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Birdstone Save

Description: This birdstone is a painted plaster cast of a prehistoric artifact (A 4189/000025). The base is flat while along the top, the sides curve slightly to form a ridge in the midline. One end is shaped to form a stylized head and neck, possibly of a bird. The head is long and narrow with small, rounded projections on both sides. Opposite the head is a tail with straight sides and a flat top. There is a drilled hole at either end of the base, one of which goes through to the base of the tail, the other through to the base of the neck. Birdstones are perhaps the most puzzling of all prehistoric American Indian objects. Although the function of birdstones is unknown, they might have served as highly-decorative spearthrower weights. While birdstones are usually linked with the Glacial Kame people, they have also been found in Late Archaic sites in New York and Pennsylvania. This piece is characteristic of the Red Ocher or Glacial Kame Cultures. Some Late Archaic groups living near the Great Lakes seem to have shared religious beliefs and rituals even though they had somewhat different lifestyles. Their names come from their practices of making copper artifacts (Old Copper), sprinkling powdered iron ore on burials (Red Ocher), and placing burials in natural mounds of glacial soil (Glacial Kame). Almost all that is known of these groups comes from their burial sites. Sadly, few of these sites have been studied by archaeologists; most have been disturbed or destroyed by erosion or quarrying. Thus, much valuable information has been lost forever. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: A4786_000098_1
Subjects: Effigies; Prehistoric peoples;
Places: Undocumented Artifacts from the First Ohioans Exhibit

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