Ohio History Journal

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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)

112 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

including those removed by Squier and Davis and those collected

by others in the immediate vicinity the number is brought up to

8,18₅. Dr. Moorehead,¹⁹however, refutes the earlier report of the

position of the disks in the mound and asserts that he

found the disks lying in little pockets or bunches of twelve to fifteen each

with layers of sand around each mass. The deposits covered an area, nearly

circular in form, of twenty-two feet by twenty-six feet. The builders of the

structure had apparently carried in their hands and arms all the disks they

could transport readily and deposited them upon the same level, while others

of their friends poured sand between and over each man's deposit. Having

completed so much of the mound, a second series of deposits was made

exactly like the first.

The final excavation of Hopewell Mound No. 2 was under-

taken by H. C. Shetrone in 1922-25. Shetrone,²⁵completely

uncovering the site, found five burials accompanied by many arti-

facts, a crematory basin, and "a number of perfect and broken

disks--perhaps a hundred in all." Thus the total number of disks

obtained from the site is approximately 8,28₅. The material from

which the disks were fashioned will be considered later in the

discussion. For the position of the specimens in the mound, it

seems most logical to accept Moorehead's account, since he directed

the uncovering of the main body of the disks.

In 1894, Dr. J. F. Snyder²⁹excavated Mound No. 1 of the

Raehr Group, on the west side of the Illinois River, thirteen

miles below Beardstown, and opposite the mouth of Indian Creek.

At the base of the mound was an oval of clay on which

was a mass of black hornstone implements, that apparently had been thrown

down in lots of 6 to 20, with sand over and between each lot, as though to

isolate them from each other. This deposit of 6,199 flints was covered with

a stratum of clay, 10 inches in thickness; and on this a fire had been main-

tained for some time, in which a few bodies, or skeletons, had been cre-

mated. . . . The flints forming the nucleus of this mound are very . . .

rudely fashioned; some are quite neatly finished, but the greater part of them

are only chipped and ill-shaped. The pattern to which they were aimed is

the mulberry leaf, pointed at one end and round at the other. . . . The material

from which they were wrought is glossy, black hornstone, occurring in

nodules, not yet found anywhere in this state. . . . In dimensions they will

average 7 inches in length by 4 in width; nearly an inch thick in the middle

and chipped to an edge all around.

ELLIS: FLINT DISK CACHES 113

These specimens (Plate I, Fig. 3.), except for a few, do not

conform in size or shape to the general type found in Hopewell

Mound No. 2, although they do seem to be unused blanks.

Gerald Fowke11 in 1905 working for the Missouri Historical

Society, excavated Mound No.¹ of the Montezuma Group, on the

farm of N. D. McEvers, west and south of Montezuma, Pike

County, Illinois.

Twenty-two feet down [in the mound] was encountered decayed wood

and bark several inches in thickness. Under this layer was a burial cist or

crib 15 feet from north to south, 7 feet east to west, and 20 inches high.

. . . The bottom of the cist was a layer of bark which had been placed on

the original surface. On this as a floor, covering nearly the entire space

enclosed, rested 1,197 chipped leaf-shaped blades, three and one-half to six

inches long, three to four and one-half inches in breath .... Most of them

are white or nearly so; some are red or pink, others a mingling of white,

black and red, in varying proportions . . . Not a single concretionary for-

mation exists in the entire lot, the material being the chert so abundant in

this geological formation, or stone of the same nature from other localities.

The disks described above seem to be of the same shape and size

as those found in the Havana Group, noted hereinafter.

Moorehead18 calls attention to the find of disks (Plate I,

Fig. 5.) in Mound No. 6 of the Havana Group at Havana, Mason

County, Illinois, on the land of Mrs. Anna Neteler:

A total of one hundred and thirty-seven large flint disks were found

in Mound No. 6. They occurred in five distinct groups; all of which were

associated with burials with the exception of one. All the disks were on

a single level approximately two feet from the surface of the mound.13

Of this same group R. G. Morgan and J. B. Griffin¹3 mention that

the disks from Mound No. 6 seem to be quite similar to those found in the

various Illinois sites and to those from the Hopewell Mound Group in Ohio.

They are made of a blue-gray nodular flint which may have come from the

well-known Wyandotte quarries in southern Indiana or from similar deposits

located in Kentucky and Tennessee.

