Ohio History Journal

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THE POSSIBLE CULTURAL AFFILIATION OF

THE POSSIBLE CULTURAL AFFILIATION OF

FLINT DISK CACHES

 

By H. HOLMES ELLIS

 

Over a period of some seventy-five years archaeological pub-

lications have carried occasional references to finds of unused cir-

cular or ovoid, flat, roughly-chipped blanks of flint buried in what

have been termed "ceremonial" or "storage" caches. The Lithic

Laboratory for the Eastern United States at the Museum of the

Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society has been able

to locate, by means of an examination of the literature, coupled

with field work, correspondence, and the generous cooperation of

various individuals and institutions throughout the area, sixty-

three of these cache finds, fifteen of them previously unreported.*

It is intended here to point out the possible cultural affiliation,

namely Hopewellian, to which these finds may be assigned.

The logical starting point, in view of the fact that it was

the earliest, and, to date, the largest reported find, is with the

cache originally discovered by Ephraim G. Squier and Edwin

H. Davis at Clark's Works, now known as the Hopewell Mound

Group, in Ross County, Ohio.

Squier and Davis reported 33?? that one of the mounds

has two sand strata; but instead of an altar, there are two layers of disks

chipped out of hornstone, some nearly round, others in the form of spear-

heads. They are of various sizes, but are for the most part about six inches

long, by four wide, and three-quarters of an inch or an inch in thickness.

They were placed side by side, a little reclining and one layer resting im-

mediately on the other. Out of an excavation six feet long by four wide,

not far from six hundred were thrown.

In 1891, W. K. Moorehead re-dug this mound, which he

called Mound No. 2, for the World's Columbian Exposition.

Moorehead actually removed 7,232 disks (Plate I, Figs. 1-2.), but

 

* A summary covering each of the previously unreported finds will be found

appended hereto.

?? Arabic numerals refer to corresponding numerals in the bibliography appended.

(III)