Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:43:19.576Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Chert hoes as digging tools

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

George R. Milner ,
Scott W. Hammerstedt  and
Kirk D. French
George R. Milner*
Affiliation:
1Department of Anthropology, 409 Carpenter Building, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
Scott W. Hammerstedt
Affiliation:
2Oklahoma Archaeological Survey, University of Oklahoma, 111 E. Chesapeake Street, Norman, OK 73019, USA
Kirk D. French
Affiliation:
1Department of Anthropology, 409 Carpenter Building, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

What type of implement was used to cut and move earth in prehistory? In the Mississippian culture at least, the key tool was the stone hoe – formed from a chert blade strapped to a handle. These blades were hoarded and depicted in use, leaving little doubt that they were for digging, in the service of agriculture and extracting earth for building. Drawing on a series of controlled experiments, the authors deduce the capabilities and biographies of the stone hoes, evoking the admirable efforts of the people who constructed the massive mounds of Cahokia.

Keywords

MississippianCahokiaexperimental archaeologyMill Creek chertchipped stone hoe
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 84 , Issue 323 , March 2010 , pp. 103 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aaberg, S. & Bonsignore, J.. 1975. A consideration of time and labor expenditure in the construction process at the Teotihuacan pyramid and the Poverty Point mound, in Graham, J.A. & Heizer, R.F. (ed.) Three papers on Mesoamerican archaeology (Contributions of the University of California Archaeological Research Facility 24): 40–78. Berkeley (CA): University of California, Department of Anthropology.Google Scholar
Abrams, E.M. 1994. How the Maya built their world: energetics and ancient architecture. Austin (TX): University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Abrams, E. & Bolland, T.W.. 1999. Architectural energetics, ancient monuments, and operations management. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 6: 263–291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abrams, E. & Le Rouge, M.F.. 2008. Political complexity and mound construction among the early and late Adena of the Hocking Valley, Ohio, in Otto, M.P. & Redmond, B.G. (ed.) Transitions: Archaic and Early Woodland research in the Ohio country: 214–231. Athens (OH): Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Andersen, N.H. 1997. The Sarup enclosures. Moesgaard: Jysk Arkæologisk Selskab.Google Scholar
Ashbee, P. 1966. The FusselL's Lodge long barrow excavations 1957. Archaeologia 100: 1–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, R.J.C. 1961. Neolithic engineering. Antiquity 35: 292–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernardini, W. 2004. Hopewell geometric earthworks: a case study in the referential and experiential meaning of monuments. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23: 331–356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blitz, J.H. & Livingood, P.. 2004. Sociopolitical implications of Mississippian mound volume. American Antiquity 69: 291–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, J.A., Kerber, R.A. & Winters, H.D.. 1990. Trade and the evolution of exchange relations at the beginning of the Mississippian period, in Smith, B.D. (ed.) The Mississippian emergence: 251–280. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, T.N. 1959. Choctaw subsistence: ethnographic notes from the Lincecum manuscript. Florida Anthropologist 12: 9–24.Google Scholar
Charles, D.K., Van Nest, J. & Buikstra, J.E.. 2004. From the earth: minerals and meaning in the Hopewellian world, in Boivin, N. & Owoc, M.A. (ed.) Soils, stones and symbols: cultural perceptions of the mineral world: 43–70. London: UCL Press.Google Scholar
Cobb, C.R. 2000. From quarry to cornfield: the political economy of Mississippian hoe production. Tuscaloosa (AL): University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Collins, J.M. & Chalfant, M.L.. 1993. A second-terrace perspective on Monks Mound. American Antiquity 58: 319–332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curwen, E.C. 1926. On the use of scapulae as shovels. Sussex Archaeological Collections 67: 139–145.Google Scholar
Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE). 1957. Manual labour and its more effective use in competition with machines for earthwork in the ECAFE region. E/CN.11/WRD/Conf.3/L.1. United Nations Economic and Social Council.Google Scholar
Emerson, T.E. & Jackson, D.K.. 1984. The BBB Motor site (FAI-270 Site Reports 6). Urbana (IL): University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Emerson, T.E. & Woods, W.I.. 1990. The slumping of the great knob: an archaeological and geotechnic case study of the stability of a great earthen mound, in 6th International Conference on the Conservation of Earthen Architecture, 1990, Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA (Adobe 90 Preprints): 219–224. Los Angeles (CA): The Getty Conservation Institute.Google Scholar
Erasmus, C.J. 1965. Monument building: some field experiments. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 21: 277–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, J.G. & Limbrey, S.. 1974. The experimental earthwork on Morden Bog, Wareham, Dorset, England: 1963 to 1972. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 40: 170–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fecht, W.G. 1951. A cache of eight flint spades. Journal of the Illinois State Archaeological Society 2: 85–86.Google Scholar
Fowler, M.L. 1997. The Cahokia atlas. Revised edition (Studies in Archaeology 2). Urbana (IL): Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program, University of Illinois.Google Scholar
Fox, A.L. 1876. Excavations in Cissbury Camp, Sussex. The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 5: 357–390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillette, H.P. 1920. Earthwork and its cost. Third edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Gonlin, N. 1993. Rural household archaeology at Copan, Honduras. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Pennsylvania State University.Google Scholar
