate styles of smoking are clearly depicted by two of the great stone pipes recovered from Spiro, Oklahoma. Both of these large stone pipes were published in James A. Brown’s The Spiro Ceremonial Center (1996). The first shows a Native American smoking a simple biconical clay pipe (fig. 2-94) by holding it directly to his mouth. The second (fig. 2-95) shows the smoker bent over a stone frog pipe with a long stem between his mouth and the pipe. We can say by the size, rarity, and artistic quality of most stone pipes that they figured prominently in ceremonial occasions. In addition, chroniclers of early Native American ceremonies note that the wooden stems used with stone pipes were held to be sacred. These stems were often covered in skins and hung with feathers and other objects. In contrast, clay pipes, because of their relative abundance, ease of production, and method of use without stems, were more likely for daily use. This is a general observation, as both types probably switched roles from time to time and there is a great range of pipes known in both categories.

The variety of Mississippian pottery pipes is astonishing. The simplest forms are two rounded cones joined point-to-point with a small passage between the two halves. Other plain clay pipes have squared bowls and stems. Many have two projections, or feet, at the base of the bowl that extend forward so that when the pipe is set down, it will remain upright. W.K. Moorehead called these “horse head” pipes because when held upside down, the two feet look like ears protruding from a head. Others have strips of clay along the bottom or circular raised patterns on the bowl that may have served as insulation between the smoker’s fingers and the heat of the burning tobacco within the pipe.

Numerous types of effigies are depicted by pottery pipes. Most prominent among them are representations of human figures. One type depicts a man seated or kneeling with his arms wrapped around the pipe’s bowl as if he is holding it upright for the smoker. Another style shows a human captive bound with ropes and kneeling on the ground with the pipe’s bowl on his back. A similar type shows a person in a subservient attitude with a large jar or basket balanced on his back. This container serves as the bowl of the pipe. Other human effigy pipes depict only a face, either modeled or in appliqué on the front of the bowl. A rare example of the “face” type is related to the well known Mississippian “hunchback” water bottles. On these pipes, in addition to the face on the bowl, a spine is depicted running down the top of the mouthpiece, just as the person’s spine is exposed on the back of the water bottles. “Cloud-blowers” are another interesting type of human effigy. Perino found one of these at the Banks site. It had a small hole drilled from inside the bowl to the mouth of the face on the outside so when the pipe was puffed, smoke came out of the effigy’s mouth. A rare cloud-blower in the Steve Hart collection has passages both to the effigy’s mouth and anus, proving that Native Americans had a good sense of humor.

Many other types of effigy pottery pipes are known. Those representing animals are well known. Perino pictures one with two frogs clinging to the pipe’s bowl. Rabbits, dogs, and other animal forms standing on four legs are known, but scarce. Others include bird effigies, turtles, and wildcats. Pipe effigies of monolithic axes are known from Tennessee and Georgia. Webb depicted a scarce type of Tennessee clay elbow pipe with a series of pottery loops around the top of the bowl which he speculated were designed to hang different objects from, like feathers or beads. The list can go on and on—hopefully we have not left out your favorite type.

The discovery of how to make pottery pipes made smoking beyond ceremonial occasions a pleasure for many Native Americans. Before the invention of pottery, stone pipes took weeks or even months of skilled labor to complete. They were often made of precious stone that had been traded for from distant locations. By using shell tempered pottery, pipes could be produced quickly in dozens of different types. The style of each one was limited only by the imagination and artistic ability of the potter and the desires of the smoker. Pottery pipes were “everyman’s” pipe.

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THE BOSTROM FIGURE PIPE – THE “CAHOKIA CALUMET PIPE”

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:51:00 GMT

By James E. Marten

The Missouri flint clay figure pipe on the facing page was discovered in Madison County, Illinois in 1955 on a blufftop Mississippian ritual/mortuary site overlooking Cahokia Creek. The ancient channel of this creek flowed past the famous Cahokia Mounds site located several miles downstream to the southwest. Found with this Cahokia effigy style pipe was an unusually well-made and highly polished perforated Cahokia discoidal and an unknown quantity of shell beads. The pipe measures 5 ¹ /4″ long by 4 ¹ /8″ wide by 4 ¹ /8″ tall.

The “Bostrom Figure Pipe” was so named by Thomas E. Emerson in his published report on this pipe, in recognition of Pete Bostrom’s role in bringing this previously unknown find to the attention of the professional community (Emerson, 1983). In his report, Emerson interprets both the large figure and the small recumbent figure as adult male images, the recumbent figure representing a Tennessee-Cumberland depiction as suggested by the rolled hair style.

Recent discovery of the local source of the Missouri flint clay used in the artistic rendering of the Cahokia style figurines and figure pipes suggest 12th century Cahokia as the point of origin. (Emerson, et al, 2000). With this knowledge it seems plausible the larger and more detailed figure portrayed by the Bostrom pipe is a Cahokia personage. Notwithstanding the dominant/subordinate relationship portrayal, the recumbent figure appears to be supported in a gentle manner, not unlike that envisioned in a fictive adoption ritual. Emerson writes:

The nature and distribution of red stone figures in the upper Mississippi River Valley favors a model of exchange operating within the context of politically or socially motivated fictive adoption rituals, as suggested by Hall (1991, 1997).

The same model would likely apply with other trade partners of Cahokia. Hall (1991) makes the case for a “Calumet Ceremony” for early Mississippian times which could logically have been employed in rituals involving Cahokia and its politically subordinate Tennessee-Cumberland and Cairo Lowlands trading partners to the south. He writes:

The Calumet Ceremony was principally an adoption rite to create fictions of blood relationship useful in cementing intertribal relations, and adoption was conceived as rebirth. To the extent that the deeper roots of the Calumet Ceremony were in a mourning ritual, such rebirth amounted to the reincarnation of the person mourned. Red Horn died [in Mississippian mythology], but was returned to life by his sons. His bones were reincarnated.

In consideration of the above, it appears logical to consider that in early Mississippian times Long Nose God masquettes and tattoos were used to identify participants in a ritual drama involving persons representing the character we know as Red Horn or He-Who-Wears-Human-Heads-As-Earrings and his sons, that this drama was part of an adoption ceremony used to provide a ceremonial relationship between the participants through a fiction of kinship, and that the ceremony was specifically used to establish friendly relations between otherwise unrelated groups.

We can only speculate as to the actual purpose served by these artistic masterpieces in flint clay, thought by some to be the renditions of perhaps no more than two Cahokia artisans. Within the prehistoric portrayals set forth above may lie the use and purpose served by the Bostrom Figure Pipe. It is therefore tempting to conclude that the ceremonial smoking of the “Cahokia Calumet Pipe” might have symbolized the handshake by which the economic and socio-political rules of engagement between these peoples were founded.

FINAL NOTE

The Bostom Pipe and accompanying discoidal were collected from the finders by Bob Simons of Fairview Heights, Illinois on the day they were found. He confided this find to only a small group of friends and kept the items from public view in a safe deposit box until 1982 when financial considerations forced the sale to Floyd Ritter of Collinsville, Illinois. The pieces graced Mr. Ritter’s extravagant color case until he recently passed them on to Jim Marlen, in whose collection they now reside.

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THE GREAT PIPES – SOME OF OUR FINEST PREHISTORIC ART!

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:50:00 GMT

By Steven L. Hart – Huntington, Indiana

INTRODUCTION

Many of us have spent hundreds, if not thousands, of childhood and adult hours walking the land or working the fields, always in eager anticipation of finding that next ancient stone treasure. First as a child, and later as a young adult, I built my self-found cigar box collection of broken points, along with an occasional whole arrowhead or Indian stone. In all those many adventures, one artifact form I never happened across was the prehistoric smoking pipe. Authentic ancient pipes are rarely found in northeastern Indiana, and I suspect the same holds true for most other regions of our continent today.

As the ancient smoking pipe is infrequently recovered, some of today’s mature collections have few or none at all. The Hart collection has been fortunate across the years, as we have been able to assemble a number of very old pipes into a family collection spanning some 80 years of assemblage. These prehistoric smoking implements have all been acquired through trade or purchase; not a single pipe has been a field find by three generations of searchers. Obtaining an ancient pipe can be a rare occasion, too, as a finder seldom parts with his prize—and rightfully so.

Prehistoric pipes were made in a variety of forms, shapes, sizes, and materials. With the exception of spears and arrow points, the writer believes there are more pipe type variations than any other relic type. Tracing the chronology of prehistoric pipe types is difficult, as there are large numbers of variables and variations; and even when studying a single pipe type, we seldom find two pipes identical in style, size, shape, and material. Variations also occur within color, surface treatment, finish, appearance, and condition. Each pipe was individually fashioned by its maker, either for a ritual ceremony or for individual smoking enjoyment. This is unlike knife, spear, and arrow points, whose forms were closely copied during manufacture, one generation after another, sometimes continuing for centuries.

Prehistoric pipes were made in a finite number of basic forms: tubes, cones, bi-conical, cubes, tees, vees, vases, elbows, disks, balls (bowls), platforms, etc. Pipes were fashioned (a) very simply in shape and form, (b) elaborately with geometric patterns, or (c) given an iconic or effigy form. I believe the most interesting of the pipe shapes are those that incorporate an effigy; i.e., a replication of living entities such as humans, birds, animals, reptiles, and sometimes strange, zoomorphic (stylized) fi gures.

Each pipe maker captured his unique thoughts in his creation, and those making an effigy representation fashioned an image of a living being—one they very much admired and respected, as it could take hundreds of hours to fashion their work. Unknowingly, they gifted those creature representations to us, millenniums later, for study and admiration. In this writer’s humble estimation, these stone effigies are some of the premier artforms that prehistoric peoples gave us. It should make each of us stop and think of what legacy we are leaving for future mankind to enjoy from our time on Earth. Those “prehistoric” peoples may just outshine us in artwork when examined by the ultimate judgment of time.

Smoking instruments were first fashioned in the Midwest and Midsouth regions of what is now the United States about 5000 years ago, during the Late Archaic tradition. The conical tube was the first pipe introduced by Archaic peoples about 3000 B.C. These tube pipes were further refined fifteen hundred years later by the Glacial Kame peoples of Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan.

The tube pipe and use of smoking materials (including tobacco) were carried into the Early Woodland tradition (800 B.C. to 200 A.D.), as the Adena people and others refined the conical or cylindrical tube smoking device. The Adena added development of various straight, flared, and handled versions of tube pipes. These early renditions were generally simplistic, cylindrical in form, and few effigies were fashioned. This is not to say that Adena craftsmanship was poor as the crafting and drilling of long, very thin-wall blocked or flared tube pipes is a challenge. The well-known Adena Man Tube Pipe (Ohio State Historical Society Museum collection) is the zenith of the Adena pipe artform. It is an 8″ long tubular pipe, fashioned from Ohio pipestone, and is believed to be the only complete human form we have from the Ohio Early Woodland period. The mouthpiece of the pipe is located at the top of the head and the bowl was fashioned between the feet. This effigy pipe is artwork of the highest form as viewed by prehistoric or modern standards.

The Adena people also created unique tubular pipes in forms of shoveler duck heads with long stylized necks. These tubes are about 6″ long, all fashioned from Ohio pipestone, and were recovered from Adena mounds in Ohio and West Virginia. The duck heads are carved in detailed relief, with eye sockets carefully drilled, worked, and fashioned for insertion of pearl or shell eyes.

Middle Woodland Hopewell Effigy Pipe, 3 ¹ /4″, Livingston County, New York (not a Great Pipe).

WHAT IS A GREAT PIPE?

We have quickly traversed from the very early tube pipes to a much later, highly crafted Hopewell smoking instrument. So what then are the Great Pipes, and where dothey fit in the overall scheme of pipe chronology?From those initial crude tube pipes of 5000 yearsago, we find an evolution and refinement of some thirtyto thirty-five different pipe forms throughout prehistory to the dawn of historic times (approximately 1550 A.D.).Many of these pipe forms are of traditional stem and bowl structure, while others are of recognized form, but made in the likeness of humans, animals, or birds—the so-called effigies. A plethora of pipe styles and shapes abounds, but one form stands out from all others regarding size, heft/weight, artistic style, material selection, and cultural longevity. This seemingly physical dominant type is the so-called “Great Pipe”.

Great Pipe types are easy to identify—they are made from massive blocks of dense material and can be quite large. They can also be heavy, as one is reported to weigh 18 pounds. Most weigh much less. They are aesthetically pleasing and often anatomically correct for their effigy’s form. These pipes are fashioned from dark steatite/soapstonematerial and are in the forms of waterfowl, raptors, bears, wolves or other canine species, reptiles (turtles), and very rarely, an insect. To the writer’s knowledge, there are no Great Pipes in human form. While authentic human effigy pipes exist, these tend to be of later manufacture, generally of Mississippian tradition.

We have several descriptions or general definitions of Great Pipes by students of the artform: George West (p. 175) described these large, heavy effigy pipes with the following statements: “These pipes have a flat base and are usually of so great a weight that they probably rested on the ground when in use. They must have been intended for community use as they were provided with a long stem that could be passed around the circle, at their councils, without lifting the pipe from its resting place.”

HOW WERE THE GREAT PIPES USED?

The Great Pipes were smoking instruments, used by persons of power and authority for ceremonial or ritual purposes. Early effigy pipes were perhaps the sacred symbols or icons of reverence for an entire community or clan. Great Pipes may have been elaborate extensions or derivatives of the shamans’ pipes used as early as 800 B.C. in the Midsouth. It was through these shaman pipes that communities offered homage to superiors, gathered to celebrate victories, matings, births and deaths, prepared for war, and offered peace by wafting their smoke upwards toward the overworld or heavens.

Great Pipes are too large and bulky to be carried and used as individual property. Many pipe bowls have material capacity for 10 to 25 ceremonial participants. A chieftain, warrior leader, shaman, or other high ranking smoker participating in a ceremony or ritual could project their individual thoughts and desires upward to the spirit world through the launching of smoke as a visual and physical expression of their needs. What better ritualistic object and ceremonial process than to use the representation of a bird in flight or an animal they highly respected to launch their thoughts and desires. These effigies provided the perfect escape mechanism, yet were representative of figures they saw or encountered every day.

The Don Champion Owl Great Pipe—#T500, 8″, Spencer County, Indiana.

Each pipe had an attached wooden or reed stem as the pipe stone itself can get quite hot. The large pipe bowls can contain enough material for several hours of smoking. The attached stems were probably 1 ¹ /2 feet or longer and approximately 1 inch in diameter. They all fit inside the drilled steatite receptacle fashioned inside the base of the pipe. To the writer’s knowledge, there have been no organic stems recovered in situ. The wooden stems, like other plant material, would have decayed or been lost through the ages. Reed stems could be easily replaced, so were probably discarded after a period of use. Physical wear or polish on the bottoms of some of the larger pipes indicates extended periods of use—probably centuries. When used in a ceremony, the pipes were either passed from person to person, or if used with an extended stem, could rest on the ground, as West suggests, and pass rotationaly from person to person.

WHO MADE THE GREAT PIPES?

While the ancient Great Pipes are arguably some of the most imposing prehistoric artforms we enjoy today, their cultural origination and foundation is still of some conjecture, and not totally understood. Please allow the writer some liberties with the following treatise, as there remain several valid reasons for uncertainty:

1. Unlike flint quarries, knapper workshops, or bannerstone factories, we have no authenticated record of Great Pipe foundries, where the ground is littered with pipe making remnants—piles of chunks or ground-up, worked steatite.

2. Relatively few Great Pipes have been found in modern times with materials that can be scientifically carbon dated with complete integrity.

3. Great Pipes have been found across such a wide geographical area that they transcend our knowledge of any single traditional prehistoric culture.

4. The Great Pipes are believed to have been found in contexts ranging from Middle Adena to Early Mississippian, spanning a period of some 1800 years—again, much longer than any single traditional culture.

We can say with some certainty that the Great Pipe form is the most culturally diverse of all prehistoric pipe types.

So what are some of the possibilities that could have lead to their utilization across such a lengthy period of time? Several possible rationalizations could be:

1. These pipes were made very early by a few individual master pipe makers, possibly less than ten. These early artisans could have been associated with Red Ochre and/or Adena cultures. Their works would have been passed from generation to generation, or discovered, picked up, admired, carried, and used for centuries by subsequent cultures.

2. Pipes were fully utilized until (a) ceremonially sacrificed for an extremely high ranking person; (b) broken beyond salvage and repair, and ultimately discarded; or (c) misplaced and lost.

3. Great Pipes could have been made by a few gifted artisans of each culture or clan, chosen individuals possessing the highest in lithic artistic skills. This would explain gradual shifts in chosen effigies and forms.

4. Great Pipe creation could have been limited to two or three brief periods throughout almost two millennia of Great Pipe use. The pipes are considered by many archaeologists as trade materials fashioned by southern cultures and used for trade exchange for copper and mica objects from the North. This would explain why so many are made from similar steatite materials emanating from a few Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee mountain outcroppings.

I am sure there are other rational explanations that time, technology, hard work, and creative thinking will reveal. The above four represent current thinking of Great Pipe origins at the present time.

As stated earlier, Great Pipes were associated with use by Early, Middle, and Late Woodland, and Early Mississippian traditions. Specifically, these were the Adena (800 B.C. to 200 A.D.) of the Early Woodland, the northern Hopewell (200 B.C. to 500 A.D.) and their southern associated Copena culture (100 B.C. to 500 A.D.), and the Early Mississippian (through 1300 A.D.) peoples.

Gordon Hart studied and collected Great Pipes for almost forty years. In his Volume #2, he stated that the earliest Great Pipes could have been made as early as the very Late Archaic _; just as the Adena culture was forming in southern Ohio and adjoining areas. This would have been as early as 800-600 B.C. While this is admittedly conjecture, what we do have in the way of scientific evidence is the Champion Owl Great Pipe (Figure 3), found in 1964 in the bank of the Ohio River. Organic materials found with the pipe have been carbon date tested by two different certified laboratories, resulting in dates of 110 B.C. and 193 B.C. By study of workmanship, wear, and polish, Gordon estimated this particular pipe had been used for approximately 300 years, making its time of creation approximately 500-400 B.C., certainly the time of early to mid Adena habitation. Other period relevant artifacts, found by Champion with the owl pipe burial, included a bell shaped pendant and a quadriconcave gorget, again two additional traditional Adena traits of that age.

Gordon also dated the Payne Duck Great Pipe as very early Hopewell, a time that the Adena and fledgling Hopewell cultures co-existed, approximately 400 B.C. Quoting from page 76 of Volume #2: “This image (the Payne Duck) was crafted in a period co-existent with the very early Hopewell people, yet prior to the appearance of that culture’s effigy monitor based pipes. The bowl is of the design used in the earliest of the Hopewell thick, heavy, large pipes. Once again I wish to affirm I am not stating this is a Hopewell pipe, but it was crafted and used for a ceremonial ritual coexistent in time with that culture. The workmanship indicates traits seen of the transition from Early to Middle Woodland. I feel we are scrutinizing an artifact crafted in the B.C. classification of time.”

Almost all known authentic Great Pipe specimens associated with these Early Phase forms are in the effigies of large birds—either owls or ducks. Bird effigies are usually very exacting, natural looking copies of the fowl specimens they represent. Heads and beaks are well formed and unerringly fashioned; bodies, wings, tails, and feet are meticulously carved and polished. All Early Phase pipes are made of fine grained, green to black colored steatite material. The Payne and Champion Great Pipes of Figures 2 and 3 are excellent examples of Great Pipes of the Early Phase.

The Hopewell Culture had direct affiliation with the Great Pipes via the work of Henry Shetrone of The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society. Shetrone and Emerson Greenman, working in the 1925-1928 timeframe, discovered a cache of five Great Pipes, somewhat in-situ, in the largest mound at the Seip Site, Ross County, Ohio. The Seip Mounds are of classical Hopewell origin, and remnants of that Hopewell ceremonial center have been carbon dated to 400-300 A.D. The cache of the five pipes contained an owl, a nighthawk, two canine type figures (dogs?), and a bear. One large pipe is of a canine effigy devouring a human head. Several other similar Late Hopewell affiliated Great Pipes have been reported as being found in Scioto County, Ohio near the Ohio River. It is widely theorized that the five Great Pipes found at the Hopewell Seip Mounds Site were not made by Hopewell people, but by co-existing culture(s) to the south.

It is thought that these Middle Phase Great Pipes were made by the Copena culture peoples of the Tennessee-Cumberland River regions of Tennessee and Alabama. William Webb discovered the works of the Copper-Galena peoples in the 1940s during an archaeological survey he took of the Tennessee River area. The Copena culture was given its name from the combining of the words copper and galena, two materials used extensively by these southern Hopewell affiliated people. The initial Copena may have originated via the movement of some very late Adena people relocating from their homes in the Ohio Valley to the Tennessee River basin, possibly encouraged by the onset of the arriving/thriving Hopewell.

WHERE WERE (ARE) THEY FOUND?

Great Pipes have been recovered throughout the Midwest and Southeast in the United States, but tend to be found in “clumped” regional areas.

FROM WHAT MATERIAL(S) WERE THEY MADE?