The four caches mentioned up to this point, Hopewell, Baehr,

Montezuma, and Havana, are the only ones, out of sixty-three

finds, that can be said to be unquestionably Hopewellian. It has

been pointed out that the disks from all of these caches are similar

in shape and size, except for a part of the Baehr specimens.

114 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

The blanks from the Hopewell and Havana groups were very

probably made from the nodular flint occurring in Harrison

County, Indiana.?? This flint has several distinctive characteristics

which facilitate a megascopic identification. Its color is blue-gray

to black on a freshly exposed surface, becoming lighter gray

on weathering; the outside of a nodule is covered with a whitish

crust of weathered flint,?? known as tripoli, and this crust is often

apparent on the artifacts; the flint is fine-grained, glossy, and very

homogeneous; and in the majority of cases concentric bands or

rings may be discerned which serve to distinguish the material

from bedded flint.� The same horizon of flint nodules appearing

in Harrison County, Indiana, is exposed in Crawford County, In-

diana, in the Wyandotte Caves, but it is absurd to believe that

the aborigines would spend much time and effort in extracting

nodules from solid limestone, when similar nodules occur in a

red clay, entirely exposed, a few miles away. Fowke describes

the Montezuma find as being of local material and, although these

specimens have not been examined, Fowke's analysis is probably

correct. Examination of the Baehr material has not disclosed its

origin, but it can be said with some assurance that it did not

originate in Harrison County, Indiana. Thus there are, out of

15,818 Hopewellian disks, 8,422 made from Harrison County,

Indiana, flint and 7,396 made from other materials. Examination

of the records of sixty-three caches gives us a total of 23,799

disks found. Of these 66.4% are known Hopewell specimens,

and 35.3% are made from the Indiana flint.

There are also a few finds which, having indications of being

Hopewellian, will be considered in some detail. Snyder31 re-

ported a deposit of disks found in Frederickville (now Fred-

erick), Schuyler County, Illinois, in 1860.

3,500 of the unique implements . . . had been buried about five feet

below the surface of the hillside, laid together on edge, side by side in long

rows, forming a single layer of unknown extent. The stone of which these

disks are made is a dark, glossy hornstone, undistinguishable from the disks

?? It may be noted that in 1938 the author found a broken disk on a workshop

site in western Harrison County, Indiana.

?? The Lithic Laboratory hopes at some future time to make a careful micro-

scopic examination of this flint to supplement the present study.

ELLIS: FLINT DISK CACHES 115

of the sacrificial mound in Ohio, and, like that deposit, these Frederickville

flints had been buried without having been used.

Snyder³¹also describes the Beardstown, Cass County, Illi-

nois, cache which was located in 1872. Here approximately 1,500

disks (Plate I, Fig. 4.) were secured

about 300 yards up the bank of the stream from [a] large mound. An

excavation about 5 feet deep had been made through the sand to the drift

clay, and, instead of being placed on edge, as in the two other deposits [i. e.

Hopewell and Frederickville], a layer of the disks had been placed flat on

the clay, with points up stream, and overlapping each other as shingles are

arranged on a roof. Over the first layer of flints was a stratum of clay 2

inches in thickness; then another layer of flints was arranged as the first,

over which was spread another 2-inch stratum of clay, and so on, until the

deposit comprised five series or layers of flints, when the whole was covered

with sand. . . . The flints from this lot are identical in material, color,

style of execution, and general outline and dimensions with those I have

seen from the deposits at Frederickville and Clark's Works [Hopewell

Group] in Ohio. None of these bore any marks of wear or use.

J. Gilbert McAllister17 in 1932 recorded a cache of disks

which were plowed up on the farm of Albert Weise in Porter

County, Indiana. The cache was two hundred and twenty-five

feet slightly north of west of the Weise Mound, a Hopewellian

mound.

Twenty-four of these blades were found buried side by side at a

depth of approximately one-half foot. They average about 5.75 by 3.75

inches and were .38 inch thick. The flint . . . is dark in color and fine

grained. They appear to be somewhat similar to the "ceremonial disks"

found by Moorehead and Shetrone [Hopewell Group].

