CHIPPED IMPLEMENTS
STEM CONTRACTING FROM BASE
Although there are fine examples of flint-workers’ art in the class,
“Stems expanding from base,” yet as a rule it includes more simple forms
than stems contracting from base. This is true of most types. Fig. 90
shows simple forms in Class C, p. 23. Fig. 107, from Mr. Braun’s
collection, East St. Louis, stands for the long, slender spear-heads
occasionally found in the South and the Mississippi Valley region,
evincing high art in stone-chipping. The convex stem is shown in Fig.
99. Fig. 119 is from Dr. Jack Shipley of Texas. These present typical
Texas specimens with both contracting and expanding stems.
[Illustration:
FIG. 105. (S. 1–2.) Found near Kutztown, Pennsylvania. Material: block
chert. D. K. Deisher’s collection, Kutztown, Pennsylvania.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 106. (S. 1–2.) Long black spear-head. The common form of stem
contracting from base. Stephen Van Rensselaer’s collection, Newark,
New Jersey.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 107. (S. 1–3.) Two beautiful white spear-heads. Found near the
Cahokia group of mounds. Material: flint. H. M. Braun’s collection,
East St. Louis, Illinois.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 108. (S. 1–2.) Rotary spear-head. S. Van Rensselaer’s collection,
Newark, New Jersey.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 109. (S. 2–3.) Arrow-head, with stem unusually long. Phillips
Academy collection.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 110. (S. 3–4.) This Figure represents twenty-nine chipped objects
from the Willamette Valley, Oregon. Many beautiful specimens have
been found in this valley. It has produced possibly as many objects
as any given area in the world. Material: the usual semi-precious
stones. A careful study of these and other pictures of Willamette
Valley types will acquaint readers with the fact that there is an
endless variety of form. And yet the treatment is such that the
chipped implements from this valley can be recognized and described
as differing from others in any part of the world. H. P. Hamilton’s
collection, Two Rivers, Wisconsin.
]
Fig. 121, Wisconsin types, Fig. 110, Willamette Valley, Oregon, and Fig.
112 should be compared by readers. These plates will emphasize the
difference in form. Some of these are classified under “Stems
contracting from base,” others belong in the division, “Stems expanding
from base.” Yet even in the same class there are to be observed certain
differences, for the stem is not always the essential feature.
[Illustration:
FIG. 111. (S. 1–2.) Points from Idaho. C. Albee’s collection, Red
Rock, Montana. Note the angular sides in the object in the upper
row, second from the right.
]
Fig. 121 represents some of the best specimens from Wisconsin sites.
Fig. 126 is from Mr. Reeder’s collection, Michigan, and represents the
best type in spear-heads of all kinds from Tennessee and Kentucky and
Ohio. The tops of many of these are convex and have been worn smooth
either because of the method of fastening, or on account of some
particular purpose. This is noticed in a great many of the finer
specimens, and leads me to believe it is not hard usage that brings
about such a condition, but that specimens were in position for a great
length of time, and this polished or smoothed surface is brought about
through such means.
[Illustration:
FIG. 112. (S. 1–3.) A group of Southern types, projectile points,
Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina. It will be observed that in
form and material these are easily recognized as being different
from those from Northern and Western points. Phillips Academy
collection.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 113. (S. 1–1.) This is one of the short-stemmed, broad arrows,
the result of working a broken specimen. J. P. Smith’s collection,
Howard, Rhode Island.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 114. (S. 1–1.) Stem contracting from base; double notches; bases
concave. These forms are not rare, but occur most frequently in
Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Tennessee. H. K. Deisher’s
collection, Kutztown, Pennsylvania.
]
Fig. 122, from Dr. Barnard’s collection, Seneca, Missouri, illustrates
the best of the small Missouri points. Dr. Barnard’s collection is from
the outskirts of the Ozarks, where the art is superior to the cave art
of the Ozarks proper. The points found throughout the buffalo country do
not vary greatly, although it is possible to distinguish such points as
these from those of Texas. Fig. 105 represents Pennsylvania specimens
from Mr. Deisher’s collection, and Fig. 132, more of the interesting
Mississippi Valley spear-heads from Mr. Reeder’s exhibit. Figs. 125 and
147, Mr. L. Gibson’s collection, Schenectady, New York, give two
abnormal points, such as are occasionally found. I do not think that
such were arrow- or spear-heads, but must have been knives. It would be
impossible to shoot them with much accuracy. They are always
interesting, and I shall have more to say regarding them later. Figs.
116 and 117 present two plates from the collection of Phillips Academy,
Andover, Massachusetts. These were found generally throughout the Ohio
Valley. Careful study of them will acquaint readers with several points.