The Great Pipes were made by craftsmen spanning more than a millennium in locations separated by hundreds of miles, by cultures that had no contact with one another. One common factor throughout this extended period was the choice of basic material—steatite. The word steatite comes from the Latin word steatitis—”a precious stone”. Steatite has the noun definition meaning of “a heavy, soft, compact variety of talc having a soapy feel”. Technically, talc is chemically known as hydrous magnesium silicate. It is a material that displays a unique quality—it retains heat and yet resists heat build up, perhaps analogous to the infamous ceramic space shuttle shield tiles. Steatite is used today for heating stones, tabletops, ornamental figurines, and electrical insulator applications. Late Archaic people realized steatite’s thermal qualities some 3500 years ago as they fashioned the first cookware (bowls) with materials originating from Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Some of these bowls weighed up to forty pounds—so much for the theory of light nomadic mobility.

Steatite is from the talc family and is sometimes referred to as talc-stone, soapstone and tallow-stone. It is a medium-hard stone that is relatively difficult to form, carve, refine, and work, but polishes to an attractive, almost three-dimensional gloss finish. It comes in a variety of colors depending upon location of origin, and can vary from grayish-white, through yellow, green, blue, brown, and even black. Some of the finer materials display gold-like mica flecking which makes the polished material extremely eye catching, especially when viewed in sunlight. Occasional red or orange streaks are found as iron and other oxides complement the basic steatite.

Steatite is the ideal material for pipe making. It has excellent thermal properties and can be worked, refined, and finished to a highly desirable surface appearance. It was also readily obtainable. In 1890, Gates Thruston wrote: “Steatite or talc, in its various colors from North Carolina or the eastern borders of Tennessee, was the material generally utilized in the manufacturer of fine stone pipes. No other stone was so suitable for this purpose. It is not easily injured by heat, and compact steatite is not easily fractured. It can be carved or drilled without very great labor, and some varieties have a surface finish as brilliant as marble, when polished.”

Another distinctive feature of steatite is that as it is heated, it becomes harder, thus making it relatively easy to form yet increasingly durable when used. Steatite can withstand temperatures in excess of 1300 degrees centigrade in a non-compression loading condition, making it excellent for pipes requiring large bowls holding vast amounts of smoking materials. The long, bi-conical, constricted center shaman tube pipes of the Tennessee Valley were the first pipe types to use steatite for instruments exceeding 5″ in length. These pipes appeared in the 800 B.C. time period in Tennessee, Kentucky, and far southern Ohio areas. One interesting additional note concerning the material—it appears that once a cultural group discovered the advantages of steatite, they never reverted back to other lithic materials i.e., limestone, quartzite, pipestone, sandstone, etc.

Steatite material is found in numerous places: the Northeast, Ontario in Canada, the Appalachian Mountains, Wyoming, various California sites, and others. The dark southeastern steatite was favored for almost all Great Pipes. All Early Great Pipes are of dark steatite, and it was not until late Hopewellian times that Great Pipe makers used other materials. The material generally came from outcroppings in Appalachian Mountain areas of western North and South Carolina, Virginia, and eastern Tennessee. Kevin Dann reported: “. . . materials used in some steatite pipes can be traced to the actual quarry source by modern scientific techniques. Chemical mixtures vary in different steatites and this diversity is capable of being pin-pointed by a process termed neutron activation analysis.”

Blocks of steatite were considered a desired commodity by prehistoric peoples. As Woodland trade networks developed, especially in the Early to Middle Woodlandperiods, raw forms of the material were traded initially, withfinished pipes exchanged by southern cultures in mid-late Ohio Hopewell times, possibly for copper, mica and other northern ritual objects. The dark green to mottled black materials were the most popular in migrating from the Southeast and finding their way north and west. The four pictures of Figure 6 below show several of the steatite colors and combinations. Figure 6A is a pipe composed of very dark green material with solid black splotches. It appears in normal indoor light as a black bird— outdoors becoming green with black. Figure 6B is a close-up of a pipe stem barrel of brown steatite material interlaced with tiny gold mica flecks. Figure 6C is a pipe stem barrel that is made of a green material with very noticeable black speckling throughout. It makes a very attractive artform, especially in natural light. The surface finish has a depth as it has been polished through handling, probably for hundreds or a thousand years. Figure 6D shows the interaction of the different material compositions found in the talc family of materials. The red stripes in the brown material are the result of iron oxides being randomly distributed through this block of steatite. In sunlight, the material is a spectacular presentation and enhances the artistic value of the effigy.

Great Pipes were fashioned initially for ceremonial and ritual purposes. Each clan, group or community had a pipe fashioned in a form revered and that served appropriate rites and needs. Early Great Pipes were almost always birds, primarily ducks and raptors. Later pipes were fashioned in the forms birds, plus bears, wolves or other dogs, and there are even a few turtles. Late Great Pipes, which seem not to follow earlier traditional patterns, included several insects and a number of highly stylized figures.

Great Pipes are almost always in the forms of birds, animals, turtles or insects. Bird forms include ducks, wood ducks, raptors (including owls, eagles and hawks, falcons), swans, toucans, a passenger pigeon, ravens, a nighthawk, a kingfisher, a hybrid combination wood duck and wolf, highly stylized (zoomorphic) effigies, and I am sure there are others I don’t recall. Of the bird effigy forms, generic ducks, wood ducks, and owls (usually the horned owl type) are most numerous, especially those pipes fashioned under Adena influence.

The early pipes are fashioned as almost exactrepresentations of the type of species they represented. The pipe in Figure 7, called the “Shaman Wood Duck Pipe”, was found in Posey County, Indiana (in the far southwest corner of the state bounded by the Ohio and Wabash Rivers). The pipe is 6″ long and appears to be a duck at rest on the water. Figure 8 is the Rolling Fork Wood Duck Pipe. It portrays the face and body of another wood duck at rest on the water. It is 8 ¹ /2″ long and was found in Marion County, Kentucky. It presents the head, body, feet, and tail of the wood duck. The comb on the head shows great wear, likely from long periods of use and handling.

EFFIGY FORMS

Animal effigies represented the bears, wolves, and possibly dogs. Several Great Pipes have been found with the heads and necks of turtles, but to the writer’s knowledge none have been recovered that depict a reptile’s shell and torso. The writer believes the animal/reptile effigies were made in the Middle Phase of the Great Pipe period, possibly 300-700 A.D. These effigies generally display less body detail and are somewhat simplistic in form when compared to the earlier fowl representations. While the friendly looking black bear of Figure 4 has a happy expression on its face, there is little body/stem development. The pipe barrel is a well-fashioned tube extending behind the neck. The bowl is well designed and cleanly formed, but lacks any sign of enhancement. This is the Max Shipley Great Bear Pipe, found in 1871 in Switzerland County, Indiana.

Turtle Effigy Pipe—#A3, 8h/2″, Scioto County, Ohio.

The turtle in the Figure above has a very well-developed head and neck with some formation of body. It is an appealing artform and well proportioned as a smoking implement when held in one’s hands. The pipe is known as the “Turtle Effigy Pipe.” It is 8’/2″ long and is dark brown in color. This turtle was discovered in Scioto County, Ohio, near the Scioto River, a short distance down river from the Seip Mounds.

Late in the age of Great Pipes, possibly 800-1300 A.D., the very stylized and individualistic pipes began to appear. These took on very creative forms and were not good copies of the effigies they represented. Unique forms were made as is shown by the effigy pipe in Figure 10. This pipe is called the “Colonel Bennett Young Pipe”. It could have been made in the transitional times of Middle to Late Woodland as it shows traits of late Hopewell, including the curved base, the placement of the bowl at the apex of the curve of the base, and the working of the round bowl is similar to that seen in Ohio pipestone monitor pipes.

The effigy’s teeth are demonstrated by lines similar to well known tally marks. This pipe is 7’0 long and was found in Cumberland County, Kentucky. It was collected early in the nineteenth century by President Andrew Jackson and was displayed in his home, the Hermitage, near Nashville, Tennessee.

Other creative Great Pipes of this later era include insects. The Cincinnati Museum of Natural History has in its extensive collection a Great Pipe in the form of an upside down grasshopper holding the bowl in an inverted fashion.

SIZE

Great Pipes vary in size from 5″ to as much as 18″ in length. George West (p. 654) in his works discusses and depicts a “Large Bird Effigy Pipe” found near Knoxville, Tennessee that is 18″ long. The smaller Great Pipes, still displaying all primary attributes, range down to 5″ in length. Most pipes fall in the 7″ to 9″ range. Figure 11 shows one of the longer pipes. Measuring in at almost 12″, the “Migrating Duck Pipe” is one of the author’s favorites. It is of green-black mottled steatite and weighs about five pounds. It possesses the accurately-shaped head of a duck extended in flight with deeply carved eye sockets. At one time these sockets contained inlayed shell eyes.

Migrating Duck Great Pipe #A8, 11 ³ /4″, Cumberland County, Kentucky.

At the small end of the size spectrum is the “Warren Moorehead Small Great Pipe,” measuring 5’/2″. This pipe was found in the late 1800s in Forsythe County, Georgia by archaeologist Warren K. Moorehead. First impressions are that these small Great Pipes could have been as used as a proverbial “personal Great Pipe.” This theory is somewhat negated by (1) the large size of a bowl that can hold almost as much smoking material as many of the larger pipes, (2) a very large stem hole which accommodates a large diameter wooden or reed stem, and (3) a pipe this small and with this large of a square bowl will build up a substantial amount of heat, such that a long stem is needed to provide a comfortable distance between smoker and fire. The Moorehead Pipe is made of a dense gray-brown steatite containing a heavy concentration of mica particles. The pipe weighs in at two pounds. This pipe is probably of the Middle Phase period of the Great Pipes, contemporary to the Hopewell, and exhibits the Copena Culture influence in stylized design, markings and workmanship.

DETAIL AND MARKING

The fashioning of each Great Pipe is unique, but its overall style is always related to the period of design and manufacture. Early makers were meticulous about exacting replication of the effigy being modeled. Realistic facial and body treatments were attempted of the subject image. Early makers placed great emphasis on eye treatments and placements. Use of river pearls or shell cutouts were fashioned to closely replicate eyes. Attachment of these “eyes” was developed to a high science. Proportion was everything. Middle Phase crafters were less critical about perfection and more into stylized carvings and markings. Late Phase craftsmen were highly creative with style and form, and took great liberties with ebb and flow, sometimes even ignoring body forms, limbs, wings, and feet.

Two head treatments are shown in Figures 18A and B. The first photo shows the very simple head of the Shipley Great Bear Pipe #T-240. The face is distinctive, but not elaborate. The ears are pronounced; the eyes have been hollowed out, probably to receive small river pearls or shell cutouts; and the mouth was incised with a somewhat friendly smile. The neck is well proportioned and gracefully attaches to the body. The body has no development other than the bowl and stem. This pipe was probably made about 400 A.D.

The McMinnville Bird Great Pipe is shown in Figure 18B. This fowl’s head is well developed with an exacting head shape, has shell inlayed eyes, and shows detailed beak and mouth formation. An outstanding feature that is seldom seen on Great Pipes found outside the Tennessee River area is the craw or “Adam’s apple” seen on the throat of the bird. This element is prominent to the great bird pipes of this area. It is believed that this is late Copena era pipe, possibly 400-600 A.D.

A somewhat more traditional body treatment of a southern Great Pipe is shown in Figure 19. This is the Milton Swan Pipe. Found in Forsythe County, Georgia this pipe is made of gray-brown steatite, probably from North Carolina or Georgia hill country. The pipe is 7 ³ /4″ long and 4’/2″ high. The bird displays a long flowing neck. The body is in the form of a carved block, very cubic, but aesthetically pleasing, as the head, neck and body all flow smoothly together. The markings and wing detail are all gouge carved, but well polished. The pipe is not highly finished and does not display the deep luster of others in the flock. It was fashioned perhaps 1000 years later than the early pipes, so has not been handled and used nearly as long. Its material is not as conducive to fine polish, and its squared body with gouged markings does not lend itself to universal surface polish, hence areas near surface discontinuities are still rough and give the appearance of not being completed.

The Milton Swan Great Pipe—#A43, 73/4″, DeKalb County, Georgia.

The early, highly developed Great Pipes demonstrate the artisans’ love of nature, as each effigy was always developed in great detail. The greatest of the Great Pipes usually display detailed features such as under beaks, legs and feet finely carved in relief in the underbelly of the bird. The George West Great Pipe shows these details as seen in Figure 20. The West Pipe was found in Floyd County, Indiana in the last years of the nineteenth century. The bird’s legs and feet are carefully placed in a tucked position beneath its body, as if it were at rest. Notice also the carefully carved beak and the craw or adam’s apple in the throat, all in proper location and detail.

THE HART GREAT PIPE COLLECTION

The Great Pipes were always the premier collectable sought after by my father, the late Gordon Hart of Bluffton, Indiana. Gordon began his relic collecting in northeastern Indiana atthe age of six with the recovery of several arrowheads. His life was devoted to study, collecting, documentation and teaching of prehistoric American artifacts. His specialty was collecting prehistoric smoking pipes. In 1965 he acquired his first Great Pipe, the Great Turtle Pipe #A3 (Figure 9). He had collected a number of lesser pipes in previous years, but his friend Paul Malloy of Lincoln, Illinois offered him the opportunity to procure “the turtle,” and thus his collection of “Greats” had begun. Across the next 20 years he collected 20 of these classics from collectors such as Malloy, Dr. Stan Copeland, Clemens Caldwell, B.W. Stephens, E.K. Petrie, Don Crouch, Max Shipley, Lynn Munger, Howard Steere and others. His final and possibly most important Great Pipe came in 1994, when he acquired the Don Champion Great Pipe (Figure 3) and its accompanying materials.

Gordon and Marcella Hart with 21 Great Pipes (1984).

Gordon wrote two books on prehistoric pipes and attempted to use technology and scientific reasoning and logic to develop his findings and subsequent theories. The firstwork,Hart’sPrehistoric Pipe Rack—Prehistoric Pipes of the Mississippi River Waterways—East, Volume 1, published in 1978, features a large number of short-to mid-length articles off a vast number of pipe types. His objective was to present the reader with an expanse of information on different types and styles of pipes. His second book, Hart’s Prehistoric Pipe Rack- Prehistoric Pipes of the Mississippi River Waterways—East, Volume 2, published in 1998, focuses on a smaller number of pipe forms, but goes into great depth in terms of facts and informational development. In 2001, with permission from the Milwaukee Public Museum, he republished the 1934 works of his icon, George West: Tobacco Pipes and Smoking Customs of the American Indians. Gordon had met West briefly and used several of West’s books as his guide throughout his Great Pipe collecting era.

In the late 1960s, Gordon became increasingly discouraged with the growth of vast numbers of fraudulent pieces being introduced to the public for sale. Counterfeit pipes were available to buyers by the hundreds. Great Pipes were being created by numerous Midwestern fakers. In 1969 he unveiled his concept of a national artifact authentication program to a group of senior collectors from the Genuine Indian Relic Society. In 1970, at a Columbus, Ohio G.I.R.S. show, the Authentication Committee, under Gordon’s guidance, presented the first Certificate of Authenticity. The first relic judged—a Great Pipe.

The picture shown in Figure 21 was taken in 1984 at the peak of the Hart Great Pipe Assemblage. Gordon and Marcella are admiring several recent additions to the collection. Gordon is holding the Byall Man Pipe which is not a Great Pipe, and Marcy is holding the Turtle Effigy Pipe. Together they traveled many miles and befriended many people in the long journey of building the Hart Great Pipe collection. Today my wife, Susan, and I are the guardians of this prehistoric “zoo”.

SUMMARY

The author wishes to thank the reader for the time and patience necessary to assimilate this work. The opinions expressed are the writer’s current beliefs, and are not necessarily representative of a majority of students of archaeology today. My conclusions are what they are, based on personal studies and discussions over the past 40 years. They will no doubt morph as additional knowledge pertaining to Great Pipes is gained in future years. The writer cannot emphasize too much that to become a knowledgeable collector today requires study, discussion, more study, logical rationalization and synthesis, and more study. You get the message. The almost lifelong study of the Great Pipes was Gordon’s avocation and he did it well, but it took years of study, hours and hours of discussion, much correspondence, written documentation, synthesis, and compilation. He wrote two books on pipes so that he could capture for posterity what he learned in regard to his love—prehistoric pipes, especially the Great Pipes. His two pipe books and the republication of the George West Pipe Book set are available from Hart Publishers today at www.hartpublishers.com .

I hope the time you have spent reading this article gives you at least a little better appreciation for those wonderful old artforms we know as—the Great Pipes.

Thanks for “listening”!

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CAHOKIAN FLINT CLAY EFFIGY FIGURINES

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:50:00 GMT

By John T. Pafford, G.I.R.S. Associate Editor

Some of the most easily recognizable portrayals of Mississippian art are the large stone figural effigy pipes that have been well-documented in archaeological literature, depicting males, females, and animals in differing poses. These sculptures, recovered from contexts on Mississippian and Caddoan sites as far-ranging as Illinois, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee, represent some of the highest levels of artistic achievement reached by Mississippian artisans. Although previously thought to be temporally diverse and created at differing locales, recent studies have shown that these remarkable sculptures, in all likelihood, originated from a single source, located in Illinois at Cahokia (Reilly 2004:132). With their diverse and bold artistic expression, these figurines have stirred the imagination of all who have viewed them and have led to groundbreaking attempts to derive meaning from the symbology and iconographic images portrayed. Recent studies by Reilly (2004) and Brown (2004, 2007), as well as other researchers, have revealed that many of these sculptures can be interpreted within the context of the Native American-derived Morning Star myth cycle and represented particular supernatural heroes/deities within the story. As such, these figural effigies represented the embodiment of a belief system and the personification of power for Mississippian elites. In order to more fully understand the basis for these arguments, the particulars of what is known concerning these sculptures and the reasoning behind these conclusions will be discussed.

Most of the contextual data for these figurines has come from well-documented finds on Mississippian sites in the American Bottom, centering in and around Cahokia, and dating within the Stirling Phase (A.D. 1050-1150) (Reilly 2004:131). The reddish brown material from which these sculptures were created, although previously thought to be bauxite, has been positively identified as flint clay, a sedimentary formation that has been sourced from southeastern Missouri, not far from Cahokia (Reilly 2004:132; Welch 2006:14). The fact that the earliest known context of these sculptures comes from Stirling Phase occupations at Cahokia and the source of the raw material from which these pieces were made also originated near Cahokia’s locale has presented a strong argument for the likelihood that these pieces were first created at Cahokia and later distributed to elites at outlying Mississippian centers (Brown 2004:113-114; Reilly 2004:132). Interestingly, these figurines were not originally intended for use as pipes and were created as freestanding sculptures; however, following their distribution to other Mississippian elites, these sculptures were retooled for ritual purposes (Reilly 2004:135-136).

Assuming a Cahokian Stirling Phase origin for these figurines, the question then turns to the meaning or symbology that can be derived or associated with these remarkable sculptures. Well-known examples of these figurines depict varied poses and in some cases easily recognizable activities portrayed on other Mississippian art objects, such as the St. Louis Science Center’s Chunkey Player effigy pipe from Muskogee County, Oklahoma and the Smithsonian Institution’s Conquering Warrior effigy pipe from LeFlore County, Oklahoma. The themes depicted in these pieces are pervasive in Mississippian art, revealing the activities of chunkey game playing and the taking of a trophy through decapitation. Although the activities associated with these two examples can be identified, the meaning associated with these pieces and other known flint clay figurines has not been surmised until recent years. Kent Reilly (2004) and other researchers have focused on interpreting the meaning behind these sculptures and associated pieces of Mississippian iconographic art through intensive study, coordinated at numerous workshop conferences (Reilly and Garber 2007:ix-x). As a result of these studies, it has been shown that these figurines can be viewed within the context of the Morning Star myth cycle and its associated heroes and supernatural cosmic deities (Brown 2004; Reilly 2004, 2007). Moreover, a number of these sculptures can be associated or identified with a given highlight or main sequence point within the story (Reilly 2004:132).

In the Morning Star myth, the hero, Morning Star, youngest of ten brothers, names himself as He-Who-IsHit-With-Deer-Lungs, yet he does not reveal himself or his supernatural powers. Eventually, however, he proclaims himself as Red Horn or He-Who-Wears-Human-Heads-InHis-Ears (Reilly 2004:132). Later in the episodic adventure, Morning Star and his companions defeat the giants in a ball game contest, and Morning Star takes the giant chieftainess and a human womas as his trophies and wives (Reilly 2004:133). However, in a later game with the giants, Morning Star and his companions lose and are killed, but succeed in cheating death with the help of his two sons. After many other adventures, Morning Star’s companions return home and resume their animal forms and embody the power represeneted by their various species (Reilly 2004:133).

