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Tennessee Archaeological Notes

How does one determine an authentic Tennessee Indian artifact from one that is an imitation and misrepresented?

The first objective would be to read and learn all you can about the sequential Tennessee Indian cultures that existed in your specific territory and the particular exampled illustrations that are part and parcel of each one of those designed cultures.  For example, some Mississippian Period aboriginal artifacts can be connected to specific  archaeological sites because their style and form identifies them as to time period and habitation site.

Second, one needs to attain a special feel for the Tennessee Indian artifact just like the American Indian did when he was making the particular archaeological object.  If you cannot get hold of a whole example, at least get acquainted with a broken sample.  Study — really study — and examine the flint piece or stone or pottery section that is in your hand.

Concerning flint, one can determine whether or not the flint piece is of recent origin by rubbing one’s hand gently over the surface of the article.  Recent chipping will exhibit sharpness where the chips have just been removed.   The ancient item will be more dull and smooth where the chips were removed many years ago.

Another point of importance will be the show of great age called patina — a green or brown film on the surface of the stone produced through oxidation over a long period of time.  But unfortunately, this can be copied through different means.

Still another tell tale sign is to see if the flaking of the point or knife matches what is found in archaeological text and, here again, that you have studied and read.  There are certain flaking characteristics of projectile points that reflect cultural patterns.  This is why it is good to have familiarity with projectiles of every condition from pristine to highly reworked.   Some descriptions can provide variations of types.

For example, Paleolithics include percussion, bifacial thinning under pressure flaking and etc.  Archaics used beveling and serration as common resharpening features, etc.  Woodlands used a differentiating technique of percussion and pressure flaking techniques.  Mississippians used much smaller points, basically straight-sided, isosceles triangular arrowheads with excurvate-bladed variants and also early incurvate forms.

As to hard stone, if one is very familiar with the different kinds of stone from which the particular article can be made, then your choices of being caught off guard will be lessened.  For example, there are only six materials that the Mississippian Period Indians in Tennessee used in the manufacture of celts — black granite with porphyry inclusions, black granite, wiry granite, green stone, black siltstone, and limestone.

One should try to learn everything possible there is to know as to hard stone objects —sizes, materials, work styles, types, and use marks, etc.

Pottery (or terra cotta) antiquity can be more easily discernible because it is hard to falsify.  The worst thing that can happen to a ceramic is to try to increase its value by declaring it to be from a region other than its true place of origin.  Of course, this form of deception is not solely restricted to pottery.  Unethical collectors will also apply this practice to celts, bannerstones, blades, knives, points . . . Well, really . . . NOTHING IS EXEMPT FROM ONE WHO SEEKS TO DECEIVE AN UNINFORMED PROSPECTIVE BUYER!!!  If one knows the local clays from which the pottery was made, plus the ceramic classification and typologies, decorative nodes, vessel forms and varieties that are distinct to a certain area, then this purposeful cover-up can be discovered!

Another example of false artifacts would be Paleo caches — collections of artifacts found buried together in one spot.  Paleo Indians were wanderers following food and did not have time to cache blades.  The practice of burying caches did not begin until the Archaic Indian period, and every Indian period after the Archaic, the Woodland and the Mississippian, buried caches of artifacts.

As a point of reference, the chronology for Tennessee associated, prehistoric materials is as follows :

Early Paleoindian              11,500 B.C. — 9,000 B.C.

Middle Paleoindian             9,000 B.C. — 8,500 B.C.

Late Paleoindian                8,500 B.C. — 8,000 B.C.

Early Archaic                     8,000 B.C. — 6,000 B.C.

Middle Archaic                   6,000 B.C. — 3,000 B.C.

Late Archaic                      3,000 B.C. — 1,000 B.C.

Early Woodland                  1,000 B.C. —    200 B.C.

Middle Woodland                  200 B.C. —    500 A.D.

Late Woodland                     500 A.D. —    750 A.D.

Emergent Mississippian          750 A.D. —    950 A.D.

Early Mississippian                 950 A.D. — 1,250 A.D.

Middle Mississippian            1,250 A.D. — 1,450 A.D.

Late Middle Mississippian     1,450 A.D. — 1,575 A.D.

Tennesseans have lost a good chunk of their prehistory due in large part to growth.  Unwittingly, people’s attitudes toward saving artifacts and sites from the past have left us culturally impoverished.  By not reading and then understanding anything about our past, we are unaware that the destruction of our aboriginal sites is anything to lose, nor do we often realize the value of saving them and how very much we have to gain!

Two routes are offered to remedy this situation.  One, for those who really love archaeology/anthropology, it would be a real value to collect the “bibles” of this particular field of work:

1. Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, by John Haywood.  Reprint 1973.

2. Aboriginal American Antiquities, by W. H. Holmes.  Reprint 1972.

3. Adair’s History of the American Indians, by Samuel Cole Williams.  Reprint  1971.

4. Antiquities of Tennessee and the Adjacent States, by Gates P. Thruston.   Reprint 1964.

5. Antiquities of the Southern Indians Particularly of the Georgia Tribes, by  Charles  C. Jones, Jr.   Reprint 1972.

6. Explorations of the Aboriginal Remains of Tennessee, by Joseph Jones, M.D.   Reprint  1970.

7. Sun Circles and Human Hands, The Southeastern Indians — Art and Industry.   Edited by  Emma Lila Fundaburk and Mary Douglass Foreman.  Reprint 2001.

8. Art and Artisans of Prehistoric  Middle Tennessee, The Gates P. Thruston  Collection of  Vanderbilt  University held in trust by the Tennessee State Museum, c.  1985.

9. Stone Age Spear and Arrow Points of the Midcontinental and Eastern United   States, Noel  D.  Justice, c. 1987.

Even in reprints, these books are becoming more rare, and, of course, more valuable.

Other books that will be considered collectible in the future and will be added to the list above are:

1. Kentucky Archaeology, by R. Barry Lewis, Editor, c. 1996.

2. Cat Monsters and Head Pots — The Archaeology of Missouri’s Pemiscot Bayou,  by Michael  J.  O’Brien, c. 1994.

Another route for people interested in archaeology and anthropology would be to attend field trips to learn more about local American Indian culture through visiting culture sites around the area.

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