First, they are of the best workmanship. Second, they are almost
entirely of flint ridge or Tennessee nodular flint. Third, a large
proportion are rotary. Fourth, the barbs are unusually chipped and fine.
Fifth, the bases are straight, concave, and convex. Sixth, what is more
important than either stems or bases, the striking feature in these is
the barbing and notching. The tangs and shoulders are the prominent
points in these three plates—not the stems—which are of secondary
consideration. For example, in Fig. 116 the shoulders and tangs are
everything, and this will be found to be true of many flint implements.
Consider Figs. 97, 110, and 133 from the Columbia River Valley. In some
of these the stem is of importance, in others the stem is secondary to
the barbing. Fig. 114 presents typical Pennsylvania specimens from Mr.
Deisher’s collection. The central one has expanded shoulders and
represents a type more common in Pennsylvania than elsewhere. Fig. 115
is a plate of spear- and arrow-points from George Charters’s collection,
Greene County, Ohio. I wish to call attention to those seven specimens
on this plate which are marked “S,” and to refer to them in considerable
detail.
[Illustration:
FIG. 115. (S. 1–3.) Projectile points. George Charters’s collection.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 116. (S. 1–3.) Beveled spear-heads, chipped in the form known as
“rotary” points. These are selected from the collection at Andover.
They come from various portions of the Mississippi Valley, and are
all splendid examples of the skill of the master worker in stone.
Note particularly the differences in the notches and tangs. The
central one to the right has notches expanded. To make these is
extremely difficult, and although white men are able to make flint
implements, the working of the expanded notches is a lost art.
]
A MASTER AT FLINT-CHIPPING
[Illustration:
FIG. 117. Ten splendid specimens from the Mississippi Valley of
various kinds of points, all exceedingly well made. The workmanship
of these should be compared with those in other figures. Phillips
Academy collection.
]
Little attention has been paid by archæologists to ascertain an
important feature of prehistoric times. I refer to the presence in most
of the tribes of skilled workmen whose specialty seems to have been the
manufacture of certain kinds of implements. That some men were more
skillful in the making of axes or pipes, and handled bone chipping-tools
with more dexterity than others, goes without saying. If one were asked
to state what proportion of men were skillful in the art of
stone-working, no one could give a definite answer; but the searcher
finds in limited areas a particular style of flint-chipping, or a local
form of axe or pipe. These appear to have been made in the same manner,
perhaps with tools of the same pattern. The guiding hand of the master
workman is seen. Each one is stamped with individuality, therefore one
may conclude that either a certain person made these objects, or perhaps
the men of a given family made them.
[Illustration:
FIG. 118. (S. 1–1.) This is of that peculiar white or cream-colored
flint common in Iowa and northeastern Missouri. It is a fine stone.
This specimen is of a type occasionally found in Iowa and Missouri.
E. E. Baird’s collection, Poplar Bluff, Missouri.
]
Supposing that a young man who showed proficiency in flint-chipping
should at the age of twenty become so skillful that his works were in
demand. It would follow that if he were given the ordinary span of life
his period of proficiency would extend for forty years. If he retained
his health and faculties, his activity might reach fifty years. It is
also quite likely that other men, perhaps not so competent as himself,
assisted him in his work and blocked out the forms or reduced them to
convenient size for him to finish. Such a labor division as Catlin and
Sellars affirm existed, enabled the skillful worker in flint to produce
a larger number of implements than if he attempted to work his own
material from the initial stage to the completed form. His people
residing in the same village would avail themselves of his wares, giving
him in return food, or implements, or clothing. His surplus stock in all
likelihood was sent to a distance to be exchanged with other tribes.
Such a man may have selected flint of a certain color, so that the
product of his labor might be instantly recognized.
[Illustration:
FIG. 119. (S. 1–2.) This cut presents 14 specimens. These illustrate
the Texas types. As a rule they are smaller and more slender than
those from the east and southeast of Louisiana. Dr. Jack Shipley’s
collection, Pilot Point, Texas.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 120. (S. 1–2.) Typical Oregon projectile points. H. P. Hamilton’s
collection, Two Rivers, Wisconsin.
]
In order to place the evidence I have collected along these lines before
readers, I would cite the finding of twenty-two axes in one room of a
ruined pueblo, five miles south of Phoenix, Arizona, in 1897. These are
of the variety of stone and the same workmanship. Six particular
disc-pipes were found in graves at the mouth of the Wabash by Clifford
Anderson, in 1898, when exploring for the founder of the Archæology
Department of Phillips Academy. I would mention the effigy pipes found
by Squier and Davis at Mound City, a cache of forty leaf-shaped
implements, slightly different from the ordinary leaf-shaped knife of
similar material and the same workmanship, found in 1896 in a mound near
Coshocton, Ohio, the Hopewell discs, and the Hopewell sheet copper.