Reilly (2004) has related each of the above episodic sequences to differing flint clay sculptures. For instance, the Crouching Man effigy pipe found at Shiloh Mounds, Tennessee (Fig. 1) has been postulated as representative of Morning Star as yet unrevealed, lacking characteristic identifying features such as clothing (Reilly 2004:133). Also, although Reilly does not associate it as such, the Twin Mounds effigy pipe from Ballard County, Kentucky (Fig. 2), could certainly fall within this same episode with its comparable lack of distinguishing markers. Next, Reilly (2004) identifies the well-known University of Arkansas “Big Boy” or “Resting Warrior” effigy pipe from LeFlore County, Oklahoma, as Morning Star revealed with his characteristic long braid of hair and long-nosed god maskette earrings. The aforementioned Chunkey Player effigy pipe represents Morning Star as a ball player and the Conquering Warrior pipe depicts Morning Star taking a trophy head (Reilly 2004:133). Reilly also presents the likelihood that the Westbrook pipe (Fig. 3), found in Desha County, Arkansas, represents one of the wives of Morning Star, known as Corn Mother, who is identified as the giver of plants and associated horticultural knowledge (Reilly 2004:133-134). This conclusion is evidenced by the depiction of sunflower and corn plants springing forth from the figurine’s upturned and open palms, while the figure itself appears to be actually emerging from a lidded basket, a feature that could represent the sacred bundle of the Corn Maiden cult (Reilly 2004:134). Reilly has also associated other flint clay figurines with various sequences within the Morning Star myth and states that future study may lead to relating other existing flint clay images to events within the story (Reilly 2004:133-136).

In conclusion, the case has been presented that these flint clay figurines represented iconographic representations of the Morning Star belief system and as such, served to validate the authority of Mississippian elites by providing visible means of supernatural sanction (Reilly 2004:136). As these sculptures were later distributed to outlying elites at Mississippian centers, their function changed and they were modified for ritual use as pipes. Reilly believes that this transfer of Cahokian symbols of power represented the possible adoption of outlying communities where they were found and were used to strengthen alliances with Cahokia. In turn, the elites of other Mississippian communities utilized these sculptures, which represented supernatural cosmic powers, to legitimize their own status as rulers and embody the powers they represented (Reilly 2004:236).

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Uncovering a Santa Fe Point in South Georgia

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:49:00 GMT

by C.I0’Neill, Monroe, North Carolina

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.56, No.4, pg.200

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.2, pg.95

It was a brutally hot day in South Georgia, the kind of hot where the sun beats oppressively on the temples until the head feels as if it might crack. Fortunately, Johnny Tomberlin was on the Flint River fishing, and he decided he had to take a swim. “During August you can’t stay in the boat long without jumping in the water to cool off,” he said recently.

As he cooled off in the Wild Horse area of Baker County, Tomerlin, a relic collector who friends say is knows for abundant good luck, decided to see if he could find an arrowhead.

He went back to his boat, fished out a mask and snorkel, and walked into the swift-moving water. When he reached about four feet, he was dismayed to see that the river bottom was blanketed in algae, stymieing efforts to see what lay before him in the tea-colored river.

Turning to go, he saw to his left something he still can’t quite believe. There, just out of reach, caught on the leaf of an underwater plant, lay a thin orange Santa Fe point, weaving to and fro in the swift water. Apparently it had recently washed out upstream and by some fluke had rested momentarily on the vegetation before him.

Johnny said he thought he would not be able to retrieve the point quickly enough before it was swept away, tumbling along the bottom until it was out of reach and possibly broken against the rocks. But he lunged and grasped the point and his luck was still with him.

Johnny kept the three-inch Santa Fe point for years, a token of good fortune, but recently he let me have it. The point, pictured above, must have laid in the river for thousands of years before tumbling out, judging by the orange patina and glossy polish and the light nicks of the modern tumbling.

When I lived in Florida, in the 1970s, the Santa Fe was considered a Dalton variant, named by John Goggin in 1950 after the river of that name in North Florida. Indeed, thinning flakes and occasional flutes on the ground base of some suggest a very early context. But some subsequent studies have placed the point in the Late Archaic to Early Woodland time frame, from 3500 to 1000 B.C. (Dowdy, et als, p. 139)

According to other avocational archaeologists, there are at least two distinct types that resemble Goggin’s Santa Fe. The one is a true Dalton form. The other is the one now often attributed to the later time periods that is sometimes called a Santa Fe and at other times is called a Manasota or Safety Harbor.

An avocational archaeologist who has studied the problem has concluded that Dalton Period Santa Fe points usually have a base wider than 25mm (slightly less than an inch) and are usually ground. They are, of course, rarer then the narrow based Woodland types. The point that Johnny Tomberlin found has a base 1 1/16″ across the ears and is believed by both the present and former owner to be a Dalton.

Above: The point at top is the point found by Johnny Tomberlin. Note the resemblance to a Dalton. Beneath it is a similar appearing point found near Sarasota, Florida known as a Manasota. It is from the Woodland time period. If you were to hold both in your hands, the bottom point is lighter and thinner. At right is a picture of the finder, Johnny Tomberlin.”Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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The Harpeth River Point

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:49:00 GMT

by Steven R. Cooper, Editor-in-Chief

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.55, No.3, pg.158

I feel lucky to live by a river that has actually had a point style named after it. This point type was named by James W. Cambron after a local collector, Wayne Crabtree, found numerous examples along this river in Cheatham and Dickson Counties Tennessee. However, the point is not limited to this small area, and I have seen many found in Kentucky along the Cumberland River drainage (Figures 1 and 2). They are also found in Northern Alabama and Mississippi. These are considered to be Transitional Paleo and/or Early Archaic points. One of these points was found associated with a cache of four stemmed Kirk Points in January 1993, helping to accurately date them.

Several years ago, when I first encountered these points, a collector from Smithland, Kentucky, Mark Harris, pointed out how to identify them. He showed me the key is that the point is always steeply beveled on all four sides. However, there are numerous variations in the hafting area and the look of the base. I have seen a few that are highly serrated. Perhaps over time these variations occurred, with the earliest being the examples that have a lanceolate shape. While most are between 2 Y2-3 1/2 inches in length, there are some much larger examples (Figure 3). Most collectors outside of the immediate area of where these are found have rarely seen one.

Fig 1: — A 4″ Harpeth River Point found in Livingston County Kentucky along the Cumberland River by Rick Travelstead. Holland Higgs Collection, Cadiz, Kentucky.

Fig 2: — Harpeth River points found on one site located on a creek in Christian County, Kentucky between the years 1995-2000. The site yielded more than 300 Harpeth River Points. Pictured at bottom are more than 100 of those points. The close-up picture at the top is of three from the bottom grouping. The center point is 3 1/2 inches, and has fine serrations Holland Higgs Collection, Cadiz, Kentucky

Fig 3: — Both sides of a very large Harpeth River point. It’s beautiful orange coloring comes from what is commonly called “river stain”. This results from being immersed in the soft soils of a riverbed. This point was found in November 1996 near Clovis landing in Humphreys County Tennessee. It has large serrations, measures 5 3/4 inches in length and is shown full size. Mike Denniston Collection, Kingston Springs, Tennessee “Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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The Best of the Best

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:48:00 GMT

by Kent C. Westbrook, Little Rock, Arkansas

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.55, No.4, pg.220

The late Roy Hathcock, of West Plains, Missouri, was one of the most discriminating artifact collectors of the last 50 years. The Arkansas point reported here was one of his favorite artifacts. In the videotape made of his collection, he referred to it as the “Star of the Show.” In notes on his collection, he calls it the “Best of the Best.”

Scott Davidson, an attorney of Batesville, Arkansas, secured a history of the point from Jeral Hastings, the grandson of the finders, in 2007. That interview is recorded on videotape and I will present the high points from that discussion.

The point was found by Georgeanne Montgomery. She and her husband lived on a farm 4 miles west of Cave City in Independence County, Arkansas. There was an area of the farm which had grown up in old fields and cedar trees. Her husband plowed up some of it in the late 1950s or early 1960s. While walking on the site, she found the large point. The point was a treasure of their family. She refused to think of parting with it until her husband died. Upon his death, she gave the point to her grandson, Jeral Hastings.The presentation occurred upon his graduation from college. Mr. Hastings went to work for a bank in Cave City and placed the point in the vault at the bank. Sometime about 1970, Bill Rowlett, of Lafe, Arkansas, came to Cave City. Mr. Hastings showed him the point, but refused to price it. A couple of days later, Bill Rowlett called back and told Mr. Hastings that it was soon to be his wife’s birthday. He wanted to purchase the point for her birthday. Finally, Mr. Hastings priced the point at $100 which he thought would keep Mr. Rowlett away. Mr. Rowlett came immediately and purchased the point. From Bill Rowlett, the point went to Roy Hathcock. About 1980, Roy Hathcock contacted Jeral Hastings and talked with him about the point. Mr. Hastings gave him some of this history, but not as much as Scott Davidson obtained in a more formal interview.

In 2007, the Hathcock Family sold the paleo points in the Roy Hathcock Collection. As a result of that sale, I obtained this point.

The point is a little over 5 inches long and is made of a yellowish material. It is very thin with fine serrations, and has characteristics of both a Clovis and a Dalton. In “The Prehistory of Missouri,” it is suggested that this point may well be a transition type from Clovis to Dalton. Regardless, it is an exquisite point with superb flaking, great fluting, tiny serrations, and a very deep base.

I am fortunate to be the current keeper, at least for a time, of this outstanding Arkansas point that meant so much to Georgeanne Montgomery, Roy Hathcock and Scott Davidson.”Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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CLOVIS SPEARHEADS FROM NASH COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA DANIEL G. GALL, PH.D. COLLECTION

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:47:00 GMT

Mount Olive, North Carolina

Finding a Clovis spearhead is a rare and exciting event, one that few amateur or professional archaeologists have experienced. You can survey plowed fields and excavate archaeological sites for a lifetime and never find a Clovis point. Although several hundred Clovis points have been found in North Carolina, I know of only one other person besides myself who has found a North Carolina Clovis point, and we both found them in about the same location.

Mr. Frank P. Philips, Jr. (Figure 1), found a Clovis point in 1975 in a plowed field on Oak Forest Farm, the farm that has been in his family since 1863. The field is approximately two miles west of the intersection of Highway 301 and Battleboro Avenue, Rocky Mount (formerly Battleboro), on the south side of Swift Creek in Nash County, North Carolina. The Clovis point (Figures 2 and 3) made of milky quartz is 2’/8″ in length (2.9 cm), 1″ at its widest point (2.5 cm), and ³ /4″ across its base (1.9 cm). The widest point of the spearhead is located where the flute and grinding on the sides terminate. The Philips Clovis point is only fluted on one side, its base is ground, and its sides are ground approximately ⁷ /8″ up from the concave base (2.2 cm). The flute is distinct and is about ⁷ /8″ in length.

To date, there has not been a Clovis point found in stratigraphic context with datable carbon in eastern North Carolina; therefore, the time of Clovis occupation for the area where the Philips and Gall Clovis points were found is unknown. It is assumed that the Clovis people either coexisted with or predated the Hardaway people putting their occupation somewhere between 10,000 and 11,500 years ago. The fluted lanceolate points were probably made from locally available milky quartz. Clovis points are very rare because human population densities were very low during Paleo-Indian times; in fact, the Clovis Paleo-Indians were probably the first inhabitants of the New World to cross the threshold of archaeological visibility. Pre-Clovis people almost certainly existed but in so few numbers that their artifacts may never be discovered. Although lanceolates with and without basal thinning have been found throughout Europe and Asia, fluted lanceolates have not been found anywhere else in the world making the Clovis point with its distinctive flute an innovative technology of the Americas.

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The Pike County Cache — A History Detectives Saga

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:47:00 GMT

by Charlie Wagers, Fairfield, Ohio

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.55, No.4, pg.256

I first saw the large Caddo blades in the accompanying photograph in 1958 on my first visit to see J.C. (Clem) Caldwell’s collection. As a ten year old country boy arrowhead hunter, I was in total amazement at these blades, as well as the whole Caldwell collection. “Arrowheads” were what I hunted, and these blades were flint so they qualified. Size was something we all drooled over, so these received special attention from me. I still recall bending over for a closer look at them and bumping my head on a shelf, which got a quick reprimand of “Watch what you’re doing!” from my mother. Clem’s response was “Don’t worry, those rocks have been in the ground for hundreds of years and his little head’s not gonna hurt em.” That visit was the start of a forty plus year relationship during which these blades and a number of other Caldwell relics became old friends for me.

In 1989, Bill Koup and I undertook the job of photographing and cataloging the entire Caldwell collection. When we came to the blades, Clem indicated their provenience as the Spiro Mound in Leflore County, Oklahoma. That just didn’t seem right as I had never seen any similar blades published as being from Spiro. I suspect that the cause of this bit of false information was the result of Clem having some large blades which were from Spiro and marked as such on them. All had come from the Chalmer Lynch collection, but I am getting ahead of myself. Sometime later, another collector identified the blades as being from Yell County, Arkansas which sounded a bit more plausible but there was still no hard evidence.

Then, in January 2001, I stopped by Danville to visit with Clem and Peggy. Peggy, Clem’s wife, was doing some remodeling and house cleaning. Peggy handed me a cluttered box of note cards and papers and asked if I knew what all this stuff was. I told her it appeared to me to be some sort of Indian relic collection catalog, but I had no idea whose. She said, “Well, if you want it, take it because we have too much of this type of thing cluttering up the house and I’m going to throw it out”. Several nights of studying and head scratching followed for me. Finally, I figured out that there were actually two catalogs in this mess, the most interesting being the Chalmer Lynch collection. Chalmer, from Evansville, Indiana, was one of the true “Old time” collectors and Clem had purchased ,Chalmer’s collection some time prior to 1958. In that catalog, FINALLY, was the story behind the Caddo blades I had admired for so many years. One of Chalmer’s catalog card reads:

Creamy tan and pink blade, 14 3/8″ long. One of the cache of 18 found in 1936 in Pike Co., Arkansas. Bull dozer plowed them out. Cost $30. Keep these long enough and they will bring $150 a piece. All came from Rinker.

So, the question of provenience for the blades was finally established but a new question surfaced, “Who was Rinker?” I thought I was familiar with the names of most of the old time collectors and dealers but this was new name for me. Chalmer mentioned “Rinker” in association with a number of his relics. After emailing and talking with a number of other collectors, I was about to give up on finding anything about “Rinker”. Finally Bill Brockman suggested I contact Ben Thompson. I did and BINGO! Ben sent me the following email:

Yes, I remember Gaines Rinker very well. He would visit me every fall and usually stayed with us. An interesting fellow. He was a fur buyer (animal skin) from Palmry, Missouri. He traveled over his fur buying route every year buying fur from all the hunters and trappers in the central states. He would stay at our house until one time he stacked a pile of rancidfiirs in the room up stairs and smelled up my mother’s house. She wouldn’t let him stay with us anymore. We lived in Owensville, Indiana on the Wabash river and there were several fur trappers who lived in Owensville. As a sideline, he also collected and traded Indian relics. He would come up with some good stuf fsometimes and I would try to buy from him when I had the money. I was only 18 or 19 at the time, in the latter 1930s. He always wore a suit and tie, but they were always slick and dirty. I know he visited Chalmer Lynch in Evansville and then on to Kentucky.

-Ben Thompson

The final chapter of the Pike County cache saga came shortly after Larry Merriam and I had a conversation about the cache. Larry knew the cache well and sent me the accompanying photograph of H.T. Daniels with the entire cache on the running board of his car. Daniels was another of the early collector, dealers who came up with some great relics and is also known for some not so great relics.

Perhaps the saga really is not over. Larry and I know the locations of six of the cache, which leaves twelve that are someplace. Perhaps some Central States reader will say “I have one of those blades!”

Three of the Pike County Blades. The longest is 14 ¹ /2 inches long and 3 ¹ /4 inches wide. Note the fine serrations on the blade at the bottom of the photograph. Collection of Charlie Wagers, Fairfield, Ohio “Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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EAST WENATCHEE CLOVIS SITE

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:46:00 GMT

By Leslie S. Pfeiffer, Associate Editor

On May 27, 1987, farm worker Moses Aguirre was digging a trench for irrigation pipe in an apple orchard owned by Dr. Mack Richey near East Wenatchee, Washington. This is in central Washington, just east of the Columbia River. His shovel hit something hard, and the two ends of a large Indian artifact popped out of the ground. This Clovis point was the beginning of the discovery of an important and unique Clovis cache.

Clovis artifacts are extremely rare in the Northwest, and this site boasts several “firsts”. This was the first Clovis cache to be found in situ; two of the Clovis points are the largest and finest Clovis points known; and the bone rods (13 were found!) are almost unheard of outside those found in the Florida rivers, because of degradation.

Moses, digging with his hands, removed 24 points, all lying tightly together. He showed them to the ranch foreman, Rich Roberts. Rich’s wife, Joanne, went to the local library to research the points, read about Clovis points, and contacted a local retired doctor, Russell Congdon. He then contacted Robert Mierendorf, a staff archaeologist at North Cascades National Park.

Congdon and Mierendorf went to the site on August 16, 1987 and, following out the hole Moses Aguirre had dug, found a 5 ‘/2″ Clovis, three celts, and three bone rods. They filled the pit back in, leaving the artifacts in place. Robert Mierendorf named the site the East Wenatchee Clovis Site, and it was designated site 45-DO-432 by the State of Washington.

Peter Mehringer of Washington State University was brought in, and he reached agreement with Dr. Richey to excavate the site, now renamed the Richey-Roberts Clovis Cache. On April 8, 1988, Dr. Mehringer’s excavation began with a 35 square meter block. They found 22 more stone and bone Clovis tools, bringing the total to 46. Only 5 of the artifacts were removed for study. Volcanic ash from under the artifacts was dated at 13,200 years ago.

Pictured here are fourteen of the Clovis points, and the cache is famous for the very large points. Five of the points are over 8″ in length, and two are over 9″ in length. I was lucky to have the chance to handle the points at Pete Bostrom’s house when he was photographing them, and the two largest ones are the most spectacular Clovis points this author has ever seen, for their size, material, and workmanship. This picture shows all fourteen of the fluted points in the Richey/Roberts cache. The materials are various forms of semi-translucent agates and chalcedony. (Washington State Historical Society Museum Collection; photo by Dr. Mike Gramly)

Some of the most important artifacts found on the Richey/Roberts site are these beveled bone rods (the longest is 11″ long). This picture shows the twelve that were removed from the excavation. A thirteenth specimen was left in situ and has not been removed. Some theories for their use range from sled runners, to flintknapping tools, to foreshafts. Further discoveries may be needed in order to fully understand their function. They are, however, part of a compound technology typical of highly mobile and nomadic hunters. (Washington State Historical Society Museum Collection; photo by Dr. Mike Gramly)

Next, Dr. Richard M. Gramly of the Buffalo, New York Museum of Science was brought in. With much disagreement between almost everyone involved, and under protest from the local Colville Indian Tribe, Dr. Gramly began his excavation on October 22, 1990 and finished on November 17. He removed and catalogued 47 artifacts. Included in this total are the artifacts uncovered by Dr. Mierendorf in the original hole.

The artifacts are now on display in Tacoma at the Washington State History Museum. A 15-year moratorium on excavating the site ended June 1, 2007, but it is highly unlikely that the Colville Indian tribe will ever allow the site to be opened again.

The most important find at East Wenatchee is the cache of 13 bone rods made of proboscidean (mammoth or mastodon) limb bones. While there is no doubt that the Clovis people used mammoth bone in many ways, including bone points, the best hypothesis is that these bone rods were likely foreshafts to mount stone points to wood shafts.

Dr. Gramly wrote an important monograph in 1993 entitled The Richey Clovis Cache, and following are observations he made in it.

Artifact mass near the bottom of an ancient pit. Visible are two fluted point preforms, a bifacial knife, a sidescraper, and a blank or large, unmodified flake. In addition, portions of five beveled rods fashioned of bone may be seen. Photo by Dr. Mike Gramly.

Miscellaneous small finds from the pit feature at the East Wenatchee Clovis site. The top group shows representative flakes of various raw materials. The bottom group includes micro-tools (left) and a corner broken off a large biface (right) that does not fit any other object from the feature. 76 Photo by Dr. Mike Gramly.

Sidescrapers from the pit feature at the East Wenatchee Clovis site. The two specimens in the center have possible blood residue. Photo by Dr. Mike Gramly.

All the fluted point preforms from the pit feature at the East Wenatchee Clovis site. All bear blood residues along cutting edges, suggesting use as knives or cleavers. Photo by Dr. Mike Gramly that is present on nearly all tools. Positive reactions were obtained for bison, deer family (caribou, deer, moose), and lagomorphs (hares, rabbit, and pikas). Human blood was also detected on the largest fluted point where a handle would have been.

The Richey bone implements are rods of dense, hind leg bone of mammoth or mastodon. Their average length is 25 cm. Both ends were carefully beveled by grinding, and the flat faces of these bevels have been roughened by scratching—perhaps for secure hafting. Decorated Clovis artifacts are exceedingly rare and until now were only known from derived, secondary contexts. The function of the bi-beveled bone rods can only be guessed. It is notable that the rods are paired by size. Fitted together at their beveled ends and bound with sinew, a set of seven rods would have measured approximately 1.4 meters. It is remarkable that the length of the pit in which they were found is 1.5 meters. I do not believe that this correspondence is coincidental. The existence of the Richey Cache implies that hunters abandoned the East Wenatchee site but expected to return in the near future, perhaps after a season. The bison blood on their butchering tools indicates that during some period of their annual round, the Clovis group waylaid these formidable creatures. Not surprisingly, the Clovis camp faces one of the easiest routes for reaching the top of the Columbia Plateau. Animals ascending or descending the slope may have been ambushed by waiting hunters.

