The stone age in North America, vol. 2 of 2Moorehead, Warren K. (Warren King)
History
The stone age in North America, vol. 2 of 2
Moorehead, Warren K. (Warren King)
Indians of North America -- Antiquities; Stone age -- North America
In this class of objects, which are as yet alluded to by students and
collectors by either of the above or other names, are included the
largest copper implements found in Wisconsin. They are rod-like in form,
usually circular or square, less frequently rectangular in section, and
taper to a point at one or both ends. Large specimens of each of these
several patterns have been found. The largest is in the Field Museum. It
is about forty inches in length, one inch in diameter at the middle, and
tapers to a point at either extremity. It weighs five and a quarter
pounds and was obtained from a burial-mound on the Abraham place, at
Peshtigo, Marinette County.
[Illustration:
FIG. 613. (S. 1–1.) Copper crescent-shaped object obtained near
Chattanooga, Tennessee. Milwaukee Public Museum collection.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 614. (S. 1–3.) Copper crescents. Collection of Wisconsin
Archæological Society.
]
A specimen in the H. P. Hamilton collection is twenty-nine inches in
length, seven eighths of an inch in diameter, and weighs two and three
fourths pounds. About one inch from the pointed extremity there is a
broken projection which Mr. Hamilton believes to have been a barb. The
other end terminates in a small claw or broken out eye. It comes from
Maple Creek, Outagamie County. In the T. W. Hamilton collection there is
another fine specimen which is eighteen and a half inches in length and
weighs one and a half pounds. A specimen found at New Haven, Adams
County, is fourteen and a half inches in length and weighs one and three
eighths pounds. Other large specimens are to be seen in the Logan
Museum, State Historical Museum, and Milwaukee Museum collections. Some
of these are rather flat, rectangular in section and one inch in width
and less than three eighths of an inch in thickness. They are pointed at
one extremity and rounded or blunted at the other. Some other large
specimens are known to have been cut in two and otherwise maltreated by
the persons who found them.
In the Field Museum collections implements of this pattern ranging from
eight inches or less up to the largest size are classed as “pikes.” That
they were employed as weapons is extremely doubtful. It has been
suggested that they may have been heated and employed in the burning-out
of wooden canoes or wooden vessels. There is reason to believe that some
of the lighter forms were mounted in wooden handles, at least one
example with an accompanying copper ferule having been found at
Milwaukee.
[Illustration:
FIG. 615. (S. 2–3.) Copper saucer-shaped object. Hopewell Group, Ohio.
]
_Awls and Drills._ (_See Figs. 593 and 603._)
These have been obtained nowhere in greater numbers than in the Lake
Michigan coastal region in Wisconsin. They vary in size from about one
to six inches or more, and in thickness from one sixteenth to one half
an inch. The greater number are of very small size.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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