The stone age in North America, vol. 1 of 2Moorehead, Warren K. (Warren King)
History
The stone age in North America, vol. 1 of 2
Moorehead, Warren K. (Warren King)
Indians of North America -- Antiquities; Stone age -- North America
The average tablet, a flat gorget, must have been made from a piece of
slate or water-worn shale. It is not to be supposed that the native
would put himself to the trouble and inconvenience of reducing a block
of slate larger than the required size. Large fragments of slate, shale,
granite, and blooded quartz he did make into winged objects. Manifestly,
he could not make a winged object out of a thin, flat stone (such as our
Committee have classified under “laminae”). The flat tablets, gorgets
and pendants are more numerous than the winged objects, for the reason
that they are easy to make. Inspection of the specimens illustrated in
this chapter will prove the point I make that many of these objects
required little work, save in shaping the edges. Man cut or ground the
edges until they were concave or convex or angular to suit his fancy.
[Illustration:
FIG. 331. (S. 1–1.) Andover collection. These are presented to show
the use of the reed drill. Unfortunately, the camera does not show
the perforations and the central cores as it should. What appears to
be a rim in each specimen is the dark circular depression about the
core left by the reed drill.
]
Most of these tablets were ground out, or the stone was nice and smooth,
so no grinding was necessary save on the edges. The tablet was then
ready for perforation, and he perforated it and rubbed and polished it
until the scratches had disappeared. In the case of the winged stones
much more care was necessary. The crescents and the ridged stones being
thicker were not as easily broken, and we find fewer broken specimens
among them than of the winged class. There were more broken “butterfly”
or winged stones than of any other class. Because of the thin wings it
was necessary for him to work very carefully, and probably to place one
half of the specimen on a raised surface covered with buckskin or hide
and to rub that until he was ready to turn the specimen and work on the
other wing. At best the process was a long and laborious one, as the
many unfinished objects of this character attest.
[Illustration:
FIG. 332. (S. 1–1.) Andover collection. Short winged object, showing
that perforation was made by means of a reed drill, the core
remaining in the hole. Reed drills were made use of in many of the
larger and problematical forms. Another example of reed drilling is
shown in Fig. 331.
]
A study of the unfinished winged objects in the Andover collection
furnishes one with a great deal of information. When I said that we had
a hundred unfinished winged problematical forms, I meant of those with
exaggerated wings, those in which the wings are the prominent feature.
Of all classes, unfinished objects of all the types shown in the
outlines (Fig. 292), we have over one thousand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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