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A SIMPLE REQUEST

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:46:00 GMT

By Tony Baker

I was walking east and gradually upward over the dry, monotonous landscape. The wind was quiet and the late morning sun had warmed the day to sweatshirt weather. Footing varied from soft blow sand to blown hardpan. Winter had turned the precious little grass a brown-death color and the few animals had cropped some of it to the roots. Our German Shepherd trotted between me and my father checking the clumps of grass for a lizard, which she would occasionally flush, chase, and bite into two if she got lucky. Shadows from the clumps were nearing their shortest time of the day and rattlesnakes were of no concern. It was January 1965; Kennedy had been assassinated and Johnson was rapidly pouring soldiers into Vietnam. I was 20 years old, living at home, and avoiding the draft with a college deferment. The Sandia Mountains lay about 50 miles ahead in front of a bright, blue curtain.

It had been only nine months earlier when I had asked my father to take me arrowhead hunting for the first time. This would seem strange to anyone who knew how I was raised, since both my parents had been archaeologists before I was born. The hardwood floors of our home were covered with Navajo rugs and there was a pot in every corner. But, I had made it known from an early age that I wasn’t interested in walking in the hot, dusty desert looking for rocks. My interests lay in electrical and mechanical things. So, I was finishing my second year of engineering when I found myself sitting in the packed lecture hall of Anthropology 101. Yes, even engineers have to take a few humanities. The professor was Dr. Frank Hibben and he was mesmerizing the 300+ students with his facts and fiction. He aroused such an interest in me, about early man in North America, that I made this strange and wonderful request of my father, to take me arrowhead hunting. Years later my father would say this request was so unexpected that he had no idea where to go. So we went to the city landfill. And, believe it or not, I found my first arrowhead that day on the edge of the Albuquerque dump.

After that first day, we continued to go hunting one day a week, which was usually Sunday. We would pick a location to hunt and leave at daylight, returning after dark. I had spent little time with my father while growing up. He worked six days a week until recently taking a teaching job at a high school, but now I was working on Saturdays. For me, and I believe for my father, Sunday had become the best day of the week. I no longer was my father’s child, but instead his best friend, his arrowhead hunting buddy, and his archaeology student. He was teaching me textbook archaeology, as well as how to hunt arrowheads. He taught me about the Pueblo Indians, the Basket Makers who came before them, a little about the Archaic, but mostly about Paleoindian. He taught me to recognize Clovis, Folsom, and Yuma, which at the time was in the process of being split into Scottsbluff, Firstview, and Eden. He loved Paleoindians, but mostly he loved Folsom. Since we had not found any Paleoindian points, my education came from books—mostly Marie Wormington’s book, and the artifacts on display at the University of New Mexico. We did have two Folsom point fragments that were in my grandfather’s collection. I must have fondled those two a hundred times, trying to imagine hunting bison 10,000 years ago with these tiny rocks.

The original Folsom site was locagted less than 100 miles from my father’s hometown of Boise City, Oklahoma. It was excavated during his grade school years and the knowledge it provided the collectors and the small archaeological community came out while he was in high school. Here was proof that man had lived and hunted the huge, now extinct animals of the Pleistocene in his backyard. It was no surprise that an arrowhead hunter in that region at that time wanted dearly to find a Folsom point, or that it was their favorit point type. In my father’s case, it remained his favorite type for 30 years, even though he had never found one, or even a fragment, after moving to Albuquerque in the mid 1930s.

Over to my right was a shiner, a good shiner. I grudgingly turn toward it, and started down off the plateau I had planned to remain on. “Most likely it’s a rock, just like the others I have chased down today,” I grumbled to myself Most of the time I kept my head down and looked about four or five feet in front me while I walked. However, my father had also taught me to occasionally glance out ahead and look for something shining in the sun similar to a piece of broken glass. If the sun was right and the ground wasn’t covered with too much vegetation or shiny rocks, then shining was a good technique. Today, it was not working. As I approached the shiner, I could see it was in a small blowout in the sand. “Well, finally a flake, a brown flake,” I thought to myself. I reached down, picked it up, and flipped in over in my hand several times with my thumb. “A Folsom point,” I said in a hushed voice. “It’s the base of a damn Folsom point! ” I whirled around and started running as hard as I could, back up to the plateau where I left my father. The dog had heard me, ran down to meet me, and now was running back up with me. As I ran, I yelled nonsensical laughs, hoots, and other crazy sounds.

Reaching the plateau, I saw the top half of my father, who was standing in a blowout about 30 yards from me. He heard me, turned toward me, and watched me run to the edge of the blowout. I slowed down and walked out into the blowout toward him. There was an unusually large grin on his face. “Guess what I found?” I asked with all the excitement of a little kid.

“A Folsom point?” He answered.

Surprised, I asked, “How did you know?”

He slowly extended his hand, opened it, and there lay another Folsom point. A gray base, not as nice as mine, but a Folsom point. I asked, “Where did you find it?”

“Right here. I just picked it up as you were coming over the ridge. “

“And you said there were no Paleoindians around Albuquerque,” I giggled.

Still smiling he replied. “That’s what I said. Guess I was wrong.”

We proceeded to look in his blowout and the surrounding area very slowly. Now, we had reason and motivation to go slow. Then, we made our way back to my find spot and searched that area. We spent the entire day at the site and only left because it became too dark to see the ground. At home that night, we counted 37 fragments of Folsom points and preforms that we had found earlier that day.

This site was my first Folsom site and, for my father, it was his first in the last 30 years. After that glorious day we began to find more Paleoindian sites, and not just Folsom. We found Clovis, Helen, Eden, Scottsbluff, and more. We got so good, or so lucky, that it seemed we could find at least one Paleoindian point on every trip to the field. By the time I graduated from college, we had amassed a large Paleoindian collection. So large that Jim Judge, a Ph.D. student, wrote his dissertation on it. Judge’s dissertation “. . . won the Tom L. Popejoy Prize as the most distinguished doctoral dissertation accepted by the Graduate School of the University of New Mexico in 1971.” It was then published in 1973 as a book titled Paleoindian Occupation of the Central Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico.

I graduated from college and left home to work in the Texas oil fields. However, because of that simple request in January 1965, my life was changed forever. Of course, I continued to hunt arrowheads, but I started reading archaeological literature. I returned to school in the 1980’s and earned a master’s degree in anthropology. In 1999 I retired from the oil industry and early man archaeology became my new, non-paying job. I have traveled to numerous countries and the great state of Alaska to study the early archaeology. I am a member of the Society of American Archaeology and the Paleoanthropology Society and attend their annual meetings. Plus I write and maintain an extensive webpage on the subject at www.ele.net .

To close, I want to return to that evening in January 1969 when my father and I were fondling our magnificent finds of that day.

I asked, “Have you ever found a complete Folsom?”

“No,” my father replied “I’m still looking for one.”

Since that night the Baker collection grew to over 370 fragments of Folsom points and preforms from over 100 sites. My father died in 1991, still looking for his first complete Folsom point. I am 62 years old and I, too, am still looking for my first complete one. That said, the next time someone shows you a complete Folsom, just imagine how lucky the person must be that found it.

Tony Baker was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1944. He earned a BS in civil engineering from the University of New Mexico in 1967 and went to work for Texaco that same year. Tony worked as a petroleum engineer in the oil fields for the next 32 years and retired from Texaco in 1999. During those 32 years, he married, raised two children, and earned an MA in anthropology from the University of Colorado in 1990. Since retirement he has spent his time researching Pleistocene archaeology in both the Old and New Worlds. This has involved not only office work but also excavating and surveying (arrowhead hunting) in foreign countries as well as the USA. A specific example of this is his last eight summers working on the North Slope of Alaska doing survey archaeology for the BLM.

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JOHN KUBENA COLLECTION

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:45:00 GMT

ROUND TOP, TEXAS

(John Kubena photo)

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THREE SUPERB ST. LOUIS STYLE CLOVIS POINTS IN THE WILLIAM M. WHELESS III COLLECTION

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:45:00 GMT

By Leslie S. Pfeiffer

On the facing page are three of the finest St. Louis style Clovis points known. The Logan County Clovis on the left was found in 1962 by a farmer walking his freshly plowed field in Logan County, Illinois, about 1/2 mile from Sugar Creek (which flows into the Sangamon River) between New Holland and Lincoln. I visited the site when I acquired this point. The Shelbyville Moraine, marking the southern-most advance of the glaciers in this area, is about one mile to the north. The farm has been in one family since the 1890s and they have found no other Clovis-related material. This point is 5 ¹⁵ /6″ long, 1 ³ /a” wide, and very thin. It is made of Dongola nodular chert, also known as Cobden chert. This material is very similar to Hornstone chert found on both sides of the Ohio River in southern Indiana and northern Kentucky. Dongola/Cobden chert outcrops in southern and central Illinois. This Clovis was pictured in the Central States Archaeological Journal, with an accompanying article I wrote in Volume 47, No. 4 (October, 2000) on pages 202-203, and in The Amateur Archaeologist (American Society for Amateur Archaeology) on pages 9-10.

The Robinson Clovis in the center was found by Mr. Frank Robinson on his family’s farm around 1917. The farm is north of Fulton in Hickman County, Kentucky. It remained in the family’s collection until March of 1999 when his daughter, who had moved to Temple, Texas, let Dwain Rogers add it to his collection. This point is 7 ¹ /2″ long and 2″ wide and is made of heavily patinated Dover chert. Dover chert outcrops in northwestern Tennessee and southwestern Kentucky. It was widely used in all the prehistoric time periods. This Clovis has been cast by Pete Bostrom (Lithic Casting Lab), who stated, “This point is one of the finest examples of an eastern style fluted point ever found. Very few fluted points over seven inches have been discovered east of the Mississippi River. Those that have been recorded are usually broken.” It was pictured in the Central States Archaeological Journal Volume 47, No. 3 (July, 2000) on pages 114-115 with an accompanying article by Dwain Rogers, and in Masterpieces of Prehistoric Art, Volume 1 (Onken and Pafford) on page 127. I consider the Robinson Clovis one of the very best fluted points I have ever seen.

The point on the right, the Shelby County Clovis, was found in the 1890s by Dr. Leon Richmond in Bartlett, Tennessee. This is now a suburb of Memphis on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River in Shelby County, Tennessee. Jack Roberts saw this point on display at the Chucalissa Indian Village Museum and acquired it from Dr. Richmond’s grandson. It was in Jack’s collection for many years before I acquired it, and it was one of his favorite artifacts. It is 5 ³ /8″ long and 1 ³ /4″ wide. It is made of an unknown high grade dark blue-grey material. A number of archaeologists examined this point at the Clovis and Beyond conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico and no one could identify the material. It has been pictured many times, including in the Spring, 1958 Tennesee Archaeologist and in Masterpieces of Prehistoric Art on page 130. Many people consider the Shelby County Clovis the finest fluted point ever found in Tennessee.

The St. Louis style Clovis type was named by Greg Perino in Selected Preforms, Points and Knives of the North American Indian, Volume 1 (1985) for examples in the William Smail collection that were found near St. Louis, Missouri. Mr. Smail’s points are now in the Gilcrease Museum collection in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Greg described this type as a “large, thin fluted point with convex sides contracting towards the base, a deep U-shaped or V-shaped concave basal edge, and wide, flat flutes usually running more than one-third the length of the point. Basal edges are ground.” However, I have rarely seen grinding on the stem edges, with the example from Logan County, Illinois being an exception. Due to their thinness these were undoubtedly used as knives. This is interesting because the Clovis people made extensive use of core blades, uniface knives, and utilized flakes off their large preforms for very effective, easily-made knives. Why would they take the extra time to make these large, finished knives when they could make and use the other knife forms so quickly and easily? I know of only four St. Louis style Clovis points that were found along the Missouri River west of St. Louis. Two of these were made of Knife River flint, which is found in North Dakota. There seems to be a small concentration of these in the St. Louis area, and they have also been found in small numbers in southern Indiana, southern Ohio, in larger numbers in Kentucky and Tennessee, and a few in northern Alabama, northern Mississippi, northern Arkansas, northeast Oklahoma, and Wisconsin. Greg Perino reported having seen one from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Including the Gilcrease Museum collection, I have seen around 40 St. Louis style Clovis points, with these three examples being among the finest.

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The Storied Newnan

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:44:00 GMT

By Scott S. Chandler

With its transcendant qualities and prominent distribution, the “arrowhead” has come to symbolize the legacy of the American Indian. It is used as a symbol of American iconography on everything from football helmets to forest services emblems. Along with the Hillsborough, the Newnan point type epitomizes the preeminence of Florida’s collectible artifacts and is the paragon of lithic craftsmanship of the Florida Indian.

Figure 1.

Newnans are distinguished by a contracting stem or “flower pot” base as shown in Fig. 1. The ears can vary, from the straight across “Lochloosa” type in Fig. 2 to the “Tampa”, style Newnan in Fig. 3 where the ears droop, creating a severe angle from the stem to the blade. Manufacturing these angles requires skill, especially when there is great symmetry to the piece.

Figure 2. (left) – Figure 3. (right)

Contributing to the attractiveness of Newnans are the colorful cherts and corals used to make them. Since Florida was a warm, shallow sea at various times, coral heads were prevalent where karst topography created outcroppings among the limestone. Knocking off pieces of agatized coral heads (Fig. 4), the Indians would take them back to camp, then bury and heat them in the sandy Florida soil. They knew the precise time (2-3 days) to heat and cool the coral for maximum chipability and exquisite color. Though raw coral is chipable, heat treating would solidify the molecular structure and create a higher grade for increased workability. Stone tools made from coral are seldom found anywhere else in the prehistoric world, and how the Indians came to emphasize such a signature point type only in Florida, one can only imagine.

It may be hard for the modern American to understand, governed by a spirit of independence and ingenuity, that of all the ways to manipulate a flint, why do we see so much conformity to established types over a broad range? Where are the prototypes, experimental models, or missing links? Like the Cambrian explosion in the fossil record, we find the settled and established forms all over the state. Why the flower pot base as the blueprint? Did it stay hafted better? Was this for cultural, or practical, reasons? And what was the purpose of taking the time to slightly distinguish the Newnan from the rounded base in a sister point called the Marion (Fig. 5), when the two styles are often found together? Perhaps the Marion was occasionally the alternate base style when a mistake was made or there was a fault in the stone. The Indian could easily cover it up by rounding off the stem.

Other types may have been “transitional” or missing links to the Newnan, but with their wide distribution, these points also became established in daily life. The transitions are difficult to pin down. Who was the actual Indian to knap out the first Newnan? How quickly did the word spread, and along what lines? Furthermore, why did the Indians take so much care in pressure flaking a stamped out base if the points were easily broken or hidden under the tar on a shaft of bone?

Figure 5.

These questions are not easily answered. But we know the attention to detail tells us the people had some sense of pride in their work. And the broad usage tells us they were a fairly rigid and conforming people, with unwritten socioreligious laws that kept them from thinking too far outside the box. Animistic in their beliefs, they enshrined spirits into their artifacts from certain animals whose qualities they admired. The gorget pictured in Fig. 6, for example, was found near the cache of 14 Newnans pictured on pages 14 and 15 and has inscribed on it a turtle shell pattern.

Figure 6.

This could have been the “Turtle Clan” where the Indians possibly worshipped the turtle for its durable qualities and consistent food source. Whether the Indians misinterpreted the spirit realm or not, the Ancients have a lot to teach modern man about the natural and spiritual worlds.

It has been proposed that even stone points took the shape of the natural world around them which the Indians observed. Certain points seem to resemble fish for example, with their tail and lines. The idea of serrations may have come from sticker bushes as they tore into the flesh of Indians walking through the forest. The aerodynamic ability of the batwing Hillsborough dart in Fig. 7, a shape only known to Florida, may have come from the strikingly similar sphinx moths found in Florida in Fig. 8. The resemblance may be pure coincidence, or they may have crafted this point in the hope of transferring the power of flight for success in the hunt from the species they admired.

In The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbonwrote, “The use ofletters is the principal circumstance that distinguishes a civilized people from a herd of savages incapable of knowledge or reflection.” Though the Indians may have been unrefined by modern standards, and did not expand thought for modern civilization, Newnan points show us the Indians were human, with the same potential capacities of the highest life form: reason, consciousness, and a desire for purpose, significance, and eternality. They maximized technological advancement on a horizontal level from primitive materials. The fine craftsmanship from the earliest Clovis people onward show no traces of transitional evolutionary brain function or missing link life form. They had a built-in instinct for order, a characteristic of intelligence. If they were primitive, it was not biological.

Certainly the Indian on occasion saw beauty in creating this fine point type, since they were widely used not only in daily life (as knives and spears), but on special occasions such as ceremonies and burials. A fine agatized piece of stone shaped into a point may have caught the deep affections of the heart of the Indian, and without doubt he held it up to the sun to view the translucence of a nice product. Precise Newnans prove Indians valued their work and probably, on occasion, had competitions to maintain a fine edge on their knapping skills.

TOOL, OR ART?

Opinions vary as to whether the Indian arrowhead is considered a piece of art or is just a tool. A prominent archeologist has said, “While spearheads are sometimes beautifully fashioned, they do not fit our definition of art.” Maybe. Historically, stone has contributed to art in adornment of the body, in buildings, and in gifts of matrimony.

Perhaps the question is best answered by trying to detect motive of the manufacturer based on clues from certain finds. It is probable that some excellent pieces had religious or ceremonial value, whether in burials or in bringing increased success in gathering food. As stained glass is used for art, and not just for protection on the walls of a church, the line is crossed from tool to art where lithic objects had usages for the heart, not just the hand. Though it cannot be proven, since the permeable sandy soil does not lend itself to preserving organic material, the six point cache shown in Fig. 9 may have been part of a ritual. As with the Egyptians, perhaps the Indians believed burying beautiful lithics assisted in the passage to the afterlife. It is possible these Archaic Indians fit with what we know about historical Indians: that they valued the dead, and often buried them under their dwellings.

Because of its durability, a beautiful cache of stone points was probably the Indian’s best attempt at achieving transcendence. Art tends to occur when a person is relatively secure and the mind is free to perform. The seclusion of the site where these points were found reveals that the Indians flourished here. Stone was the most durable material the Indians had and reveals that art, like a sunset, cannot be possessed but only appreciated. Thoreau wrote in 1856, “Time will soon destroy the works of famous painters and sculptors, but the Indian arrowhead will balk his efforts.”

Since food was necessary for survival and their religion was tied to their hunting and gathering success, the arrowhead was sacred. In this sense, fine points can be considered art. Intentionally burying fine Newnans represented the highest offering of the most significant emblem of the Indians’ survival. Finding a well made Newnan is the treasure of a lifetime, and discovering a cache of this magnitude is extremely rare. The points shown in Fig. 9 are made from high grade, thermally altered agatized coral.

Figure 10.

The cache of 14 points shown in Fig. 10 was found in central Florida and is made of Ocala formation rice grain chert. Six of the points have a flute going up the base. Remarkably, in this cache 11 of the points have an exact match in terms of length. Only three of the 14 points do not match, but these are only off by ¹ /4″. For ancient resources, this shows serious intent. Why they were manufactured in pairs in this case is not known. And interestingly, the points were found stacked point to base from top to bottom as shown in Fig. 11.

Figure 11.

Someone has said that the standard for the big point is around 4″. Why are there more points found under the 4″ barrier than over? First, when the bow was introduced, an extraordinary amount of smaller points were fashioned for this mechanism. Second, the source materials the Indians could manage to bring back to camp could not support very many large points. Since a well made point may take an hour or two to make and yet be broken in a moment, it would not be economically wise to keep making one point when they could make two or three out of the same rock. Though many smaller points are reworked from bigger ones, a smaller point could do most of the work of a big point. It has been proven at knap-ins that a 2 ¹ /2″ point could dress a whole deer. When a cache of points over 4″ is found, it is remarkable.

Figure 12.

Florida archeology has been a mystery to unravel at times. With so many chips mixed up and spread out in the sandy soil in a given site, there is often little correlation between the chips and the points found. One can find the most beautiful striated coral chips, while the point found nearby is field grade, made of a white coastal plain chert with little apparent association. Furthermore, Early Archaic points are often found higher in the strata than Middle or Late Archaic points. For example, this Early Archaic Thonotosassa (Fig. 12), a point supposedly made earlier than the Newnan, was found in the high Mississippian layer completely vertical, much higher than the Newnans found below (Fig. 13). These anomalies have lead archeologists to coin the term “bioturbation”, which describes forces of nature that manipulate the soil and redistribute the artifacts. The problem is that when a cache is found intact in these sites, such as these found stacked point to base, it seems to contradict this theory of bioturbation. Why, in a given site, is there so much random dispersion of artifacts, and yet in places order is preserved when caches are found at the same spots? These finds challenge us to refine our understanding about who these people were and how they lived.

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Observations on Pike County and Beaver Lake Point Topology and a Possible Distinction in Their Cultural Development

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:43:00 GMT

by William Pettit, Crossville, Tennessee

For a number of years I have been interested in the form and typology of the Beaver Lake point (Pettit). Some Pike County and Beaver Lake points have a number of attributes in common Both can have very similar forms and the refined and almost exquisite flaking characteristic of the Late Paleo and Early Archaic periods that came to fruition in the Dalton Tradition. The form of one particular variant of the Pike County is striking similar to classical Beaver Lake. Note the similarity in form of the point in figure 1 (b, Pike County) to those in figure 2 (c and d, Beaver Lakes). All three demonstrate fine pressure flaking to produce thin lenticular cross sections of the blade, delicate basal ears, and relative straight blade edges. In addition, the time periods during which they were produced coincide and it has been suggested that the two types may be culturally related (Perino).

