What were Indian Bannerstones used for?

What were Indian Bannerstones used for?

Bannerstone…

C. Bannerstones are weights for spear-throwers, the long shafts that propelled the actual darts, thus extending the thrower’s reach. In use in North America for some 3,000 years beginning in the fourth millennium B.C., bannerstones took many and varied forms.

What’s an Indian Bannerstone?

“Bannerstone” is the name given to a variety of beautifully-crafted stone artifacts. The majority were made from slate and they range from simple hollow tubes to elaborate winged forms. Some bannerstones likely served as weights or decorations for the atlatl.

What is a Native American Birdstone?

Bird stones are prehistoric, abstract stone carvings made by Native Americans. The artifacts were a common inclusion in graves and thought to have ceremonial importance. The smooth surface of the stone is perfect for flattening fibers without breaking and the beak feature used to push reeds together.

What is an Indian gorget?

Shell gorgets are a Native American art form of polished, carved shell pendants worn around the neck. The gorgets are frequently engraved, and are sometimes highlighted with pigments, or fenestrated (pierced with openings).

What is a nutting stone?

Nutting stones are a fairly common artifact found throughout most of Georgia. These are unusually shaped stones with one or more shallow cupped spots on one or more surfaces (top). It is assumed that these impressions of multiple sizes were for the cracking of hard shelled nuts like walnuts or hickory nuts.

What is a Popeye Birdstone?

Also, the popeyes are large on the top of his head, and the form tapers into his head. And the bodies are usually long and slender, but with this, the body expands into a circular form, and a tail that widens to a fantail, and tips up. This birdstone was found in 1950. The Smithsonian birdstone was discovered in 1882.

Did Native Americans carve stone?

There is abundant archaeological evidence at the America’s Stonehenge (formerly Mystery Hill) Site that Native Americans quarried, shaped and carved stones. Percussion, pecking and abrading are all techniques well documented as being used by Native Americans to produce lithic tools and projectile points.

How can I tell if my pottery shards are Native American?

Pots made from lining baskets with clay have a distinctive texture to the outside of the shard. Indentations left from fibers and woven basket designs show up on some shards. Examine the decoration on the outside of the shard. Look for designs in different colors and if there was a glaze used.

How do you identify hammerstone?

Hammerstones can be identified by their battered appearance that differs from the stones’ natural weather-worn state. The degree of battering varies from a very slight pitting on the edge to a complete reshaping of the surface.

What does a gorget look like?

A gorget is a metal neck piece, lunette or crescent-shaped, usually made of silver or gilded brass. Until the end of the 18th century gorgets were worn by many officers in many countries as symbols of rank. During this period the gorget was suspended around the neck by a chain or ribbon.

What is a humpback gorget?

Humped gorgets are rare artifacts which probably date to the Glacial Kame culture of 4,000 years before present. Many humped gorgets are made of banded slate, but raw materials also in- clude dense black slate, quartzite, and siltstone.