Net Sinker Cache

In 1992 the chance discovery of an artifact cache consisting of 80 pebble net sinkers was made by Les Kunkle, one of the museum’s active “Fort Hunter Dig” volunteers (Figure 1). Although the location, which is upriver from Harrisburg, yielded many prehistoric stone artifacts, the Late Archaic and Transitional periods seem to dominate, a finding that is not unusual for the lower section of the Susquehanna beyond Blue Mountain. Broadspears made from South Mountain metarhyolite of the Lehigh/Koens-Crispin type are common to the site as are the long and narrow stemmed bifaces of the slightly earlier Piedmont Archaic Period. Carved steatite kettle fragments and broken bannerstones which are also good time markers of the broadspear tradition are also present. It is important to point out that the net sinker cache was located in the “broadspear area of the site” suggesting that the association between the two artifact classes is likely more than sheer coincidence.

Fig. 1) Les Kunkle

Two lines of evidence suggest that this cache represents elements of a single net or a group of similar sized fishing nets—1) the context where they were found and 2) the general uniformity of individual net sinker’s size, shape and weight. Mr. Kunkle stated that “….the cache lay within a pocket of dark grayish soil about a foot in diameter that appeared pasty and organic….”. The dark soil matrix encapsulating the cache might indicate that the net sinkers were buried still attached to a casting net or other fishing device that subsequently rotted away over time.

Fig. 2) Net Sinker Cache

As seen above, each net sinker was bi-notched using a simple percussion method and shows little additional modification. There are no unusual differences noted in the types of lithic materials selected for these fishing components. The pebbles are of sedimentary origin comprised of medium coarse to fine grained sandstones and fine grained siltstones, brown, gray and purple in color, and river tumbled to form rounded to sub-rounded shapes. One is a fine grained platy shalestone which is a rock common to the valley’s water gaps. Sinker dimensions display a relatively tight range of measurements by category, seen particularly in the maximum thickness and maximum notch width data summarized in the table below. There is slightly more variability between net sinker length measurements which probably correlates to the increased variability in sinker weight and varying density of pebble lithic materials, although the data is not recorded in a way to make this comparison at present. This aside, the low range of variation between net sinkers to some extent illustrates the care taken to gather uniform sized pebbles from the river shoals.

Figure 3

The figure below presents the length/width/thickness measurements in millimeters of the pebble sinker cache (N=80). A rather consistent pattern is noted in the width at notch measurements taken at the narrowest point of each sinker. Statistically speaking, notch width measurements show a range of only 5.9 mm at one standard deviation and just over a centimeter within the 2-Sigma range. This means that roughly 68% of the net sinkers in this cache have a notch width ranging between 36.4-24.6 mm (~3.5-2.5 cm) and about 95% of the net sinkers in this cache have a notch width ranging between 42-19 mm (4.2-1.9 cm), with an average width of 30.5 mm (~3 cm).

Could this tight range of notch widths correlate to the spacing distance between knots in the fishing net to which they were attached ? If so, this would suggest that the ropes of the net were spaced about 3 cm2 apart or at roughly 1.25 square inch intervals—a net that would most likely be used to catch large fish.

Fig. 4

Total weight of the cache is 2,715.3 grams - a dead weight of pebbles that after notched and attached to a net, might be more useful for bottom dragging (i.e. capturing foods such as mussels, eels, crayfish or other bottom feeding critters.

We thank Mr. Kunkle for donating the net sinker cache to the State Museum of Pennsylvania where it is now curated and openly available for future study.

For more information, visit PAarchaeology.state.pa.us or the Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology at The State Museum of Pennsylvania .

A Cache of Notched Implements from Berks County, Pennsylvania

A remarkable cache of stone tools was discovered when Chuck Forsyth was digging a foundation on his property in 1984. They were found in a rectangular cluster approximately 15 by 12 inches in size. The site is situated on a slope of land overlooking the Schuylkill River at Douglassville, Pennsylvania. It has been recorded in the Pennsylvania Archaeological Site Survey (P.A.S.S.) as 36BK572.

The cache includes 40 stone objects grouped into two categories – notched implements (n=35) and cobblestones (n=5). Dr. Robert C. Smith, Pennsylvania Geological Survey, (Retired) kindly identified the lithic materials used in their manufacture. The lithic materials include sandstone, quartzite and crystalline limestone. These are all locally available in the nearby Schuylkill River gravels.