Although the distribution of Pike County points and Beaver Lake points overlap, primarily in southern Illinois, and neighboring parts of Kentucky (Perino), the centers of their respective distributions are quite different. Beaver Lakes are found primarily in north Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, but they are also found in adjoining areas of adjacent states. Pike County points are centered, but not limited to the areas surrounding Pike Counties in Illinois and Missouri, hence the name. These similarities in form and differences in distributions posed the interesting question as to the cultural relationship of the two types.

Figure 1.

a, Morgan Co., Missouri, mozarkite; b, Pike Co., Illinois, Burlington. Longest piece is 3 9/16 inch.

The point shown in figure 1 (a) was found in Missouri and has a form (shape) that is quite similar to the Pike County point (figure 1 b); however, the similarity ends there. The larger point is crudely flaked principally by percussion. Indeed, it looks “roughed out” and does not have the careful grinding of the lateral haft or basal area of a finished Pike County point. I considered it to be likely that this larger point was a preform of the Pike County point which with the application of careful pressure flaking and a corresponding reduction in size, could produce a refined Pike County point. Previously I had not considered the possibility that a comparison of preforms of Pike County and Beaver Lake points might shed some light on the cultural and developmental differences and similarities between the two types.

Figure 2.

a, Wilson Co., Tennessee, Ft.Payne?; b, Madison Co., Alabama, Ft.Payne;

c, Madison Co., Kentucky, unidentified; d, Tennessee, Ft.Payne. Longest piece is 3 5/16 inch.

Figure 2 (a and b) shows examples of what I consider to be end stage preforms of Beaver Lake points. Although both are finely flaked, as are their finished brethren (2, c and d) some interesting differences remain. The point tips of the first two a and b) are deliberately left blunt (unfinished) as if broken off. The breaks do not resemble impact fractures and the planes of the breaks are nearly perpendicular to the blade axis. I also noted that the blade edges abruptly terminate at the laterally projecting basal ears. The careful recurved finishing of the hafting area, i.e., the crafting of the “waist” has not been done, nor the haft/basal grinding I think these features strongly indicate unfinished specimens. If I have correctly identified the preforms of the two types, then a comparison of the respective features indicates a diverse cultural origin that resulted in a similar outcome or convergence to a similar finished product. Although my postulations regarding the possible cultural and developmental distinctions between Pike County and Beaver Lake points have included a number of assumptions, they seem reasonable. Perhaps further excavation and study will either support or disprove my conclusions.

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Paleo Period Points of the Carolina Piedmont

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:43:00 GMT

by Ron L. Harris, Hickory, North Carolina

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.56, No.4, pg.200 Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.1, pg.39

Above: The author’s entire North Carolina Paleo collection assembled over a 55-year span. The North Carolina counties include: Randolph, Iredell, Rowan, Stanly, Montgomery, Moore, Johnston, Ashe, Alleghany, Alexander, Guilford, Wilkes, Surry, Buncombe, Madison, Clay, and Chatham.

The earliest prehistoric human occupation in North Carolina dates to the Paleo-Indian period, which is thought to have begun around 10,000 BC. The temporal marker for that period is the fluted projectile point usually recovered as a surface find on exposed surfaces such as plowed fields, road cuts, construction sites and eroding streams or fields.

Archaeologists recognize two main cultures within the Paleo-Indian period in the North Carolina Piedmont region. They are Clovis & Hardaway-Dalton.

The Clovis Culture made beautiful distinctive fluted spear points (9500 — 8500 BC) that show remarkable similarities across the American continent. The purpose of the Clovis flute or channel most likely was to facilitate the hafting process. The edges on both sides near the base were dulled, so as to prevent them from cutting through the bindings that attached the point to the spear shaft. It should be noted that as of yet no Clovis points have been excavated from an undisturbed stratified site or found in context with datable material in N.C.

The Hardaway-Dalton Culture made differently styled spear points with shallow indentations on each side of the blade near the basally thinned base with ground (dulled) proximal blade edges (8500 — 8000 BC).

Another projectile point type that figures into the Paleo-Indian time frame in the N.C. Piedmont is the Alamance point. It is believed to be a variant or sub-type of the Hardaway-Dalton with both occurring in the same time frame.

Infrequently, Simpson type points of the late Paleo period are found in the lower N.C. Piedmont regions. However, this type is usually found in the Deep South such as Florida and South Georgia. Fluting for the Simpson point is absent or weak but basal areas are ground. The hafting area is constricted or “waisted”.

Spears tipped with these unique types of stone points were the main hunting tools in the Paleo-Indian time frame.

These First Carolinians were nomadic hunters & gatherers who moved regularly through vast territories on a seasonal basis in search of new resources. They lived in small family groups that archaeologists call bands. Subsistence comes from the hunting and gathering of wild foods. They carried or pulled all of their possessions from one location to another and therefore built no permanent dwellings. Protection from severe weather consisted of temporary shelters constructed from sticks and brush, forest thickets or the occasional rock shelter. Clothing and mats were likely from plant fibers and animal hides. Containers may have included bark and/or animal bags, gourds and woven nets from vines or grass. The most important excavated N.C. site yielding Paleo-Indian components is the Hardaway Site (31-ST-4) on the west bank of the Yadkin River near the town of Badin in Stanly County, N.C. The Hardaway site investigations formed the basis of Paleo-Indian and Early Archaic sequences for the Carolina Piedmont as defined by Joffre L. Coe (1964).

Simpson type Paleo point found in Chatham County, North Carolina in the Cape Fear River drainage. Short flutes or basal thinning on both sides. Rare ttype for N.C. in that this type is usually found in the deep-south region. However, this point is made from Rhyolite material indigenous to central N.C. where the point was recovered. Size: 3 1/2 inches. Collection of the author.

The classic fluted Clovis point was not recovered from Hardaway; however, it is thought by archaeologists to be contemporary with the Hardaway phase, which represents the earliest occupation at the site and dates to at least 8000 BC (Ward 1983).

The Hardaway Corner-Notch projectile point evolved from the Hardaway-Dalton. It is smaller with “U” shaped corner-notches. Archaeologists consider this particular type to be the beginning of the Early Archaic period in N.C. dating to about 8000 BC.

Some archaeologists think the earliest Paleo-Indians lived mostly in the Piedmont because more fluted points have turned up there than elsewhere in the state. The Piedmont was probably a more climate hospitable region to live in as opposed to the colder mountains.

Paleo-Indian sites on the low-lying Coastal Plain may presently be invisible, having been inundated by rising sea levels or deeply buried in floodplain soils. Widely scattered Paleo-Indian artifacts of the Clovis-Hardaway-Dalton types have been found in the mountains and foothills of North Carolina but presently no significant undisturbed locations for this period exist there either. This may be due in part to these First Carolinians favoring hilltops or ridges for their camps. This allowed centuries of rain and weather to erode and wash away their sites.

Most of the Paleo-Indian type spear points seem to be produced from local lithic material leading archaeologists to conclude these ancient points were manufactured by resident Native Americans and not simply lost by seasonal hunting parties from outside (Purrington 1983). In the N.C. Piedmont this preferred raw material consisted of high-quality metavolcanic rocks found in the Slate Belt. Most stone tools found in the Piedmont that date to the Paleo-Indian period, as well as later periods, were made from this fine-grained, metamorphosed volcanic rock called rhyolite. Rhyolite outcrops are restricted to the area of the Slate Belt in and around the Uwharrie Mountains of Stanly & Montgomery Counties in south-central N.C.

Above: This late-Paleo Hardaway-Dalton point is made of porphyritic Rhyolite. It was recovered in the Cedar Square community near Randleman in northern Randolph County, North Carolina. Size: 3 inches. Collection of the author.

Above: Very rare clear quartz crystal fluted point found by Blake Deal in the Brushy Mountain community of “Vashti” of northern Alexander County, North Carolina. Size: 2 inches. Collection of the author.

It is not by accident that the site of the most important Paleo-Indian and Early Archaic search in N.C. — The Hardaway Site — also is located in the Uwharrie Mountains.

Rodney Peck, president of the Piedmont Archaeology Society of Virginia and the Carolinas, has undertaken the monumental task of recording fluted points found in North Carolina. This has been an ongoing task for many years and hundreds of fluted points have officially been recorded and are still being recorded in his survey.

Accompanying this article are several photographs illustrating examples of various Paleo-Indian projectile point types (Clovis, Hardaway-Dalton, Alamance & Simpson) typically recovered in the Piedmont and Blue Ridge foothills regions of North Carolina.

“Used by Permission of the Author”
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The Williamson Paleo Indian Workshop Site,Dinwiddie County, Virginia

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:42:00 GMT

by Rodney M Peck, Kannapolis, North Carolina

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.56, No.4, pg.200 Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.1, pg.45

Above: What a typical Paleo Indian Tool Kit might have looked like (hammerstones, scrapers, projectile point, knives, gravers, etc.), Williamson Site. Rodney M. Peck Collection. Photo by Ashley Smallwood Ph. D. Candidate, Texas A M University.

INTRODUCTION

The Williamson Paleo Indian Site is the largest Early Man Site in North America. Consisting of over 100 areas, this extremely large Workshop is very impressive. The Williamson site was first identified as a Paleo Indian Site in 1947. It is about five miles east of Dinwiddie Court House in Dinwiddie County, Virginia. The site begins approximately 400 to 450 feet north of the Williamson farm house and runs about a mile eastward along a flat-top ridge and extends approximately one quarter of a mile into the adjoining farm owned by Roy Ampy. The site is about 700-800 feet wide at its widest point and runs parallel to Little Cattail Creek. The site consists of more than seventy five acres of cultivated land, most of which is on the Williamson farm. The material can also be found scattered throughout the woods and along both sides of Little Cattail Creek.

Most lithic material at Williamson is known as “Cattail Creek Chalcedony”. This Chalcedony has many impurities, geodes, bands of softer stone, and flaws of all types. Faults in the form of small pockets of minute quartz crystals are common and frequently led to the breakage during manufacturing of fluted points and tools of all sorts made by Early Man. This chalcedony was the finest workable lithic stone material available, in quantity, in Virginia. These early hunters valued this chalcedony highly and returned to this preferred stone material for many generations. These early hunters used this preferred lithic material so extensively that the material source has been used almost up completely.

CLOVIS POINTS

The Clovis projectile points found on the Williamson Paleo Indian Workshop Site can be divided into two varieties of Clovis points: Classic and non-classic. The Classic Clovis Points can be divided into three basic shapes:

1.Parallel-sided points: those points whose basal sides are parallel.

2.Convex-sided points: those points whose basal sides diverge away from the base.

3.Concave-sided points: those points whose basal sides are concave at the base. The Non-classic Clovis Points consists of three basic shapes:

1.Pumpkin Seed Points: a small Clovis-like point that resembles a pumpkin seed.

2.Minature Clovis: a very small Clovis-like point that is usually less than one Inch in length.

3.Elys Ford Pentagonal: a pentagonal shaped Paleo Indian point that is very thin(Bushell, 1935, McCary, 1951, Peck, 1968).

PREFORMS

Most all of the classic Clovis-like points found on the Williamson Site were made from bifacial cores that were reduced to rough blanks then to nicely made preforms by transverse and longitudinal fluting. From all available evidence approximately 90-95% of Clovis points made by Early Man at Williamson were manufactured by a rather difficult though simple method known as the “Cattail Creek Fluting Tradition” (Painter, 1965). The blanks were fluted several times in order to reduce their thickness to produce a well made preform (biface) until a finished point was made.

Clovis-like Projectile Points made from Quartz Crystal, Longest is two inches Williamson Site, Dinwiddie County, Virginia. Authors collection

BLADES

Implements of Prismatic Blades and their Cores indicate a very heavy blade making culture at the Williamson Site. Three sided Prismatic Blades are referred to as “Triple Faceted Blades” and are the common type at Williamson. Many of the blades were frequently transformed into end scrapers, chisel gravers and other tools, while a large number of the blades were used in their natural state. Most all of the blades were struck from cores made from a very high grade of Cattail Creek Chalcedony.. These Blades, over 500 total, varied in length from less than one inch (small Bladelets) to about three or more inches in length (Macro Blades).

Above: Clovis Preforms (Bifaces), Williamson Site, Dinwiddie County, Virginia. Authors Collection

SCRAPERS, KNIVES AND OTHER TOOLS

One of the most outstanding features of the Williamson Site is the wide variety and extremely large quantity of Paleo Indian tools that have been recovered throughout the years with the majority of these (approximately 95%) made of Cattail Creek Chalcedony. About every type of Paleo Indian stone tool is represented at Williamson which makes this site the most prolific Clovis Site in North America.

The most common and frequently tool found at Williamson are end scrapers with the majority of these being trianguloid in shape, and many of these have been manufactured with graver spurs and spokeshaves. Some very unique chisel gravers, lancets, awls, and unique knives give evidence of unusual tools used by Early Man.

CONCLUSION

Early Man first came to Virginia at the end of the most recent Ice Age sometime between 15,000 and 11,500 years ago. Several types of geological features such as rocks, gravel, sand and river basins gives evidence that Virginia looked much different then it does today. These early people arrived during the late Wisconsinan deglaciation which produced a much wetter and colder climate. Central Virginia experienced vast amounts of cold, muddy glacial meltwaters as the ice’s margine surged down the region’s streams and rivers such as the James, Appomattox, Nottoway and Meherrin Rivers. Strands of spruce, pine, oak, hemlock, birch and other trees began to establish themselves as conditions grew warmer and wetter some 12,000 years ago. These trees developed into forests that sheltered and supported a large variety of late Ice Age animals and plants. Some, such as the mastodon and mammoth, are now extinct and others, such as bison, elk and caribou no longer live in the area. However, many animals that were alive at that time are very familiar to us today, such as the black bear, whitetail deer, fox, beaver, and wild turkey.

The only evidence we have of these Early Hunters are the stone implements they left behind-their Clovis Points, scrapers, knives, blades, cores, reamers, gravers, chisel gravers, and other debris and tools.

“Used by Permission of the Author”
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Her First Arrowhead Find

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:41:00 GMT

by Todd Walterspaugh, Galesburg, Michigan

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.3, pg.150

It was a chilly day in early April of 2009 but that didn’t stop us from hunting! Our family was visiting Indiana for an arrowhead show that weekend and we decided to make an extra day of the trip to do a little field hunting. The snow had just left the fields along the Wabash River and not many fields had been plowed yet. We finally found one right along the river which had been Fall plowed and looked to be an excellent spot to hunt.

After gaining permission from the land owner for our family to look — we headed off. I immediately noticed lithic scatter and flake debitage all around us and explained to the kids what it was and this was a promising sign, as the Indian’s had obviously occupied this area. Our chances of finding an arrowhead were also increased as my wife and I have 5 children which put 7 of us hunting the field.

I told them if they found one to yell for me and I would take a picture of it in-situ before we picked it up. We weren’t there five minutes and my 9 year old daughter Carey came a running towards me yelling “I found one Daddy”. As she ran across the field with her hands clasped together tightly she finally reached me with the biggest smile ever. She opened her hands revealing a large Hopewell Snyders point nearly as big as her hand made from Hornstone Chert.

I gave her a big hug and explained to her that this was a point from the Woodland Period and was approx 2,500 — 1,500 years old. This was Carey’s first ever arrowhead find and I must say I was very impressed with it! I had to remind her though that if she found another one to wait and let me take a picture of it before she picked it up!

“Used by Permission of the Author”
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MUSEUM OF NATIVE AMERICAN ARTIFACTS

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:40:00 GMT

arious artifacts from Arkansas on display:

Collection of David Bogle, Bentonville, Arkansas

Above are four fine Caddo engraved bottles. The workmanship and quality of these bottles is extraordinary. All are highly burnished, with exquisite engraving. At top left is a Hodges Engraved bottle from Hempstead County, Arkansas. It stands 7 ³ /4 inches high and is 6 1/2″ inches wide. It features a series of cross-hatched bands and an interesting circular motif in the center. At top right is a fabulous 8 inch tall Haley style water bottle with engraved scrolls and tick marks to create a complicated design highlighted with red ochre. It is from Hempstead County, Arkansas. At bottom left is another Hodges bottle. It stands 7 ¹ A inches tall and is almost 5 inches in diameter. It has an elegant design filled with red ochre, and was found at the Davis Site in Pike County, Arkansas. At bottom right is a Natchitoches Engraved bottle from Miller County, Arkansas. Over 5 inches tall and 4 1/2″ inches wide, it features quite exceptional complex engraving utilizing scrolls, crosshatched areas and ticked lines.

The collecting and display of Indian artifacts goes back a long way in time. One of the first collections was that of Ephraim Squire, who in the 1840’s documented the earthworks of the Midwest in the tremendous work, An cient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. He put together a fabulous collection of artifacts including perhaps the finest grouping of Hopewell pipes ever assembled. When he tried to find a home to house the vast collection, he discovered that no American institution wanted it. The Smithsonian, which had published the book, rejected it outright. The other institutions he approached maintained they didn’t have a place to show it. Eventually he sold the collection to William Blackmore of London, and today these artifacts sit in the British Museum.

Up until the 1970’s, many museums displayed the artifacts of the prehistoric Native Americans. However, the American Indian movement of the 1980’s discouraged display and the showing of any artifact that was ancient. The focus was on historic and modern Indians. Many museums changed their displays to reflect this new thinking and their wonderful artifact collections found a new home in their basements, stored and packed away.

It would take someone with foresight and a Cherokee Indian heritage to change things. David Bogle of Bentonville, Arkansas bought a collection of arrowheads from his former Boy Scout leader, the late John Fryer in 2002. What started out as a collection of local arrowheads soon became an obsession. David began to build a collection of artifacts from all time periods. This rapidly grew, and he started to concentrate on assembling the rarest and finest he could locate.

Many collectors would be satisfied just owning the collection and showing it to friends. However, David had a novel idea. Instead of just being a collector, why not share his collection with everyone? Furthermore, he thought it would be great to encourage others to share their collections too. Soon the idea of a museum open to the public was born. David felt certain that if he shared his artifacts in this way, others would develop the same fascination and respect he had for the artwork and skills of Native Americans.

David opened his Museum of Native American Artifacts in 2007, utilizing a converted house to display the collection. However, the plan was to go much further, and on July 10th, 2008, the museum opened in a new location utilizing 5,000 square feet of exhibit space.

In order to insure a high standard for this effort, David brought on board Bob Winkle-man, who used to be heavily involved with the University of Arkansas Museum. That facility had closed, due to funding issues, and the collection moved to a huge storage facility. David made contact with the University, and he was given access to the two million artifacts in their collection. Now these artifacts could again be on display for the public to see. Finally, he hired Matt Rowe as a curator and exhibition developer. Matt’s knowledge of artifacts is a great asset to the museum.

Above left is a flint knapping display that shows the reduction stages or “life” of a point, along with 3D hands coming out of the wall showing how knapping is accomplished (pressure and percus-, sion). In the middle is the bannerstone and birdstone display. To the right is a hardstone display that contains various axes, gouges,celts,chisels and other woodworking implements. The beautiful mural shown at the museum entrance (previous page at the top) was painted by very talented local artist, Kelly Green. She also painted other murals throughout the museum.

Native Americans have been in North America for more than 14,000 years. Realizing that they left behind virtually millions of artifacts, David has decided the museum should contain the best that can be located. Not only does this make the collection more appealing, but it also makes the museum significant. Rather than just display a history of the Native American presence in North America, the museum will display this history with their finest achievements.

The exhibition Hero, Hawk and Open Hand is the museum’s model for excellence. This 2004 traveling exhibition attempted to bring together the finest artifacts of Prehistoric North America in a concise and modern way. The Museum ofNative American Artifacts will continue in the footsteps of that exhibition, providing a compelling and visual history of the achievements of Native Americans.

The museum houses everything from Paleo to Historic items. On display is some of the finest pottery ever to
come out of Arkansas, including the largest grouping of rare Arkansas “headpots” ever shown at one time. It
is located at 202 Southwest 0 Street, which is just west of downtown Bentonville off of State Highway 72.
It is open from 10ANI-3PM Tuesday thru Saturday.
Admission is free. Phone: (479) 273-2456
www.museumofizativeamericanartifacts. org

The museum’s pottery display features treasures from the museum collection, private collections and the University of Arkansas collection. On the right is a portion of the display of Mississippian pottery vessels. Above is a view of one of the exceptional Quapaw exhibits.

The museum also has on display artifacts from some of the premier private collections, many never before available for public viewing. Above are two pieces on loan from the Kent C. Westbrook collection. At the left is the Quapaw effigy teapot known as “The Screaming Quapaw”. Considered one of the masterpieces of prehistoric Quapaw artistic achievement, this vessel utilizes paint, engraving, cult symbols and the human form to create an amazing image. It is unique and visually stunning. It measures more than nine inches in length and is from White County, Arkansas. Next to it is a “Dog” teapot effigy vessel. It is painted in the Avenue Polychrome style with additional artistic enhancement of the facial area. It is from Lee County, Arkansas and measures fifteen inches in length.