[Illustration:
FIG. 121. (S. 1–3.) White flint knives and arrow-heads. These are from
Michigan-Wisconsin sites and illustrate the peculiar forms obtained
there. The types are long and slender or short and broad and are
easily recognized. H. P. Hamilton’s collection, Two Rivers,
Wisconsin.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 122. (S. 1–2.) These are the finest points in the Ozark region,
where most of the types are crude. Materials: chert and quartz. At
the bottom in the centre are shown three points almost Oregon-like
in character. Attention is called to the serrated point in the
middle row. Dr. W. C. Barnard’s collection, Seneca, Missouri.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 123. (S. 1–1.) These points are different from Oregon points so
frequently shown. Materials: opalescent and white chalcedony and
mauve quartzite. These are Eastern types, but are made of Western
material. Luther A. Norland’s collection, La Jara, Colorado.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 124. (S. 1–2.) Common New Jersey forms. Stephen Van Rensselaer’s
collection, Newark, New Jersey.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 125. (S. 2–3.) A Mohawk Valley type. Langdon Gibson’s collection,
Schenectady, New York.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 126. (S. 1–7.) Twenty-eight fine spear-heads. These are from the
Ohio Valley, and present most of the forms of stemmed and barbed
objects. John T. Reeder’s collection, Houghton, Michigan.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 127. (S. 1–3.) Two symmetrical implements. Material: reddish
flint. These were found in central New Jersey, and may have been
obtained by barter or exchange. Stephen Van Rensselaer’s collection,
Newark, New Jersey.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 128. (S. 1–1.) Small, delicate obsidian points, found in a ruin,
Mesa, Arizona. Andover collection.
]
My boyhood days were spent in Greene County, Ohio, and from 1876 to
1886, and during short intervals afterwards, I diligently searched the
fields and village-sites of the Little Miami River, Cæsar’s Creek,
Massey’s Creek, Oldtown Run, and Shawnee Creek. The observations made by
a boy are of no scientific value, save in this respect—that these
hundreds of excursions, in which my mind was concentrated on flint
implements and flint workings exclusively, gave me a knowledge of a
distribution of flint implements in Greene County, Ohio, which has been
of value to me in after years. And it is fortunate that a gentleman
living in my home town, Mr. George Charters, has since collected from
farmers and boys Greene County specimens to the number of three or four
thousand. As his collection contains no objects of consequence outside
of Greene County, one may obtain from that exhibit the proof of my
contention that in Greene County, within a radius of ten miles of Xenia,
Ohio, in any direction, there were, perhaps, three or four men who were
exceedingly skillful in the manufacture of large spear-heads or
lance-points of Flint Ridge material. These are somewhat different from
other spear-heads and may be easily recognized. They are of white
chalcedony, and are mottled and veined with pink or red or grey. They
are usually made of the most beautiful stone to be found in the Flint
Ridge quarries. They are not only oval, but if turned on edge one will
observe that they are exceedingly symmetrical, being a fourth to as much
as one third inch in thickness in the centre and yet tapering to an edge
almost as thin as a knife-blade entirely around. The notches are evenly
and deeply cut, the shoulders and tangs in sharp relief. No large flakes
were detached from these implements during the final stages of
manufacture; on the contrary, small minute scales or flakes were thrown
off, and the finished specimen is as delicately worked as the average
obsidian point from the Willamette Valley in Oregon.
[Illustration:
FIG. 129. (S. 1–1 and 3–4.) The large white spear-head is a little
over nine inches long and was found near Marion, Grant County,
Indiana. It is composed of white flint, slightly mottled. The small
arrow-head was found near Laramie, Wyoming. The picture shows the
exact size. This arrow-head presents wonderful workmanship. The
point is almost as fine as a needle and the chipping is regular,
clear to the point. It is of a dark amber color and the spots on it
are moss-agate. The arrow-head is translucent. Collection of H. F.
Burket, Findlay, Ohio.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 130. (S. 1–2.) Two spear-heads from near Orange, New Jersey.
Stephen Van Rensselaer’s collection, Newark, New Jersey.
]
Both Catlin and Sellars have said that the knowledge of cleavage in
stone is an acquired art. We have in modern times the lapidary who works
semi-precious as well as precious stones. He must understand the texture
of every stone he works. So with the lapidary who worked carnelian,
agate, and chalcedony—which are semi-precious stones.
No ordinary aboriginal workman made these specimens. They were the work
of an artist who was a lapidary. He was an expert in selecting his
material and he was an expert in bringing it to completion. In color and
shape these specimens reminded me as a boy of a certain sun-fish in the
streams in that part of Ohio, and we used to call them “sun-fish spears”
to distinguish them from the others.