Greber, N.B. 2006. Enclosures and communities in Ohio Hopewell, in Charles, D.K. & Buikstra, J.E. (ed.) Recreating Hopewell: 74–105. Gainesville (FL): University Press of Florida.Google Scholar
Hammerstedt, S.W. 2005. Mississippian construction, labor, and social organization in western Kentucky. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Pennsylvania State University.Google Scholar
Hard, R.J., Zapata, J.E., Moses, B.K. & Roney, J.R.. 1999. Terrace construction in northern Chihuahua, Mexico: 1150 BC and modern experiments. Journal of Field Archaeology 26: 129–146.Google Scholar
Harn, A.D. 1994. Variation in Mississippian settlement patterns: the Larson settlement system in the central Illinois River Valley (Reports of Investigations 50). Springfield (IL): Illinois State Museum.Google Scholar
Heaney, S. 2000. Beowulf. New York: W.W.Norton.Google Scholar
Holmes, W.H. 1919. Handbook of aboriginal American antiquities (Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 60). Washington (DC): Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Hudson, C. 1976. The Southeastern Indians. Knoxville (TN): University of Tennessee Press.Google Scholar
Hurst, J.T. 1899. A handbook of formulae, tables, and memoranda for architectural surveyors. Fifteenth edition. London: E. & F.N. Spon.Google Scholar
Jewell, P.A. 1963. The experimental earthwork on Overton Down, Wiltshire 1960. London: British Association for the Advancement of Science.Google Scholar
Kelly, J.E. 1994. The archaeology of the East St. Louis mound center: past and present. Illinois Archaeology 6: 1–57.Google Scholar
Krause, R.A. 1988. The Snodgrass small mound and middle Tennessee Valley prehistory (Publications in Anthropology 52). Chattanooga (TN): Tennessee Valley Authority.Google Scholar
Lepper, B.P. 1996 The Newark earthworks and the geometric enclosures of the Scioto Valley: connections and conjectures, in Pacheco, P.J. (ed.) A view from the core: a synthesis of Ohio Hopewell archaeology: 226–241. Columbus (OH): Ohio Archaeological Council.Google Scholar
Milner, G.R. 1983. The Turner and DeMange sites (FAI-270 Site Reports 4). Urbana (IL): University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Milner, G.R. 1984. The Julien site (FAI-270 Site Reports 7). Urbana (IL): University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Milner, G.R. 1998. The Cahokia chiefdom: the archaeology of a Mississippian society. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Milner, G.R., Emerson, T.E., Mehrer, M.W., Williams, J.A. & Esarey, D.. 1984. Mississippian and Oneota period, in Bareis, C.J. & Porter, J.W. (ed.) American Bottom archaeology: 158–186. Urbana (IL): University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Morgan, W.N. 1999. Precolumbian architecture in Eastern North America. Gainesville (FL): University Press of Florida.Google Scholar
Milner, G.R. 2008. Earth architecture from ancient to modern. Gainesville (FL): University Press of Florida.Google Scholar
Muller, J. 1997. Mississippian political economy. New York: Plenum Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owoc, M.A. 2002. Munselling the mound: the use of soil colour as metaphor in British Bronze Age funerary ritual, in Jones, A. & MacGregor, G. (ed.) Colouring the past: the significance of colour in archaeological research: 127–140. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Phillips, W.A. 1899. The aboriginal quarries and shops at Mill Creek, Union County, Ill. Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 48: 361–363.Google Scholar
Phillips, W.A. 1900. Aboriginal quarries and shops at Mill Creek, Illinois. American Anthropologist 2: 37–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rankine, W.J.M. 1866. Useful rules and tables. London: Charles Griffin.Google Scholar
Rau, C. 1869. A deposit of agricultural flint implements in southern Illinois, in Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1868: 401–447. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Phillips, W.A. 1876. The archaeological collection of the United States National Museum (Contributions to Knowledge 22). Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Shaw, T. 1970. Methods of earthwork building. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 34: 380–381.Google Scholar
Startin, D.W.A. 1982. Prehistoric earthmoving, in Case, H.J. & Whittle, A.W.R..(ed.) Settlement patterns in the Oxford region: excavation at the Abingdon causewayed enclosure and other sites: 153–156. London: Council for British Archaeology.Google Scholar
Sturtevant, W.C. 1968. Lafitau's hoes. American Antiquity 33: 93–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swanton, J.C. 1911. Indian tribes of the lower Mississippi valley and adjacent coast of the Gulf of Mexico (Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 43). Washington (DC): Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Thomas, C. 1894. Report on the mound explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology (Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 12). Washington (DC): Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Throop, A.J. 1928. Mound builders of Illinois. East St. Louis (IL): Call Printing.Google Scholar
Wainwright, G.J. & Longworth, I.H.. 1971. Durrington Walls: excavations 1966-1968 (Reports of the Research Committee 39). London: Society of Antiquaries.Google Scholar
Welch, P.D. 2006. Archaeology at Shiloh Indian mounds 1899-1999. Tuscaloosa (AL): University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, G.L. 1987. Buffalo Bird Woman's garden: agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians. St. Paul (MN): Minnesota Historical Society.Google Scholar
Winters, H.D. 1981. Excavating in museums: notes on Mississippian hoes and Middle Woodland copper gouges and celts, in Cantwell, A.E., Griffin, J.B. & Rothschild, N.A. (ed.) The research potential of anthropological museum collections (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 376): 17–34. New York: New York Academy of Sciences.Google Scholar