Above is a very rare Otter Effigy Teapot vessel from Lee County, Arkansas in the museum collection. The museum has been utilizing modern techniques to further understand and explore the work of prehistoric man. First, thermoluminescence dating techniques were utilized to establish the age of the piece. This technique measures how much time has passed since an object was last heated. This provided a date of 200 — 400 BP Then they had a CT scan made of the vessel. The CT scan technique utilizes computerized x-ray images to produce cross sectional views and three dimensional images. The CT scan of this vessel (shown above) clearly reveals drilled holes and some attempted salvage work by its prehistoric maker.

Also at the museum are some of the fine Arkansas points on display at the museum. At the top right are a group of 13 Agee gem points plus one Hayes point all made of Novaculite. These were all found by Glenn Kizzia at the Kidd Site. They each measure approximately one inch in length. Below those is an extremely rare Ozan Creek point. It is the type example that is pictured in Perino’s guide. It was found by Rick Steed in Ozan Creek near Blevins, Arkansas. It is made of Novaculite. An unusual aspect of this style is that they are flaked and then ground. They are associated with Late Archaic Period Poverty Point culture. Below that on the left is a fantastic serrated Alba point from the Crenshaw Mound site in Arkansas. To the right of that is a translucent Hayes point made of Novaculite also from Arkansas. To the left of this grouping is an incredible Dalton style point found in Arkansas that measures over 7 ³ A inches long. The oblique flaking on this late Paleo point is truly superb.

The above grouping presents some of the finest Quapaw pottery ever created. At top left is a beautiful teapot utilizing a fawn as its effigy form. At center left is a concentric circled teapot from Yell County, Arkansas. Traces of the original black pigment are still visible. At bottom left is a teapot in the form of an otter. Both are from Lee County, Arkansas. At top right is a polychrome long necked bottle utilizing a stylized mace motif as its decoration. The fine effigy teapot in the center right is from Phillips County, Arkansas, and utilizes unusual concentric circles and a “daisy” around the hole on top. The polychrome long necked bottle at bottom right has concentric bands and is from the Hudnall Site in Lee County, Arkansas. It and the effigy above it both have visible traces of the original black pigment remaining.

At top are a group of four Alba points from a cache found at the Crenshaw Mound Site in Miller County, Arkansas. Next to it at top right is a beautiful Quapaw sunburst motif bottle from Lee County, Arkansas. At right bottom, is a long necked polychrome bottle in the form of a melon from Cross County, Arkansas. Bottom left is a wonderful pedestal water bottle decorated with the Nashville Negative painting technique. This involves covering the vessel with a waxy substance and then scraping away the wax except for the design pattern. Then the rest of the surface is painted. Once the vessel is fired, the wax disappears and the light design will stand out against the dark painted background. These vessels are rare to find exhibiting their original painted condition, as the design features fade rapidly when exposed to sunlight.

All of the artifacts on this page were personally found in Arkansas by the late Gregory Perino. The clay elbow pipe at top left was found on the White River. At top right is a Mississippian Period Nodena melon effigy red & white striped water bottle. It was found by Gregory Perino at the huge Rose Mound site in Cross County, Arkansas. It has a noticeable stain of copper residue, due to a copper object resting against it. The two effigies at bottom left are very rare specimens that were found together by Greg at the Barton Ranch site in Northeast Arkansas. The larger clay effigy is of a hummingbird and the smaller one is of a turtle. The small turtle has a hole through the neck of it, so it could be worn as a pendant. At the bottom right is a unusual Mississippian double-disc pipe found in Arkansas.”Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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PERSONAL FINDS: COLLECTING BY SITE

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:39:00 GMT

An Interesting Way of Maintaining a Solid Archaeological Record of Surface Finds

ARTICLE AND PHOTOS BY TOM WESTFALL

Allen Site: A Jimmy Allen occupation site in Yuma County, Colorado, this site has been studied by Dr. Jack Hofnzan, and a paper on the material will be published later this year.

As the years mount up on years, the habits of many collectors regarding the acquisition of artifacts, not unlike the seasons of our lives, begins to grow and mature. Much as a young hunter wants to shoot “anything that moves” while a veteran of thirty seasons is much more tempered in his/her approach to taking game, so too will the veteran artifact hunter become more interested in the artist or archaeological aspects of collecting as opposed to merely the acquisition of more and better artifacts.

In my salad days, when I was green in judgment, I was the aforementioned “young hunter.” When it came to artifacts, my goal was to amass a truly large number. Scant attention was paid back then to the archaeological value of these pieces, and although I did record some of my better finds, I certainly did not do an adequate job keeping track of the associative artifacts that I was finding along with projectile points. In my artifact room, I have a number of cases of scrapers and tools that have only limited provenience. Since I could only ride my bike out hunting back when I first started, I know all the finds were from western Yuma and eastern Washington Counties in Colorado, but I have no way of being more specific than that. I think back to this time of ignorance and wince when I consider the number of channel flakes, for example, that I probably discarded since they did not look like something I would “put in case”.

Young hunters grow up and the “shoot anything that moves” attitude morphs into “getting a limit.” Artifact wise, this translates into finding or acquiring more and better artifacts. It is during this time that artifact collectors are susceptible to purchasing fraudulent pieces, if that is how they are choosing to build a collection. The reason for this naiveté is simple—the collector has learned just enough to know what he/she wants to acquire. Whereas the beginner doesn’t know an arrowhead from a paleo projectile point, the “seasoned neophyte” has looked at magazines, surfed the internet, and gotten a few books which show a large number of incredible artifacts, the likes of which most young hunters have never seen.

The stages of addiction differ from individual to individual in terms of length, but generally speaking most collectors begin to refine their collecting habits a bit. This may mean that they begin to specialize in a certain type of hunting. For example, one of my friends is an old-time collector who still likes to hunt blow-outs. He knows that he is not going to find nearly the number of points he could on a blown wheat field site, but at the same time, he is aware that he has a greater chance of finding a Paleo Indian projectile point in an old sand blow that has the “blue-clay” layer exposed. My friend may hunt an entire year and only find one or two points, but invariably, one of them will be a Paleo.

Scottsbluff Site: In the spring of 2006, the author and his wife found these seven artifacts in a low spot on a cultivated field, where bone was eroding out. These were the only artifacts visible and the GPS coordinates of the site were recorded. The farmer replanted the field and further access has been denied until harvest. These artifacts all appear to be Cody Complex pieces. Dr. Hofnzan has recorded this material and may produce a paper on them, as there is a need for comparative samples from a variety of these types of sites.

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SQUIER & DAVIS RECONSIDERED

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:38:00 GMT

A BRIEF HISTORY OF AND SELECTED PHOTOS FROM ONE OF THE PREMIER
19TH CENTURY COLLECTIONS OF NORTH AMERICAN ARTIFACTS

Few North American artifact collections are more fascinating than the one compiled by Dr. Edwin Hamilton Davis and Ephraim George Squier. Their jointly authored book, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, was published in 1848, and had the honor of being the first volume of the Smithsonian Institution’s Contributions to Knowledge series. The Smithsonian declined to purchase their collection, Squier and Davis had a serious falling out, and the artifacts were purchased in 1864 by William Blackmore, of Salisbury, England, for $10,000. They were displayed in Salisbury until 1931, and then went to the British Museum. In 2004 the Art Institute of Chicago’s “Hero, Hawk & Open Hand” exhibit included several Hopewell animal effigy pipes from the British Museum.

Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley was an extraordinary overview of major Native American structures in the Ohio River Valley as they existed in 1848. The two men conducted excavations on approximately 200 mounds and surveyed close to 100 earth enclosures in the Scioto Valley of southeastern Ohio. Many no longer exist. Their book includes site and artifact engravings, cross section views of mounds showing soil stratigraphy, and descriptions of original and intrusive burials. Some of these engravings are reproduced here.

Squier & Davis gathered over 6,000 objects in and around the mounds and structures they surveyed. The collection in the British Museum consists of 1,300 lots, with up to thirty objects per lot. These artifacts are not limited to Hopewell pieces, butinclude Archaic bannerstones, early Woodland birdstones, Mississippian great pipes, and a host of points, axes, celts, slate gorgets, cache blades, lizard effigies, plumbstones, discoidals, shell beads, obsidian, copper, pearls, mica, and other artifacts.

Perhaps the most extraordinary artifacts found by Squier and Davis came from Mound 8 at Mound City, a thirteen acre site on the Scioto River three miles north of Chillicothe, Ohio. The site is now part of the Hopewell Culture National Historic Park. Excavated in 1846, the mound yielded “not far from two hundred pipes, carved in stone, many pearl and shell beads, numerous discs, tubes, etc. of copper, and a number of other ornaments of copper covered with silver, etc. etc.” (p.152, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley).

This was the largest discovery of Hopewell effigy platform pipes ever recorded. In 1915, William Mills excavated the Tremper Mound, also in Scioto County, Ohio. Mills found 145 intact platform and tubular Hopewell pipes in two caches. These reside today at the Ohio Historical Society Museum in Columbus, Ohio. Many of the Tremper animal effigy pipes bear a strong resemblance to the ones found at Mound City in 1846.

Having just one day to examine the British Museum collection, I requested permission to view and photograph Hopewell and Mississippean pipes, as well as any bannerstones (my personal obsession) in the collection. Fortunately, Ian Taylor, a researcher at the British Museum who worked with me, had out a number of other objects from the collection that I was also able to photograph.

At the American Museum of Natural History, with the help of senior research assistant Anibal Rodriguez, I was able to photograph many of Davis’ plaster casts. This was important as some of the finest pipes in the British Museum are on permanent display inside a glass case, making them impossible to photograph. Flaying seen both the real pipes and their 1850 plaster replicas, I was impressed by the quality of the copies.

Squier & Davis felt that the human pipes were of tremendous importance, offering an accurate portrait of the people whose culture had created them. Proof of this was demonstrated by the exact sculptures on the animal pipes.

For me, Hopewell animal platform pipes are in a class by themselves. The soul of each animal is clearly caught by the artist. They are as satisfying to look at today as when they were created, 1°,500 years ago.

What are they? Squier & Davis felt they represented, from left to right, a manatee, an otter, and finally a fancy piece’
rather than a real animal. William Mills felt the manatee was an otter, The fancy piece’ is considered by some to be
a turtle. Plaster casts in the American Museum of Natural History, New York, Catalog Nos. 1/604, 1/605, 1/603.

I wish to thank the following people who helped make this article possible:

– Dr. Richard Townsend, Curator, African & Amerindian Art at the Chicago Art Institute, who gave me an introduction to the British Museum and much encouragement..

-Mr. Colin McEwan, Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, British Museum, for permission to photograph there.

-Mr. Ian Taylor, Museum Assistant, North American Collections, British Museum, who kindly spent the day with me and was very helpful with the Squier & Davis collection.

-Dr. David Hurst Thomas, Curator of North American Archaeology at the American Museum of Natural History, for permission to photograph at the museum. Mr. Anibal Rodriguez, Senior Museum Technician at the American Museum ofNatural History, for his enthusiasm and help with the Squier & Davis pieces.

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ISHI AND THE D.B. LYON CONNECTION

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:37:00 GMT

By Jeb A. Taylor, Associate Editor

One of the great pleasures in performing research is the occasional discovery of something new and exciting. Recently, while working on a project analyzing the style of Ishi’s projectile points, not just one, but several such discoveries were made.

At a slaughterhouse four miles from Oroville, California, early in the morning on August 28, 1911 the last aboriginal Native American allowed himself to be captured. This was not the result of a long, protracted battle or extended military campaign. In fact, no one knew for certain, and few suspected, that he even existed. This individual, who would later come to be known as Ishi, was the last surviving member of a small, reclusive tribe called the Yahi (Fig. 1).

Figure 1: Ishi at the museum in San Fransisco

If normal protocol had been followed, Ishi almost certainly would have been placed on one of the local Indian reservations to live out the remainder of his life. However, anthropologists Alfred L. Kroeber and Thomas T. Waterman, from the University of California, argued that Ishi would then be amongst his traditional enemies, who shared neither his culture nor his language. Realizing that this situation was untenable, and aware of how valuable Ishi might prove to be as an ethnographic informant, they asked for and received permission from the Indian Bureau in Washihgton, D.C. to place him under the care and protection of the University of California (T. Kroeber, 1961:9). Consequently, on September 4, 1911, Ishi traveled with Waterman to San Francisco where he lived for the remainder of his life (T. Kroeber 1961:233).

Upon his arrival in San Francisco, Ishi took up residence at the Affiliated Colleges Museum of Anthropology at Parnassus Heights. Although adjusting to life at the museum was undoubtedly quite challenging, by most accounts he adapted very well, and as Waterman noted, after he had been there for awhile, he was “serenity personified” (1918:66). Ishi quickly learned to perform duties at the museum that provided him with a wage and after some instruction, was shopping for his own food, preparing it, and generally taking care of himself. Admirably, he was able to assimilate into this new lifestyle and yet, somehow, remain essentially Yahi.

While living at the museum, Ishi willingly worked with anthropologists and linguists to record the Yahi tribe’s language, songs, stories, and other information for posterity. He also became a major attraction for museum visitors, who loved to watch him demonstrate aboriginal skills such as fire making, and especially the knapping of projectile points, which he sometimes gave to museum visitors (Fig. 2).

While I was researching the differences between the projectile points Ishi made aboriginally and those he made later at the Museum, several interesting discoveries were made.

Figure 2: A white glass projectile point made by Ishi for Charles Miles. According to Miles’ son, John, (Dietz, 2007, personal communication) Ishi made this point while sitting on a grassy knoll watching a tennis match, a pastime that he was apparently fond of This point is pictured on page 29 of Miles’ book, Indian and Eskimo Artifacts of North America, Figure 1.164 (author’s collection).

Here we will have to back up more than 20 years Darwin B. (“Win”) Lyon before Ishi’s surrender, to 1889, when a young man named Darwin B. Lyon and his dog, while hunting in the Big Antelope Creek drainage 16 miles east of Red Bluff, had a confrontation with one or more Yahi Indians. There are several versions of this story, but they are essentially the same. Listed below is the one related by Thomas T. Waterman in The Yana Indians, because it was the earliest, and probably the most accurate:

Thomas T Waterman, 1918:60 –

Mr. Darwin B. Lyon, a young boy at the time, is hunting deer up Big Antelope Creek, 16 miles east of Red Bluff. He moves about an isolated patch of buckeye brush which lies in a gully, under a rock cliff. The dog hears something moving and goes in, but a moment later comes out afraid. Whatever is in the brush makes noises like tomcats fighting. (His idea at present is that the Indians did it, trying to scare him away.) Instead of running, he throws a rock into the brush to ascertain what is making the noise. The rock hits an Indian, who grunts. One thing leads to another, and Lyon finally goes in to rout out whatever is there. There is open ground all around, so the quarry insists on keeping among the buckeyes. He finally presses them close, and suddenly stumbles over packs, which they have dropped. Then he knows they are Indians. One of them has been carrying half a dozen sheep legs—the sweat from his hand is still on the wool. They also drop a sheepskin. Lyon stops and kicks this stuff over, to see what it is. They suddenly fire three arrows at him, one of them grazing his hat brim. One of these arrows breaks off against a rock just in front of him. Another, he picks up and keeps. He takes time also to pick up a small cloth bag which afterwards is found to contain an interesting arrow-making outfit (see plate 14: the specimens are now at the University Museum). At this point, Lyons considers that his curiosity is satisfied, and he very properly withdraws.

Figure 3: Image of D.B. Lyon and “Old Dash” in 1890.

Figure 4: Enlargement of the caption on the photo; Win Lyon & Old Dash 1890 – Hair from Old Dash. Dash was almost certainly the dog that sensed the Yahi Indians (including Ishi) in the buckeye thicket in 1889.

Waterman was mistaken about the arrow-making kit and the arrow Lyon picked up as belonging to the University Museum collection. Both, in fact, are still in possession of the Lyon family, although the arrow-making kit is currently on display at the Kelly-Griggs House Museum in Red Bluff, California.

The Ishi/Lyon Relationship

In 1915, Lyon met Ishi in San Francisco where Ishi reportedly immediately recognized him, calling him “man with dogs”. This recognition raises some truly provocative possibilities. Was Ishi one of the Yahi Indians in the Buckeye thicket that Lyon confronted in 1889? And if so, could Ishi have recognized him from that single encounter 24 years later? Or, had they seen each other on other occasions as well?

Interestingly, Ishi not only recognized Lyon, but also exhibited a degree of affinity toward him that is difficult to understand. This was amply demonstrated with his gift to Lyon of three outstanding examples of his museum-made points (Fig. 5). As was already mentioned, Ishi frequently gave points to museum visitors and friends, but these particular points were superior in form and workmanship to even those he gave to his best friends at the museum: Kroeber, Waterman, and Pope. Why? We can never know the definitive answer to that question, but one possible explanation that has to be considered is that there was some sort of connection between Ishi and Lyon prior to Ishi’s surrender in 1911.

Figure 5: Three superb examples of Ishi’s museum- made points given to D.B. Lyon (Lyon family collection, currently on loan to the Kelly-Griggs House Museum in Red Bluff California).

Lyon spent a great deal of time hunting deer and herding stock in Yahi country, so further encounters with, and/or observations of, the elusive Yahi were possible, but since he never mentioned any, it is probable that none occurred. However, even if Lyon never observed Ishi, it is quite possible that the stealthy and observant Ishi observed Lyon on a number of occasions. And even though Lyon never reported seeing other Yahi, he was probably woodsman enough to have been aware of their presence. In any event, for whatever reason, Ishi and Lyon apparently already had a mutual respect and fondness for each other when they met in 1915.

In 2005, I examined and photographed these three points (Fig. 5), as well as two smaller damaged glass points (Fig. 6 not shown), and several other important Ishi-related artifacts that will be addressed separately.

Fig 7: Projectile points on Ishi’s aboriginal arrows that we e stolen from his camp in Deer Creek Canyon on November 10, 1908 by Harry Keefer:

A) a complete glass point that may or may not be Ishis that was added to one of Ishis arrows by someone who was inexperienced in sinew use and hafting techniques (California State Indian Museum).

B) a nearly’ complete glass point made and hafted by Ishi that suffered a bend fracture across its blade and has been poorly glued back together (California State Indian Museum).

C) a nearly complete glass point made and hafted by Ishi (California State Indian Museum).

D) a nearly complete glass point made and hafted by Ishi (Phoebe Hearst Museum, photo taken by and used with permission from Errett Callahan).

How, when, or where Lyon obtained these damaged points is not known, but according to Lyon family history, they were made by Ishi. This claim is probably correct because they are morphologically identical to the points on Ishi’s aboriginal arrows that were stolen from his camp, Wowunupo’mu Tetna, in 1908 (Fig. 7).

On my 2005 research trip, I examined and photographed the Ishi arrows at the California State Indian Museum, but I was not able to gain access to the Ishi arrows at the Phoebe Hearst Museum or the arrow that was shot at Lyon in 1889. I had spoken with Lyon’s granddaughter, and knew that this arrow was taped to a board in her closet. However, it wasn’t until the spring of 2008 that I was finally given permission to examine and photograph it.

There were very few Yahi left in 1889, so it was possible that the arrow Lyon picked up when retreating from the Yahi was Ishi’s. The cresting on Ishi’s known aboriginal arrows was very distinctive (Fig. 8) so comparing them with the Lyon arrow would be relatively straightforward. I was, of course, hoping that they would match, or at least be similar, but there was really no reason to assume that Ishi would have used the same cresting pattern for 19 years.

Before viewing this arrow, I was pragmatically expecting to find a generic California Indian arrow in poor condition that was diagnostically unidentifiable. I was delighted to find, however, that those assumptions were completely erroneous. Its condition was excellent, and its overall workmanship, the cut of its fletching, and most significantly, its cresting were all diagnostically Ishi’s (Fig. 9)! It was identical to the arrows stolen from his camp in 1908 (Fig. 8).

Lacking good images of the proximal ends of Ishi’s other aboriginal arrows, I asked a scholar, artist, and good friend, Steve Allely, whom I knew had recently been recording these arrows, to provide exact color illustrations of them. Interestingly, Steve’s reaction to the Lyon arrow was exactly the same as mine:

In my humble opinion as a replicator there is no doubt whatsoever that the Lyon arrow was made by Ishi; too many minute similarities to be anything but one of his.

Figure 8: Proximal ends of three of Ishi’s arrows stolen from Wowunupo’mu Tetna in 1908. The upper two are located at the California State Indian Museum in Sacramento, California and the lower one is located at the Phoebe Hearst Museum in Berkeley, California (illustration by Steve Allely).

Unexpectedly, however, someone (assumably Lyon) had replaced the original point on the arrow with an oversized side-notch point (Fig. 10) that was not only not original to the arrow, but not even an arrow point. Why this was done is not known, but it is plausible to assume that the original point was damaged when it was shot at Lyon, and that when given a choice, he chose to replace it with one that he regarded as more impressive. I can’t help but wonder if one of the glass points in Figure 6 may have originally belonged on this arrow. In any event, the Lyon arrow is the earliest known Ishi arrow, and an extremely important addition to the collection of his artifacts.

In any event, the kit I photographed at the Kelly-Griggs House Museum in 2005 (Fig. 11) is clearly the same one illustrated by Waterman and Kroeber but confusingly, the contents are not precisely the same. Notably absent from the kit I photographed are at least one pressure flaking tool, several pieces of unworked glass, two arrow foreshafts, a pitch stick, two skin pads, and a bundle of sinew. And absent from the 1918 photograph is one pressure flaking tool.

