Three Woodland to Mississippian Stone Tools

Native American, Woodland to Mississippian. A trio of ground and flaked stone implements attesting to the enduring toolcraft of the eastern North American woodlands. The tan sandstone discoidal, smoothly rounded and disc-like, likely served in gaming or grinding, its worn faces polished by handling and use. Beside it rests a three-quarter grooved axe head, its dark igneous body pecked and ground to a bit at one end, the encircling groove hafted to a wooden handle for felling and woodworking. The third piece, a dark flaked hand tool, retains bold conchoidal scars where a knapper struck flakes to shape a working edge, likely a chopper or scraper. Together they span the domestic and utilitarian labor of everyday life, tools of subsistence and craft carried across generations of forest-dwelling peoples from the Woodland through Mississippian periods. The three-quarter grooved axe is a diagnostic form of the eastern woodlands, its groove encircling three sides of the poll to receive a bent-wood or socketed haft, an advance in hafting efficiency over the earlier full-grooved types. Discoidals, meanwhile, are among the more debated artifacts of the region: many are associated with the game of chunkey, in which players rolled a stone disc and cast spears toward its predicted stopping point, a contest of skill and ritual significance that spread widely during the Mississippian florescence. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids. Item # 203385

Estimate:£168.19

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