[Illustration:
FIG. 131. (S. 1–2.) Flint arrow-heads, spear-points, and knives from
eastern Wisconsin. These interesting specimens represent eight
types. All of them are of superior workmanship. The beautiful
leaf-shaped object below the top row is especially fine. The
irregular form in the centre to the right is very rare. H. P.
Hamilton’s collection, Two Rivers, Wisconsin.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 132. (S. 1–6.) 50 flint implements from the collection of John T.
Reeder, Houghton, Michigan. These are from various portions of the
Ohio Valley and Tennessee. The flint fish-hook is a rare specimen.
The two objects in the lower line near the middle are interesting,
in that the stems are very long and the points exceedingly short.
This may be intentional or not. It may be that the objects were
broken and then re-chipped.
]
There are examples of the work of these artisans in near-by sections of
Ohio, but they are most common in Ross, Warren, Clinton, and Greene
counties. I never heard of them in Indiana or Kentucky. From the number
of them found I venture the opinion that the art was handed down through
several generations, for I do not believe that two or three men could
have made them all. Furthermore, there are other specimens of this same
peculiar pattern to be found in southern Ohio. These, while creditably
done, are not the work of an artist. The famous workmen may have had
imitators, or they may have attempted to train others in order that the
art might be perpetuated. Be that as it may, the other implements bear
the same relationship to these beautiful products as does a copy made by
an amateur of a famous painting to the work of the great artist himself.
Readers are requested to study carefully the style, form, and chipping
of these “S”-marked specimens shown in Fig. 115.
[Illustration:
FIG. 133. (S. 1–2.) Arrow-points from Oregon and Washington. H. P.
Hamilton’s collection, Two Rivers, Wisconsin.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 134. (S. 1–1.) In this illustration are shown six different
types. Note that the Colorado types are large like the Eastern, and
yet are made of fine agate, chalcedony, and obsidian. The
workmanship in these is better than the average because the material
is more easily worked than Eastern flint or quartz. Collection of
Luther A. Norland, La Jara, Colorado.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 135. (S. 1–1.) Long, serrated obsidian spear-head from
California. A rare type as to size and form. H. K. Deisher’s
collection, Kutztown, Pennsylvania.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 136. (S. 1–2.) Serrated types from California. H. K. Deisher’s
collection, Kutztown, Pennsylvania.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 137. (S. 1–2.) This figure shows a series of 39 chipped
implements. These were found in various portions of Kentucky, and
are in the collection of Bennett H. Young, Louisville, Kentucky.
Because of the number shown, readers might infer that they are
common. Such is not the case. Colonel Young was many years in
collecting these specimens and they are selected after an
examination of fifteen or twenty thousand chipped objects, if not
more. They represent both the skill of the worker and individual
fancy.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 138. (S. 1–2.) Arrow-heads, spear-heads, and a drill, which were
found on the Mandan sites, on the banks of the Missouri River, North
Dakota, by Mr. Steinbrueck. Material: dark agate. Phillips Academy
collection. Presented by Edward H. Williams.
]
And there are many places in the United States where types that stand
for the lifework of a family or of an individual, or let us say of the
grandfather, and then the father, and following him the son, may be
found. All of this is not opinion merely. To the man who states that all
projectile points are alike,—and, surprising as that statement is, I
have heard a number make it who should know better,—the spears referred
to might seem identical with the yellow chert spears of Illinois. But if
one is seriously interested in archæology let him examine an exhibit
from a given locality, and I think that he will soon come to the belief
that in that locality there lived one or more persons whose specialty
was the manufacture of a certain type of implement made in a way that
was clearly individual; and the man, or men, who made them were artists
beyond question.
[Illustration:
FIG. 139. (S. 2–3.) This remarkable problematical form in obsidian was
found near Highland Springs, California. The serrations are worked
in high relief. Professor Putnam saw the original, and pronounced it
genuine, and compared a similar type from a grave near one of the
great Maya ruins in Yucatan. Collection of E. E. Baird, Poplar
Bluff, Missouri.
]
Figs. 110 to 134 show groups from various localities in the United
States including specimens under various classifications previously
described. Attention is called to the central specimen in the upper row
of Fig. 110. It is a long, thin, leaf-like blade, slightly notched at
one end. Fig. 95 presents several serrated Oregon points; and Fig. 138
shows nine objects from the Mandan village-sites, North Dakota. The
Mandan points are nearly all triangular in form with square bases. That
is, before being notched or barbed they were stemmed square, or at one
end angular, and seldom with convex sides. Then the notches were cut,
giving the appearance of a war-point with notches.
A few Mandan objects have concave bases, prominent shoulders, or barbs,
but the most of them were of the form shown in the lower specimen in
Fig. 138.