axe; tool/implement

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Object Type: axe; tool/implement
Museum number: Am.9747
Description: Axe/implement made of hornstone (flint/chert), a roughly percussion flaked, ovate bi-face, probably unfinished.
Cultures/periods: Hopewell; Middle Woodland Period
Production date: 200BC-400
Excavator/field collector: Excavated by: Ephraim George Squier (?); Excavated by: Edwin Hamilton Davis (?)
Findspot: Excavated/Findspot: Hopewell Mound Group, Mound 2
Materials: hornstone; flint; chert
Technique
Dimensions: Length: 13.50 centimetres; Thickness: 4 centimetres; Width: 9.50 centimetres
Curator's comments: The implement is marked: "Mound No.2, Clark's Works. W.B. 8/71".Clark's Works was the original name of the site currently referred to as the Hopewell Mound Group. Clark was the owner during the 1840s when Squier and Davis were conducting survey and excavation of the site. Warren Moorehead gave the earthwork its current name, Hopewell, during his excavations in the 1890s, again after the then owner. This is probably one of a number of discoidal implements from Mound 2 of the Hopewell Mound Group Davis sold to Blackmore. The group came from a deposit of almost six hundred similar implements, positioned on end, in two layers, at a location within the mound where normally there would be an altar (Squier and Davis' description)or cremation surface. Squier and Davis estimated there would be a further 3500 implements if excavation extended beyond their 6' x 4' feet trench. Moorehead later found the deposit to be some 26 feet in diameter and recovered a further 7,232 "discs", placed intermittently in heaps across the area, all two layers deep and covered with sand.
Bibliographic references: Stevens 1870 / Flint Chips: A Guide to Prehistoric Archaeology as Illustrated in the Blackmore Museum, Salisbury. (P.439 - 447); Squier & Davis 1848 / Ancient Monuments of the Ohio Valley (P.26-29, 158, 214 & Pl. X); Moorehead 1922 / The Hopewell Mound Group of Ohio (pp.95-96, pl. XLII & XLIII)
Location: Not on display
Acquisition name
Acquisition date: 1876
Department: Africa, Oceania and the Americas
Registration number: Am.9747
Additional IDs: CDMS number: Am1876C1.9747 (old CDMS no.); Miscellaneous number: Am1876C0416.2-4

Free entry

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