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Shell Trumpet from Arizona

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Henry J. Boekelman*
Affiliation:
Dept. of Middle American Research, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana

Extract

Among the shells sent us for examination by Mr. Emil W. Haury, which were found in a Snaketown ruin of Hohokam culture (Gila River, Arizona), there is a partly-broken specimen of a west coast conch (Strombus galeatus Wood), No. 46,652. The only workmanship shown is the grinding down of the tip of the apex or spire of the shell, the hole thus formed permitting the blowing of the unbroken specimen (Figure 2). A slight sound still can be obtained upon blowing into the shell. The cracked condition of the porcelaneous texture of the shell with traces of blackened surface in places indicates its having passed through a conflagration. The pitted condition, due to sea-worm borings, clearly gives evidence that the shell was originally a “dead” or beach-worn specimen.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1936

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References

25 Identification by Mr. Howard Hill of the Los Angeles Museum.

26 Henry R. Howland, Recent Archaeological Discoveries in the American Bottom, Bulletin Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences. Vol. I l l , No. 5, 1877.