Why these discrepancies exist is impossible to state, but we must acknowledge the possibility that the second pressure flaking tool in the 2005 photo may not be Ishi’s. The doubt surrounding this one item is further exacerbated by the fact that the projectile point attached to its shaft does not appear to have been hafted by Ishi as it was lashed in a very amateurish fashion (Fig. 12).

Interestingly, according to a 1979 article in the Red Bluff Daily News, after Ishi came out of hiding in 1911, Lyon reportedly learned that the arrow-making outfit he had picked up in 1898 was Ishi’s. Waterman described it only as an “Arrow-making outfit taken as a trophy by D.B. Lyon when he ran upon a party of Yahi Indians . . .” (1918:92). But Kroeber, who used a portion of the same image to illustrate the same kit, described it as “Ishi’s arrow-making kit” (1961 – no page or plate number). Now that we know that Ishi was definitely one of the Yahi he encountered in 1889, it follows that the kit could very well have belonged to him.

Conclusion:

Ishi and Lyon definitely had a tense confrontation in 1889, but for reasons that we will probably never know, they apparently developed a cordial relationship in later years. The question that remains, however, is whether that relationship developed after 1915 or whether it began before 1911, when Ishi still lived in an aboriginal state.

It is probable that they did not actually meet again, and were simply aware of each other’s presence and developed a mutual respect for each other. But it is also possible that they did encounter each other on other occasions, and that Lyon chose to keep those encounters secret to avoid subjecting the Yahi to further incursions—and possible violence—from the local populace. In pondering this question, it is nice to speculate that despite the massacres and vendettas perpetrated against the Yahi through the years, at least one individual might have treated them with friendship and respect.

In any event, there are few stories in history that are as emotionally poignant as Ishi’s, and I feel honored that I could contribute, in even a very small way, to its expansion.

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COLLECTING ARTIFACTS – RANDOM THOUGHTS

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:37:00 GMT

By Oliver T. Skrivanie

Artifact collecting philosophy is very personal, as you are the only one who must be happy and satisfied with your collection. There is no secret or magical formula for building a great collection of prehistoric artifacts. I employ the following guidelines:

1. Buy Quality. Buy the artifact, not the circumstances. In essence, the closer the artifact is to its original, perfect condition, the more it will retain value. Quality is better than quantity. However, quality frequently commands a premium.

2. Due Diligence. Always be patient. Avoid the “need, greed, speed” syndrome! The “blind dog in the butcher shop” affliction results in purely emotional purchases. Collecting can seduce—a very dangerous mistress! You can’t own all of them! Look at every millimeter of the artifact—every scratch, nick, bump and scrape. Trace, confirm, and verify provenance—the history of ownership. The marketplace can actually add value to an artifact if, say, Clem Caldwell or Tommy Beutell once owned it. Gather up all published references. Contact the finder, if known. Apply the common magnifying glass. Use the “black lamp” (ultraviolet light) to examine for genuineness and the extent of any alteration or restoration. I have found that porphyry, however, resists and is not susceptible to this light.

Labels, certifications of authenticity, or any form of guarantee are only as good as the source. Does the authenticator also sell artifacts? No simple litmus test exists for authentication of artifacts. I think most collectors have been “stung” from time to time and it has been said that every collection contains at least one fake. Seek out opinions from knowledgeable collectors. I have not obtained a birdstone without getting several opinions from knowledgeable collectors. I never buy from photographs. Networking will help to avoid purchasing reproductions, rechips, restored pieces, and sometimes overpaying for a piece. To avoid overpayment, a friend of mine uses a very effective “resale test” before purchasing a piece—if you had to sell the piece in the short term, could you realize the same price as the current asking price.

To avoid emotional-only decisions, develop examination checklists. I have included my birdstone evaluation checklist as a pattern.

3. Retain What You Acquire. Sometimes economic circumstances or a “trade up” may require otherwise, but high quality artifacts are irreplaceable and will change the way you see things.

4. Make the Journey. Journey to the place where the artifact was made or found—Crib Mound, Silver Mound, Cahokia, Flint Ridge quarry, or wherever. This will allow you to renew the connection between the artifact, the earth, and the people who made the artifact, and will affirm why you are privileged to be a collector. Every collector should experience the exhilaration of climbing to the apex of Monk’s Mound at Cahokia.

Thus, subject all purchases to a doubting eye. In the end, prehistoric artifacts are like good friends and frequent visitation is most enjoyable.

Birdstone Evaluation:

1. Provenance Who has owned?

2. Publications

A. Townsend

B. Ringeisen catalog

C. Cassell photo; Bunch photos; Young photos

D. Prehistoric American

E. Central States Journal

F. Ohio Archaeologist

G. Other

3. Condition

A. Any restoration/damage

4. Material

A. Slate

B. Hardstone

C. Quartz

D. Other

5. Eyes

A. Oval

B. Round

C. Cylinder

D. Buttons

E. Stalks

F. Other – none

6. Style

A. Smooth, polish, rough, silhouette, etc.

7. Beak

A. Length

8. Tail

A. Fan

B. Stub

C. Round

D. Other

9. Bridges

Yes/no

10. Perforations

A. Whole

B. Broken

C. None

11. Size

A. Length

B. Width

C. Height

12. Color

A. Phenocrysts

13. Location

A. Finder 14. Other

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A Case for the Masters Point

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:36:00 GMT

by Tom Westfall, Sterling, Colorado

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.56, No.4, pg.200

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.2, pg.80

At the end of the altithermal, ca 4,600 BP, it is likely that conditions on the high plains became more suitable for habitation. Following the river systems, aboriginal folk came east out of the foothill area of what is currently referred to as the “Front Range area of Colorado” and out onto the Great Plains of eastern Colorado and western Nebraska.

The Middle Archaic time period on the plains witnessed a wide variety of morphologically similar points that seem to have “evolved” over time. During this time period, the Bison Bison began to appear to establish themselves on the prairie, and although they were obviously hunted by those inhabiting this region, most of what we know about this time period has been discovered in habitation sites rather than in kill sites. This may suggest that with the disappearance of the mega-fauna, the emphasis for subsistence may have morphed from hunter/gatherer to a more sedentary life that included hunting, but may have focused more upon other avenues of food procurement.

Point types during this time period on the plains of eastern Colorado and western Nebraska include, among others: Oxbow; Shouldered McKean (which used to be called Hanna and Duncan—Taylor: Projectile Points of the High Plains) McKean, Mallory, and Yonkee. It has been suggested that the Oxbow evolved into the Shouldered McKean, which morphed into the McKean and then into the Yonkee. The Mallory style point is quite unique, though it is found almost exclusively in sites that also contain McKean style projectile points. Recently a number of high plains collectors have begun isolating another type of point which may require its own classification. Whereas most McKean points exhibit rather poor flaking (especially when contrasting the flaking to Paleoindian), Masters points, as they are becoming known as, are exceptionally well flaked.

It would be tempting to just lump the Masters point in with Shouldered McKean, or even Yonkee, but they seem to be a more distinct type of point. It may be that Masters points are unresharpened Shouldered McKeans, because McKean type points were often heavily resharpened in the haft, changing the original morphology radically. Obviously most of the points recovered at habitation sites are those that have served their purpose and have been discarded.

The Master’s point (named for a site near the town of Masters, Colorado) is gaining some popularity and further study would probably be warranted to determine whether or not this point type is indeed worthy of its own classification.

At top: Figure 1. Four “Masters” points from eastern Colorado and western Nebraska. Largest at far left is 2 ¹ /4 inches in length.

Masters points are somewhat square-based, a mid-notch in the bottom of the base. Whereas Yonkee point seems to come quickly to a point, Masters points have a more parallel blade which often exhibits very fine flaking. Additionally, basal configuration of the Yonkee appears to be interestalmost corner-notched rather than stemmed, with the lateral edges of the base flaring slightly up rather than straight across as is the case with the Masters point.

There is a dearth of professional archaeology (whereas on the plains of eastern Colorado, western Nebraska as it relates to the Archaic and Middle-Archaic time periods. In the absence of a systematic analysis of point types through ongoing speculation will abound. To some extent that’s one of the things that makes our shared hobby so enjoyable. Hopefully these thoughts about a potential new point type will spur the interest of some aspiring young student to be archaeologist, and a data base of these interesting projectile points can begin to be assembled.

Figure 2. A variety of Middle Archaic points, including, Yonkee, McKean, Shouldered McKean and Oxbow from eastern Colorado and western Nebraska. Center point measures 3 inches in length.”Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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THE PALEO END SCRAPER

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:35:00 GMT

By Tony Baker as Edited by Gene Hynek

The Paleo End Scraper (PES) is an extremely important artifact because it is a temporal indicator, like the projectile. Dr. Frison has written that spurred end scrapers (PES) are another possible Paleoindian diagnostic . . . (1991:128). From my experience, they are second only to the projectile point as indicators of the Paleoindian tradition.

Figure 1.

The PES is a triangular end scraper, about the size of a silver dollar, with a spur at the intersection of the lateral edge and the distal end. The spur is the most diagnostic attribute of the PES. Figure 1 shows spurs on both sides which is the case on approximately 50% of the PESs. Actually, many spurs are broken off the artifacts, presumedly through use.

A PES is made on a flake from a variety of sources, e.g. quarry sample, thin biface, etc. The bulb of percussion is located on the proximal end on approximately 90% of the artifacts. The lateral edges are usually retouched, as shown in Figure 1, on the left lateral edge. Retouch can also take the form of notches like the one located just back of the distal end on the right lateral edge. Lithic materials employed tended to be tough, but they were usually not quartzites. Jaspers and chalcedonies were the materials of choice.

Figure 2 is a classic PES with a prominent spur on the right side. There appears to have been another spur on the left side. The tiny spur on the left side, about .5 cm back from the distal edge, is the remains of that spur. Both lateral edges have been retouched and the right one appears to have done service as a spokeshave on a shaft of 1+ centimeters. This spokeshave is located just back of the spur. The distal edge is perpendicular to the long axis of the scraper.

Figure 2.

The PES begins its life as a flake knife. If it was hafted, the lateral edges were probably retouched to make it fit the haft, but not necessarily. As the PES was used, it became dull and was resharpened (Deller and Ellis 1992:56; Goodyear 1974:44; Witthoft 1952:16). Sometimes it was reshaped to perform a different function or sometimes it was damaged beyond repair and discarded before its time.

The process of use, resharpening, reshaping and reuse slowly modified the flake into an artifact that archaeologists can recognize and identify as a PES. However, the stage at which this recognition becomes possible is unknown. Function and resharpening creates a recognizable form in the PES and destroys the same in the projectile.

I am defining wear patterns as the visual appearance and feel of the usage edge when the PES is found in the archaeological record. There are at least three items that contribute to wear patterns. These are function, stage of exhaustion, and events that occur after the tool is lost or discarded by its user.

Function probably has the most impact on the wear pattern. Working hard materials such as bone or wood will leave wear patterns that are extremely different from the ones that are created by working soft materials such as hides. It is only after extensive use that the wear patterns of different functions become apparent. Both function and stage of exhaustion contribute to the wear patterns the archaeologist observes.

Most of the literature leaves one with the opinion that some of the PESs were hafted and that some were not (Fig. 3). Judge says just that in his Paleoindian Occupations of the Central Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico (1973:187).

Within any site there will be a mixture of PES with these hafted and unhafted characteristics. More importantly, there may be a mixture of the hafted and unhafted characteristics on the individual PESs.

I strongly agree with statistics that indicate PESs exhibit minimal variation in shape. In fact, the only other tool that has less variation in shape is the projectile point of a particular group of people. As they were resharpened the variation between points increased. The PESs, on the other hand, were manufactured with such great variation that they could not even be classified as such in the beginning. As they were resharpened in the haft, the variation between them decreased until they became recognizable as PESs.

As I stated earlier, the spur is the most diagnostic attribute (characteristic) of a PES. I believe and propose it results from lateral edge work to socket the PES, followed by resharpening that reduces the PES to an exhausted tool. The spur did not exist at the time of hafting—it is a natural result of the process of use and resharpening of the PES.

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Megafauna Tools: A Paleo Site in Kentucky

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:35:00 GMT

by Dan T. Harper, Nashville, Tennessee

Originally Published in the Central States Archaeological Journal, Vol.57, No.1, pg.42

A group of six chipped tools from the site. The author has uncovered hundreds of these at the site.

I have been studying Paleo Man and his tool kit for the past fifteen years. My surface hunting has yielded many types of tools that most people just pass over. By studying many drawings and photos taken at published Paleo sites, I have educated myself on the types of tools utilized. Some of the tools I have found are problematic. I’ve enlisted the help of Archaeologist John Broster, who has spent the last twenty years studying Paleo man in the Southeast, to give me guidance in understanding my finds.

My main site today is on the Red River near the Kentucky-Tennessee border. It is not far from the Phil Stratton Cumberland Site that Dr. Gramly has been working. This Red River site has yielded hundreds of tools, and leads me to believe that it was a place of manufacture for many years.

On the site I have found not only what might be termed ‘common” tools, such as hammer stones, but also some very interesting large tools. These “megafauna” choppers and rippers required large game to be useful. Combined with large uniface blades, Paleo man would have been able to fully take advantage of the megafauna he was hunting.

After a flood in 2007, the area looked like it was covered in seashells, there was so much material exposed. This flood also altered the site considerably as well as exposing a large gullet’. In it I found the lower portion of a St. Louis style Clovis fluted projectile point. The point was made of a high grade blue-grey hornstone. This confirmed that the site was Paleo in origin, and that the tools I had been finding were exactly what I thought they were. Many of the tools I had collected previously from the site were also of this blue-grey hornstone.

Of all the tools I have found, one of the most interesting are the “rippers.” They have a very defined hook/claw-like feature. John Broster believes they were utilized to open the bone to retrieve the marrow. Bone marrow is especially high in protein, and would have been greatly desired by Paleo man.

Another tool I’ve found are “reamers.” They feature a prong-like spike, and are usually found on thicker scrappers. I think these were utilized to bore out bone handles. I shared this idea with John Broster, and he said it was possible.

I consider my most unusual find to be large limestone objects. It is possible that they were utilized as a “pounder” to break open the bones for marrow. If you think of some of the mega fauna available at the time such as mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths and camels, there would have to be a need for large tools. Much more effort is involved in utilizing a carcass of one of these animals than a deer or wild pig.

Above: An example of a “ripper” tool in hand. Notice the defined “hook/claw” feature.

Above: An example of the size of the Megafauna Paleo man encountered. This cast of a Mastodon skull is on display at the Museum of Native American History. The measurements give the true key to its size. The skull is approximately 4 feet in diameter and the tusks are close to 6 1/2 feet long. It would be difficult task to manage such large bones without large tools.

Above: An assortment of the thousands of stone and flint tools from the site. These measure 2-4 inches

The area I have been finding these artifacts has two elements that would have served as a major attractors for Paleo man; abundant water that would have attracted game and easy to locate high grade lithic material.

It is most interesting that with these large tools is the easy to see usage of flaking methods. Creating a large tool wasn’t any different than knapping a Clovis projectile. It just involved heavier hammerstones and didn’t require as much attention to detail. Obviously a mistake didn’t require you to discard what you were working on.

One of the main difficulties I have encountered at this site is removing some of the finds. It’s a lot easier to put a point in the pocket than move large rocks. That’s especially true when the site is several miles from the nearest road. But I have thought it important to assemble a collection of these tools to further enhance the understanding of early man

It is my opinion that Paleo man would have valued his tools as much as or even more than his projectile points. When he traveled, he would not have transported these large tools, but returned to earlier campsites to use them over and over. I am certain the site I have been exploring was one of these campsites.”Used by Permission of the Author”
To learn more about or to join the Central States Archaeological Society, click here: CSASI.org

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Pointed Weapons of Wood, Bone, and Ivory: Survival Tools of Early Man in North America

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:34:00 GMT

Floyd Painter, Norfolk, Virginia

Abstract

Early Man quite possibly arrived from Asia armed only with spearpoints of bone, ivory, or fire-hardened wood. The familiar Clovis “fluted points” and other lithic points equally old or even older than Clovis, may have evolved later in time due to increasing lithic technology or a need or stimulus related to changing killing methods or the type of animals being slaughtered. Bone spear points alone have been found with some kill-site discoveries, while in others (possibly later in time) both bone and lithic spearpoints were used in making the kill. Bone and ivory weapon tips of several recurring types from many areas of Europe, Asia, and North America are studied in this paper and interpretative suggestions are made as to their use, morphology, and purpose.

Man is one of nature’s weaklings; though of a carnivorous or predatorial species, he lacks the physical strength and agility to fight his predatory enemies, even those smaller than himself. He, in his natural state, is a physically defenseless animal, lacking fangs, claws, horns, hooves, or tusks. As a runner he is not fast enough to escape even the slowest of his predators. As a climber he is not agile enough to outclimb his once greatest enemies, the leopard, panther, and the giant tree snakes. Perhaps in his earlier evolving forms, the major asset that saved him from being eaten to extinction by carnivorous animals was the fact that in his natural, unwashed state, he was blessed with a very strong body odor. This terrible odor, unlike that of any other animal, was repugnant to the great carnivorous cats such as tigers and lions. They would kill and eat man only as a last, or starving resort (L. S. B. Leakey, pers. comm. 1967).

Early Man had developed other physical and mental assets, however, that his predatory enemies lacked. Man walked upright, had grasping hands, opposing thumbs, and an inventive mind. He was able to hurl an object with great accuracy and velocity, to thrust with his body weight, and to strike downward with great force. These assets have made him truly the sovereign of beasts, the “lord of the jungle” as it were. What he lacked in strength, agility, and physical weapons of defense he more than made up for by utilizing as weapons the objects he found lying underfoot. Few predators can face up to a barrage of rocks, a wooden pole thrust into his mouth or body, or being beaten with heavy bones or clubs of wood. There is usually safety in numbers, and man, a gregarious animal, ganged up on his enemies.

Later in time, Early Man learned not to depend upon chance to furnish him a defensive weapon; there might not always be a rock, bone, wooden club or long pole near at hand when he most needed it. He learned to carry such weapons with him as he foraged for food, and he learned to use his weapons offensively in hunting as well as defensively when he, himself, was being hunted. He learned to select his weapons by weight, length, and balance, and to modify them slightly to fit his purposes or to make them more effective. He began to sharpen the heavy end of his wooden poles and they became spears; he chose wood or bone clubs with heavy knotted ends or sharp projections. Thus equipped, Man then set out to conquer the whole earth. And conquer the world, he surely did. From a starting point in either Africa, the Middle East, or southern Asia, and armed only with a club and a spear, he, in time, occupied every habitable corner of the Earth.

At a time period of possibly 40,000 years ago Early Man had arrived in eastern Siberia, the northeasternmost land area of the continent of Asia. This was during the fourth or last great Ice Age, called the “Wurm” in Europe and Asia and the “Wisconsin” in North America. Three times during the “Wisconsin” the sea level was lowered as much as 400 feet by the retention of water in the form of great ice caps or glaciers that covered much of the northern regions of Europe, Asia, and North America. During these three intervals the seas were lowered enough to turn the shallows of what is now Bering Strait into a wide bridge of land connecting the continents of Asia and North America, a land bridge that Early Man with his then limited knowledge and primitive tools and weapons could have crossed.

The dry land thus exposed by the three intervals of lowered sea levels is now called “Beringia,” and the three different intervals of exposure have been dated by geologists. The dated intervals are 35,000 to 32,000 years B.P.; 28,000 to 25,000 years B.P. and 20,000 to 13,000 years B.P. Early Man was capable of, and probably did cross Beringia during all three intervals of exposure, but what interests us in this paper are the oldest dates: i.e., 35,000 to 32,000 years B.P.

What we mean by the term “Early Man” in this paper does not necessarily denote that they were “Homo sapiens sapiens” (present-day man), but anyone of the more ancient types of the genus “Homo” who later evolved into the modern Homo sapien sapien. “The discovery of early complexes in Siberia and the Far East in recent years does not exclude, but rather proposes, that the first discoverer of the New World was not even Homo sapiens, but a more ancient creature at the paleo-anthropine stage, but already possessing clearly expressed sapien-like features -which passed through Beringia earlier than 35,000 years ago” (Derevianko, 1978). To this statement we must agree, at least in part.

Fig. 1 The proposed “Ramming Method” of executing mammoth.

At the time period of possibly 35,000 to 40,000 years ago, Early Man had evolved into the four distinct racial types that exist today. The four principal types recognized at present are Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Australoid, and Negroid, plus many mixtures, divisions, sub-types and hybrids of the four distinct types. This does not mean, however, that the men who first reached Siberia and crossed Beringia into North America were one of these newly-developed distinct types, but rather more likely an earlier and still evolving form of Early Man who lived on the far fringes of the gene pools that produced the distinct types.

The majority of American Indians (Amerinds) living today in both Americas seem to represent hybrid types produced by the mixing of Mongoloid and Simitic Caucasoid genes far back in the mists of time. This mixing may have taken place in northeastern Asia (Siberia) before the distinct types evolved, but more than likely after Early Man’s arrival in the Americas. Only the late-comers, the Eskimos or Inuits, are truly Mongoloid, a distinct racial type.

