There is another group of chipped stone artifacts which is one of the most abundant tool classes at the Poverty Point and Jaketown sites and which occurs in respectable numbers at many Poverty Point villages (Webb 1977:42). These mysterious objects are called microliths. The most common form has been dubbed a Jaketown perforator (Haag and Webb 1953: Ford and Webb 1956). Typically, perforators are tiny artifacts, made from blades and flakes; they have one bulbous end and a narrow point. They were originally presumed to be drills or punches, but experiments showed that they could have been worn-out scrapers, resulting from whittling antler, bone, and perhaps wood (Ford and Webb 1956:77). Their abundance at Poverty Point and Jaketown suggests a rather commonplace function, and perhaps the experimental results have been rightly interpreted. Recently, however, an archaeologist made a revealing discovery. He noticed an obstruction in the bottom of an unfinished hole that was drilled in the center of a narrow-ended, rectangular stone tablet. Using a straight pin, he dislodged a small flint object. It was the broken end of a Jaketown perforator; so perhaps, they were used as drills after all! SYMBOLIC OBJECTS AND CEREMONIES Poverty Point culture had many unique objects, but perhaps most important were its artifacts of personal adornment and symbolic meaning. In no other preceding or contemporary culture were so many ornaments and status symbols produced. Stone beads, made mostly of red jasper, predominated, but many other unusual objects were manufactured. Pendants were made in a multitude of geometric and zoomorphic shapes. Dominant were birds, bird heads, animal claws, foot effigies, turtles, and open clam shell replicas (Figure 11). Small, in-the-round carvings of “locusts” and fat-bellied owls were made and were evidently widely circulated, even among non-Poverty Point peoples (Webb 1971). One pendant from Jaketown (Webb 1977:Figure 25) was a polished tablet with a carved human face. Copper and galena beads and bangles were worn at the Poverty Point and Claiborne sites. Perforated human and animal teeth, cut out sections of human jaws, bone tubes, and bird bills (Webb 1977:52-53), dredged from the bottom mucks of the bayou below the Poverty Point site, reveal that much more ornamentation of perishable materials has disappeared. [Illustration: Figure 11. Stone Ornaments. a, g, Pendants; b, Hour-Glass Bead; d-f, k, Tubular Beads; c, i-j, Fat Owl Effigy Pendants; h, Clam Shell Effigy; l-m, Buttons; n, Claw Effigy. Photographs courtesy of Brian Cockerham.]