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,19 however,
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,25 completely
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. Snyder29 excavated
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.
Snyder31 also 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 1/4 section
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 1/4 section 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
1/4 inches 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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