In any event, Early Man arrived in North America by way of Siberia and Beringia equipped with all the tools and weapons essential to his survival in a harsh environment, and they were surprisingly few in number. Russian archaeologists have excavated numerous sites in Siberia, and many of these contain stratified occupation levels dating back to the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic Period of eastern Siberia. The earliest dated cultural level (Ust-Mil’ II site) is 35,400 years B.P., with undated cultural zones even deeper (Mochanov 1978). This means, of course, that if Early Man was in eastern Siberia 35,000 years ago, he could well have been in Beringia and North America at about the same year, for the Beringian land-bridge was open during that period.

A tool inventory recovered from this dated level does not include spearpoints or weapons of wood, bone, ivory or stone, yet these people were hunters of big game and must have used offensive and defensive weapons. The tool inventory does include bifacially worked oval knives, choppers, blade and flake cores, end scrapers and two different types of burins. Knives,end scrapers, and burins are wood and bone working tools and it follows that spearheads were being made of wood, bone, or ivory and that these weapons have presumably long since decayed to dust.

During the interval of land-bridge exposure between 28,000 years and 25,000 years BP there is little perceptible change in the lithic tool inventory. Still no lithic projectile points were being made and we must conclude that weapons were being manufactured of wood, bone, or ivory, though none were found.

So, we have two periods totalling 6,000 years of exposed land linking the two continents in which Early Man (the Diuktai Culture, Mochanov, 1978) lacking any form of lithic projectile points, could have crossed dry-shod into North America. Early Man (Diuktai Culture) had occupied all of ice-free eastern Siberia during these two periods and there is no logical reason why he could not, in the course of his nomadic existence, have crossed the flat plain of Beringia into North America. Lacking stone projectile points posed no problem to him since there is little doubt he possessed weapon points of wood, bone, or ivory.

During the last and longest interval of land-bridge exposure, 20,000 years B.P to 13,000 years B.P., the people inhabiting Diuktai Cave and other Diuktai sites in eastern Siberia had made great progress. By at least 18,000 years B.P. they had begun manufacturing lithic spear-points. They were making bifacially flaked spearpoints of an elongated willow-leaf shape, and were not only making them of lithic materials but of flaked ivory as well (Mochanov, 1978). If Early Man walked into North America bearing lithic spearpoints, it could have been no earlier than 18,000 to 20,000 years B.P. We believe, however, that his predecessors using spearheads of wood, bone, and ivory had reached North and even South America thousands of years before that time.

We also believe that these leaf-shaped points of the Diuktai people were not ancestral to the Clovis fluted point, but were the direct ancestors of the Great Basin projectile point types of the Northwestern States and the Lerma types of Mexico and the Southwest. The later Clovis fluted points, we believe, were an American invention, and had their beginnings in what is now the Southeastern United States (Painter, 1983).

We also feel certain (but still lack proof) that Early Man had long been adapted to a coastal environment in Siberia before making his way slowly eastward along the southern coast of Beringia and Alaska, then southward along the exposed Pacific continental shelf. This has long been the theory of Knut R. Fladmark of Simon Fraser University (Fladmark, 1983) and is slowly gaining acceptance among Early Man scholars. The warming effect of the Japanese Current and the constant availability of food make this route much more logical for this early time period than the much touted IceFree Corridor migration route long accepted by many. This cold, narrow, inhospitable, inland path between two great ice sheets stretched for 1000 miles between the Arctic and the northern Great Plains. This low, narrow gap between the ice-covered Rocky Mountains on the west and the mile-or-morehigh Laurentide ice cap on the east may have funneled cold Arctic air southward during all seasons. “The implication that the Ice-Free Corridor was little more than a frigid windtunnel does not improve its prospects for Early Man” (Fladmark, 1983).

A coastal migration route would have led Early Man into what is now Washington, Oregon, California, Mexico and Central America, then onward to South America in due course. A coastal route would also explain why we have earlier dates for Early Man in South America than anywhere east of the Rocky Mountains, and why the earliest sites in South America do not contain lithic projectile points.

What proof have we that Early Man possessed spearpoints of wood, bone or ivory and that he entered the New World before lithic spearpoints evolved? Pointed shafts or spears of hard wood were logically Early Man’s first and only option far, far, back in time, and long before he learned to shape bone and chip stone tools. Wooden

objects decay very rapidly and the chances of a wooden spear being preserved for many thousands of years are very slim indeed; however, at least two examples have been found in Europe. “The only weapons certainly attributable to Lower Paleolithic man are wooden spears with tips pointed and hardened in the fire like those found in interglacial deposits at Clacton, Essex, and Lohringen, Lower Saxony (Clark, 1967.)” These two spears found in England and Germany date to about 300,000 years B.P. during the early part of the Riis Glaciation. Lacking positive proof, we can only surmise, and logically so, that Early Man did indeed possess wooden spears when he arrived in the Americas, that he had possessed them for untold thousands of years and would continue to use them for many thousands more. Wooden spears and arrowheads were used until very recently (and may in fact still be in use) by various primitive groups in tropical regions of the earth. The museums of the world contain thousands of examples.

Since bone and ivory spearpoints are much more durable, we have many hundreds of examples left by Early Man in Europe, Central Asia, Northeast Asia (Siberia), Alaska, and various other places in North America. They have been found at sites in the Pacific Coastal states, the Great Plains, the Gulf Coast, and last but not least, Florida, where they abound. “They are the most common tool in Florida Paleo-Indian sites (Waller, 1983).”

Bone and ivory spearheads have been found singly and in both small and large concentrations in North America, in killsites, campsites, and gravesites, unassociated with lithic projectile points in some cases and in unmistaken association in many others. Curiously, but not too surprisingly, most bone and ivory spear-points found in North America are identical in design to several types found in Europe and Asia. Whether this sameness is the result of diffusion or independent invention is at present impossible to determine.

These long, tapered, cylindrical bone and ivory spearpoints, some pointed on both ends, others pointed on one end and beveled on the other end (sometimes with cross-striations on the beveled surface), and the types sometimes called “fore-shafts” that are beveled and striated on both ends, all have their counterparts in Europe, Asia, and North America (Figure 1). The oldest C-14 dated points of these types were found in the Lower Perigordian and Aurignacian “0” cultural epochs in Europe and date back to at least 32,000 years B.P. (Bordes, 1968). These bone and ivory spearpoint types were all well developed at that time period and must have evolved long before 32,000 B.P. Since these types are as widely spread as Alaska, Florida, the Southwest, and the Great Plains, it is possible that they were already in North America before the Perigordian and Aurignacian cultural periods in Europe. A search of the available literature reveals that bone and ivory spearheads were found in the following sites and locations in North America:

Alaska – A placer mining site near Goldstream, Tanana Valley, Central Alaska, has yielded two bone projectile points that were pointed on one end and beveled and cross-striated on the other end. These points were found in Pleistocene muck and associated with a “Yuma” type lithic projectile point (Rainey, 1939).

Washington – The point of a bone spearhead was found imbedded and broken off in a mastodon’s rib at the Manis Site, Olympic Penninsula, Washington state. The rib showed partial healing, proving it to be an old wound. The skeleton of the mastodon was found in a pond or bog and dated to almost 12,000 years B.P. The bones showed signs of butchering, however, proving that man had attacked again and had slain the mastodon at last (Gustafson and Daugherty, 1978).

Washington – Four fragments of a bone spearhead or foreshaft were found at the Marmes Site in southeastern Washington state. Indications are that the original length of the implement was perhaps 220 mm. before breakage occurred. The fragments were found associated with portions of a human skeleton and dated between 10,000 and 11,000 years BP (Fryxell, et. al., 1968) Evidence suggests that the human remains found with the bone implement represent a person that had been eaten by his fellows.

Washington – The Lind Coulee Site in southeastern Washington has yielded three long, bone projectile points. One of these was serrated or barbed along one side; another, with a sharp point, was wedge-shaped on the opposite end. The last had a blunt point and was broken on the other end. This site has been dated between 9,000 and 10,000 years B.P (Daugherty, 1956).

Washington – Long, smooth bone points were found at a 9,000 B.P salmon fishing site at The Dalles on the Columbia River in southern Washington state. These are thought to be portions ofleister fishing spears (Kirk and Daugherty, 1978.) This opinion agrees with the theories of the writer of this report (Painter, 1983).

California – Three broken bone weapon tips were found with bone scraps and ivory shims at what was perhaps a mammoth kill site on the ancient shore of China Lake, a dry lake bed in the Mojave Desert of Southern California. These bone tips were found with the remains of Mammoth #9, in the middle of the CRBR embayment of China Lake (Davis, 1978).

California – A long, fossilized bone point was found on a site on Lower Klamath Lake in northern California. This point was stained by the blue silts of the lake; mammoth bones from the same locality were also stained blue. The bone point was sharp at one end and beveled at the other (Cressman, 1942). These bone objects are sometimes referred to as bone foreshafts in many reports.

Saskatchewan – A fossilized bone projectile point was found in the early 1900s near Grenfel, Saskatchewan. The point was found during an excavation of a waterhole in an ancient slough, and was discovered at a depth of 8 feet. No associations with man, animal, or other artifacts were noted. The projectile point is 207 mm in length and has a diameter of 12.5 to 15 mm and is thought to be mammoth or mastodon bone judging by its thickness (Wilmeth, 1968). The object tapers to a blunt point on one end and is broken on the other. At the time when it was found, no others of this type had been reported and the discovery was long before Folsom and Clovis points were known.

Montana – The Anzick site, a collapsed rock-shelter near Wilsal, northwestern Montana, has yielded the first known Clovis burial, plus over 100 stone and bone artifacts. The burial assemblage contained the remains of two sub-adults plus the artifacts and all were covered with red ochre (Lahren and Bonnichsen, 1974). Among the artifacts recovered after the rock-shelter had been destroyed by a front-end loader were seven Clovis fluted points and eleven fragments of bone spearheads. These bone fragments were fitted back together to reconstruct one section that has a blunt pointed end and a beveled and cross-striated opposite end, and one long section that is beveled and cross-striated on both ends. The remaining fragments consist of five broken midsections and four beveled and cross-striated ends (Lahren and Bonnichsen, 1974). These authors have attempted to reconstruct these fragments as fore shafts for Clovis fluted points, with a rather flimsy manner of hafting the Clovis point to the socalled foreshaft. The writer of this report disagrees with their proposed reconstructions and will propose other, more logical uses for these bone shafts.

Wyoming – The Agate Basin site in eastern Wyoming has yielded bone projectile points in the bison bone beds of the Folsom Period level and an ivory projectile point in the Clovis level of this ancient bison kill site (Frison and Zeimens, 1980). The Folsom level points, three in number, are tapered to a point on one end and cut off at a slight angle on the opposite end; all are broken but can be reconstructed. They average about 250 mm in length and 8.5 to 9 7 mm in diameter. The ivory projectile point from the Clovis level is both longer and larger in diameter than the bone Folsom points. The Clovis specimen is 200 mm in length with an undetermined amount broken off and it measures about 18 mm in diameter. It is beveled and cross-striated on one end and broken off on the opposite, but appears to be tapering toward a point. Frison and Zeimens state that “It seems very unlikely that either the Clovis or Folsom specimens can be regarded as any kind of foreshaft.” With this viewpoint the author of this report fully agrees.

Fig. 3: Mended bone and ivory needle spears and their components.

New Mexico – Blackwater Draw, the original Clovis type site, produced the first two bone spearhead elements associated with mammoth remains. One bone spearhead portion was found in the sand at the distal end of a mammoth ulna. This bone spearhead portion is beveled and cross-striated on both ends, while the other example is pointed at one end and beveled and cross-striated at the opposite end (Cotter, 1937). These bone points found at Clovis in eastern New Mexico are identical to points found in Europe, Alaska, and Florida. Cotter, (1937) recognized them as bone projectile point elements.

Texas – McFaddin Beach, in the extreme southeast corner of Texas, is a Gulf of Mexico sand beach extending thirteen miles from the Sea Rim Marsh to High Island, Texas. This stretch of beach is one continuous archaeological site where at least fourteen Clovis fluted points have been found, plus more than 160 other Indian artifacts of later time periods, principally Early Archaic. It is also a source of fossil bone material representing many extinct types of fauna, all washed up from offshore beds of Pleistocene age. Among this array of material is one bone projectile point, a tapered, pointed cylinder of fossilized bone 130 mm in length with a large diameter of 14 mm. Broken at one end, pointed at the other, it was definitely shaped by the hand of man (Long, 1977).

The Paleo-Indian sites of Florida that contain bone and ivory weapon points are without exception underwater sites, and the projectile points were recovered by scuba divers. These weapon tips of bone and ivory were recovered from offshore in the Atlantic Ocean, sinkhole springs, and inland rivers of central, northern and northwestern Florida. These bone and ivory spearheads are called by the divers “bone pins” and they usually make no distinction between double-pointed, double-beveled, pointed and beveled, bone or ivory. In their reports and publications, all are called by the generic term “bone pins.” Unknown hundreds ofthese “bone pins” are in the private collections of skin and scuba divers in Florida and southern Georgia. A great collection of these bone and ivory spearpoints and leister fishspear points are in the Florida State Museum at Gainesville, however, and this writer has examined a great number of specimens in company with Ripley and Adelaide Bullen in the museum storeroom. This writer has talked with Ben Waller and other divers about the subject and viewed their collections. An unbelievable mass of Paleo-Indian lithic and bone material lies unreported and unstudied in these private collections and museums of Florida. In an interview with Ben I. Waller recently published in the Florida Anthropologist (Volume 26, Numbers 1-2, March-June 1983), the interviewer asks “Do you think bone pins are an important Paleo tool?” Ben answered, “Yes. Of course, I’ve been pushing that idea for years. I totally believe that they are the most common Paleo tool found in Florida. When I say pins, I am generally speaking of a double-pointed variety” (Dunbar, 1983). Ben Waller once told this writer that he and others had recovered over eighty bone pins among the bones of a mammoth in a northern Florida river. What a battle it took to bring this behemoth down.

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Mississippian Spades and Hoes

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 14:34:00 GMT

Carl Latchford, Rock Falls, Illinois

Figure 1. A cache of Mississippian spades found near Cahokia Mounds in 1950 by Gregory Perino and Ed Milkert. From the collection of Carl Latchford.

Somewhere between 1000 and 1400 AD, an unnamed Mississippian Indian deposited in the corner of his house a cache of 10 spades. Little did he realize that they would lie where he buried them for the next several hundred years, until unearthed by Gregory Perino and Ed Milkert in 1950. The spades, when discovered, were stacked on edge and were lying side by side in the house pattern. The cache consisted of 7 flare bit and 3 ovoid spades and were found on the terrace along the creek bottom out from mound 34 at the Cahokia Mounds site.

The spades range in size from 10 1/2 inches by 4 1/2 inches to 7 1/2 inches by 4 1/2 inches. Some show much use; some were never used. Several of those that had been used show a varying amount of opal phyialith or “plant gloss.” As is typical of these implements, nine were of the more common tan Mill Creek chert and one is of a marbled gray and white material with red streaks. The Mill Creek quarry is located in Union County, Illinois.

Mississippian spades are generally divided into two categories: spades and hoes. Spades are subdivided into the ovate or ovoid and the trianguloid forms. Hoes, which assume the form of a truncated ovate, are either notched or unnotched. The notched forms are known as St. Clair Side-notched. A third and comparatively rare form of spade is the stemmed spade. A stemmed spade is similar in form to the ovate or ovoid style, but is a secondary product of the larger form, the main difference being a vertical stem for hafting.

Caches, although not extremely common, have been found in the past. P.F. Titterington in his book The Cahokia Mound Group and Its Village Site Materials (1938) has a listing of only a few. One cache of four spades and another of nine notched hoes have been found near Monks Mound. Two oval spades were found near the Powell mound and a group of eight was found near a mound north of Cahokia at the Mitchell site. The largest then-known cache of spades and hoes was found during road construction in 1868 on 6th Street between Summit and St. Clair Avenue, in East St. Louis, Illinois. That cache contained 50 notched hoes and 25 spades. The contractor in charge never took an accurate count and only estimated the numbers. The material quickly separated itself among those present, and the cache was never reassembled.

Due primarily to the fact that Mississippian sites are near the present surface, spades and hoes were found in large numbers in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Their large size and shiny bits made them easy to spot in the fields, and they were picked up by serious artifact collectors and non-collectors alike. The Whelpley collection, for example, contained 397 hoes and 1110 spades for a total of 1507 of these implements. Most of the spades and hoes recovered today are discovered as a result of construction or excavating activities. They, like other artifacts, are not found in anything approaching the numbers of years ago.

The valley of Mill Creek, which is a tributary of the Cache River in Union County, Illinois, was sparingly used by Paleo and Archaic peoples. Mill Creek was almost ignored by the Middle Woodland groups, and saw only light populations of the Late Woodland inhabitants of the area. With the arrival of the Mississippian peoples, however, it became the center of activity for producing the materials that would form many of the spades and hoes that eventually would be found in an area covering 200,000 square miles. Recovered most often in the Illinois and Missouri counties nearest Cahokia, they have also been recovered as far north as the Aztalan area of southern Wisconsin. A few have been found as far east as Blennerhassett Island in eastern Ohio and west to eastern Oklahoma. One hoe in the Whelpley collection was simply labeled Litchfield Connecticut. Surprisingly, Mill Creek spades and hoes are found in some numbers even in Steward County, Tennessee, which was the center of the Dover flint manufacturing area.

Occasionally, examples of hoes made from other locally obtainable material such as Burlington, Crescent, and LaMoine chert and limestone are found in the Cahokia area. In southern Illinois and the surrounding areas, Mounds and Dongola cherts were used. On the fringe areas of the Mississipian occupation area, other less desirable material like sandstone, limestone and certain igneous and metamorphic material was substituted. All of these combined can only account for 3% of the known examples of Mississippian hoes and spades.

Without question, chert of the Mill Creek valley was overwhelmingly preferred for use in the manufacturing of these spades and hoes. This raw material was so desired that some of the open pits were dug to a depth of from 10 to 20 feet and a diameter of from 12 to 40 feet. In some areas there is even evidence of lateral tunnels having been driven. The main reason Mill Creek chert was so highly prized may lie in the fact that in its natural state it is found in slabs from 2 to 5 inches thick and up to 2 feet long and 1 foot wide. This made it ideal for use in the manufacturing of larger flint items. An even greater advantage resulted from the decay of the limestone surrounding the chert nodules, leaving behind a clay matrix which was relatively easy to remove by Mississippian miners.

Figure 2. Closer view of three of the 1950s cached spades found near cahokia Mounds. Carl Latchford collection

Although there is little real question about the use of spades and hoes, there does remain a degree of uncertainty as to whether both were hafted in an identical fashion. The side-notched form in some cases indicates that a handle may have been fastened in a manner perpendicular to the long axis. It was not positively known how spades were even halfted until 1979, when the famous bauxite statue known as the “Birger Figurine” was discovered by the University of Illinois archaeologists. The 8-inch high figure is of a kneeling woman with a short handled spade in her right hand. It is a clear visual indication that they, at least, were mounted on a short L-shaped wooden handle (see cover of Ohio Archaeologist, Vol. 30, Winter 1980. #1 or page 52, Vol. 27, # 2, 1980 Central States Archaeological Journal.)

Although no extensive studies have been done to plot a distribution pattern difference between spades and hoes, there does seem to be indications that hoes are generally widely distributed and found in low-lying areas. Spades, on the other hand, are found in the uplands, valleys, and the low-lying areas. Mississippian farmers showed a preference for the oak and hickory forested portions of their occupation area, staying to the forested areas of the lower and central valleys of the Kaskaskia and the Illinois River valley and its larger tributaries. They avoided the prairie areas of the Grand, Carthage, Bushnell, Shannon and Mendota prairies of Illinois. The rock shelters that were available in the river valleys apparently were considered adequate field camps for the duration of the growing season.

When I wrote to Mr. Perino to verify the information about the cache of spades, he expressed some concern that at a future date the cache might be broken up. It is true that in the past several have, but this is one that, as long as it remains in my possession, will not. It is an increasingly more difficult undertaking each year to acquire artifacts that have a documented history. The fact that they were found at Cahokia and are documented as such makes them of greater interest to me and of more importance to the collectors that come after.

Cahokia Mounds Site before it became World Heritage Site. Note the subdivision in the lower part of the photograph. These home have long since been removed in order to restore the site.

REFERENCES

Hoehr, Peter

1980 “Utilitarian artifacts from the Cahokia site,”

Cahokia Brought to Life. 2nd printing, 1980. Greater St. Louis Archaeological Society, pp.41-42.

Blake Leonard W. and James G. Houser

“The Whelpley Collection of Indian Artifacts,”

Transactions of the Academy of Science of St. Louis. Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 34-36.

Hakiel, Nicholas E.

1980 “The FAI-270 Archaeological Mitigation Project in Illinois,” Ohio Archaeologist, Vol. 30 winter No. 1, pp. 4-5. Titterington, P. F.

1938 The Cahokia Mound Group and Its Village Site Material, Cahokia Mounds Museum Society. pp.5-6. Winters, H.D.

1979 “Observations on Mississippian Hoes,” H. D. Winters, Kampsville, Illinois.

1881 “Excavations in Museums: notes on Mississippian Hoes and Middle Woodland Copper Gouges and Celts,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 376, pp. 23-34.

Perino, Gregory

1983 Personal communication.

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