Now considering the three possibilities described above, it

is apparent that in all three cases the disks are pictured as being

of the same shape, size, and material as those from Hopewell

Mound No. 2. In addition, for the Weise find there is a definite

Hopewell affinity with the near-by mound; the mound at Beards-

town was noted by Snyder as being one of the largest and finest

mounds in Illinois before it was graded down. The position in

situ of the Frederickville find is reminiscent of the Hopewell.

If, on the basis of these similarities, these last three caches were

included in the Hopewellian group, then of all the disks found

116 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

in sixty-three caches, these seven would represent 87.5% of the

total, and 56.5% of the total are of Harrison County flint.

Considering the remaining fifty-six caches as a group, it has

been found that fourteen, representing 807 disks, were manufac-

tured from what is probably Harrison County flint. Including

these fourteen finds with the Harrison County blanks from Hope-

well, Havana, Beardstown, Frederickville, and the Weise farm,

it is found that 59.9% of the total 23,799 disks located to date are

of Harrison County, Indiana, flint. This leaves forty-two caches

which may or may not be made from this unique material. The

specimens are difficult to locate and even more difficult to obtain

for examination, particularly when they are in private collections.

With regard to the foregoing data it may now be said that

the preponderance of disks located to date are Hopewellian

(66.4%), with good basis for placing them even higher (87.5%).

The strictly Hopewellian disks made from Harrison County flint

make a fairly good showing by themselves (35.3%), but com-

bined with the other three finds for which there seems to be sat-

isfactory proof of affiliation, the percentage is boosted to over

half of the total finds (56.5%).

If, with the last named figure are included the other four-

teen caches with disks apparently made of Harrison County flint,

the percentage is slightly raised (59.9%).

In conclusion the facts may be summarized: there are no

records of disks found in any cultural affiliation aside from the

Hopewellian; the majority of the disks are positively known to be

Hopewellian; and the majority of the disks were manufactured

exclusively from Devonian flint nodules exposed in stream cuts,

bedded in a leached limestone red clay, in the western half of

Harrison County, Indiana. In view of the evidence presented

it is a simple step to the conclusion that there is a probable Hope-

well indication in every cache of flint disks of the type discussed

in this paper. Bearing this in mind, the archaeologist, by a careful

examination of the locale and conditions of all future discoveries

of similar artifacts, might find ample cultural evidence of abo-

riginal occupation by Hopewellian peoples.

ELLIS: FLINT DISK CACHES 117

Disk Caches Previously Unreported.

ILLINOIS

Location: Franklin County northeast of Benton in west 1/2 of NW 1/4

of SW 1/4 section 29, T.5, R.³ E. Reported by: Irvin Peithman; cache

found by D. E. Bain in 1912. Number: 111. Position in situ: Stacked

flat in a pile about 18 inches in diameter, 10 inches below surface. Shape:

Leaf-shaped. Material: Union County, Illinois, nodular flint. Collection

of: Dr. Gore, Benton, Illinois; Lithic Laboratory (Cat. No. 1784).

Location: Jackson County, near Carbondale, NW 1/4 of SW 1/4section

12, Markanda Township, T.¹⁰ S., R.¹ W., on John Holiday farm, now the

Frost farm. Reported by: J. D. Middleton and Irvin Peithman; found

by Al Deck in 1898. Number: 46. Position in situ: Buried in a circular

pile with one lapped over another. Size: Average 4 by 6 inches. Shape:

Circular to ovoid. Material: Harrison County, Indiana, flint. Collection

of: U. S. National Museum (Cat. No. 88505); Lithic Laboratory (Cat.

No. 1665); Irvin Peithman, Carbondale, Illinois.

INDIANA

Location; Clark County, Monroe Township on John S. Scholl farm.

Reported by: J. L. Scholl. Number: 113. Position in situ: In group

forming a circle, flat side down. Size: Range from 11cm. to 16cm. in

length, 5cm. to 11cm. in width. Shape: Roughly oval. Material: Harrison

County, Indiana, flint. Collection of: Indiana Historical Society (Cat.

No. 119/463); on loan to Lithic Laboratory.

Location: Clark County, one mile directly south of Henryville. Re-

ported by: D. E. Lewellen. Number: 60. Position in situ: In cache

buried at base of tree, stump blasting exposed the specimens. Size: 3 to 4

inches in diameter. Shape: Circular. Material: Harrison County, Indiana,

flint. Collection of: Indiana State Museum, Thomas W. Freeman col-

lection.

Location: Decatur County. Reported by: Glenn A. Black; found in

1905. Number: 7. Position in situ: Cache. Size: Average 15cm. in

length. Shape: Roughly circular. Material: Harrison County, Indiana,

flint. Collection of: Indiana Historical Society (Cat. No. 14/313); on

loan to Lithic Laboratory.

Location: Decatur County. Reported by: Glenn A. Black; found in

1890. Number: 35. Position in situ: Cache. Size: Average size 10cm.

in length. Shape: Oval to hyperelliptical. Material: Harrison County,

Indiana, flint. Collection of: Indiana Historical Society (Cat. No. 14/312);

on loan to Lithic Laboratory.

Location: Jackson County. Reported by: N. C. Nelson; find made

by W. H. Levette. Number: 140. Shape: Leaf-shaped. Material: Flint.

Collection of: American Museum of Natural History (Cat. No. T/1359-

1361).

118 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

Location: Jefferson County, Hiram Foster farm, NE 1/4section 15,

T.⁴ N., R.⁹ E., near Madison. Reported by: Glen Culbertson; find made

in 1922. Number: 90. Size: 5 to 10 inches, 3 to 6 inches wide. Shape:

Leaf-shaped. Material: Harrison County, Indiana, flint. Collection of:

Hanover College, Hanover, Indiana(?).

Location: St. Joseph County, Lincoln Township. Number: 4. Posi-

tion in situ: Cache. Size: 5 to 6 1/4inches long, 3 to 4 inches wide. Shape:

Leaf-shaped. Material: Harrison County, Indiana, flint. Collection of:

Northern Indiana Historical Society, South Bend, R. T. Miller and Schuell

collections.

Location: Shelby County. Reported by: Glenn A. Black; find made

in 1901. Number; 13. Position in situ: Cache. Size: Average 12cm.

in length. Shape: Range from ovates to hyperellipticals. Material: Har-

rison County, Indiana, flint. Collection of: Indiana Historical Society (Cat.

No. 14/314); on loan to Lithic Laboratory.

Location: Washington County, one mile west of Pekin. Number: 35.

Position in situ: Standing in three rows in undisturbed soil. Size: A trifle

smaller on average than the Hopewell Mound disks. Shape: Leaf-shaped,

pointed at one end, rounded at other. Material: Harrison County, Indiana,

flint. Collection of: Milwaukee Public Museum, on exhibit.

Location: Washington County. Reported by: Glenn A. Black;

found on Blue River Spring in 1883. Number: 77. Position in situ:

Cache. Size: Range from 11 to 15cm. long, 6.5 to 10.5cm. wide. Shape:

Leaf-shaped. Material: Harrison County, Indiana, flint. Collection of: In-

diana Historical Society (Cat. No. 119/462); on loan to Lithic Laboratory.

Location: Washington County, Polk Township, 1/2 mile north of River

Road up Peeler Creek at north end of field on Fred Fitzpatrick farm.

Reported by: Oscar Sifers who found them about 40 years ago. Number:

30 or more. Position in situ: Stacked up overlapping in a circle as big

as a 10 gallon bucket. Size: Roughly the same shape and size as a man's

hand. Material: Harrison County, Indiana, flint(?).

Location: Washington County, Pierce Township, on south edge of

corporation limits of New Pekin, near Blue River. Reported by: Alfred

Johnson; plowed up by Jesse Schamel. Number: 62. Position in situ:

Some placed vertically with points down and close together; these were

flanked by others forming a border; while a few others stuck out at right

angles to those bordering, giving a sun effect. Size: 5 to 6 inches long,

3 to 4 inches wide. Shape: Leaf-shaped. Material: Harrison County,

Indiana, flint. Collection of: Alfred Johnson, Pekin, Indiana.

MICHIGAN

Location: Branch County, at Lake of the Woods. Reported by: Nels

C. Nelson. Number: 63. Position in situ: Cache. Size: Large chipped

blades. Material: Flint. Collection of: American Museum of Natural

History (Cat. No. 20.1/6600-63).

ELLIS: FLINT DISK CACHES 119

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