Although made from different lithic materials, the shapes and sizes were remarkably similar. They were all shaped using a stone hammer. The quartzite specimens were made on large flakes whereas the sandstone and limestone pieces were generally bifacially flaked (i.e. flaked on both faces) from large angular blocks. The cross-sections were evenly divided between bi-convex and plano-convex. There is a tendency for the blade element to be slightly wider than the rest of the tool. Most of the poll elements show slight to no modification with a few maintaining the smooth cortical surface of the original stone.

All of the specimens are uniformly bi-notched on their lateral faces. Notching was completed by making two well pronounced u-shaped indentations that, in turn, were rounded to remove most of the ridge scars which we attribute to the manufacturing process of percussion. It is assumed that the notches were part of the hafting mechanism that is attaching the implement to a wooden handle.

The function of these implements is problematic. They could have been used as axes but the sandstone and limestone are soft and would not have worked well. The quartzite is harder but the bits on this material are relatively thin. Our working hypothesis is that they were used as hoes for digging and weeding. This is not the first time this shape has been found but this is the largest collection from a single site. Why were so many left in one spot? If they were hoes used in farming, why don't we see more at other Native American farming villages? It has long been recognized that stone hoes are not common on farming sites. It is felt that perishable digging sticks or elk scapula were used for this purpose and because they are made from organic materials, they are very rarely recovered in archaeological excavations. We would like to a conduct microscopic examination of their working edges to solve this mystery but budget cuts have delayed this type of analysis.

Unfortunately there is little information that can lead us in the direction as to the age of the cache. We know for example, that plant cultivation began somewhere in the Late Archaic Period when gourds, seeds and tubers were among the incipient elements of plant husbandry. This would date the cache to around 5,000 years ago. It is highly unlikely, however, that the cache dates to that early period, because stone hoes are not usually associated with Archaic period artifacts. On the other hand, crop cultivation is usually associated with the Late Woodland Period of 1000 to 500 years ago in the Piedmont region of Pennsylvania. It was at that time when corn, beans and cucurbits such as pumpkin squash and a few other crops became mainstays for humans then living along the Schuylkill and other drainages of Pennsylvania.

For more information, visit PAarchaeology.state.pa.us or the Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology at The State Museum of Pennsylvania .

Woodland Period Cremation Cache from Union County, Pennsylvania

The Cache
A cremation cache (Feature 2) was discovered in 2003 by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission archaeologists during subsurface testing at site 36UN10, for the proposed Union County Business Park located north of Allenwood, Pennsylvania. The contents of this cache included eight ovate-shaped bifaces of gray colored tabular chalcedony, a hellgrammite point/knife of gray banded rhyolite, a two-hole gorget of gray siltstone and a faceted sphere of graphite. Fragments from two of the eight chalcedony bifaces were cross-mended and along with the others show evidence of heat fracturing from the cremation process.

Chalcedoncy blades and Hellgrammite Point

The thick mass of charcoal encapsulating the cache had traces of co-mingled calcine bone, ash and burnt soil which we believe to be the remains of non-organic cremated residue. Some of the cultural objects were inadvertently displaced by the backhoe operator, therefore, we are unsure of their original positions within the cremation pit. Careful investigation by PHMC archaeologists, however, concluded that the cache must have rested on the pit floor since in situ remnants of the cremated mass was found there.

Other Pit Features
A short distance southeast from the cremation pit, another pit (Feature 3) was excavated that contained charred fragments of sheeted bark, possibly the remnants of material used as pit lining. The contents of Feature 3 include a small Lamoka-like point, burned sandstone fragments, sandstone cobble hammerstone and chert, jasper, silicified siltstone and rhyolite debitage. A third but smaller pit (Feature 4) having no bark lining but a similar artifact assemblage was also found.

Gorgets and Graphite Sphere

Stratigraphy, Artifacts and another Cultural Context
The overall diversity of diagnostic artifacts recovered from the site suggests that 36UN10 was occupied by Native Americans from the Late Archaic through the Middle Woodland Periods (Range of Appropriate Dates here). However, the tightly compressed site stratigraphy displays little separation in the soil between different cultural groups as the land was reused again and again over a span of 2500 years.

Lamoka points/knives; Susquehanna Broad points/knives; Fishtail points/knives; steatite bowl fragments and Marcey Creek steatite tempered pottery make up the diagnostic artifact assemblages from these strata. The 1992 Phase III archaeological data recovery project of Louis Berger & Associates on the river terrace south of Allenwood (36UN82) documented a similar stratigraphic sequence of human occupation for the West Branch Valley (Wall 2000). There, archaeological investigations revealed a clearer picture in comparison to the mixed Archaic through Woodland sequence at 36UN10.

Examples of artifacts from Strat. 2/2a: top Early Woodland Period, middle Transitional Period, bottom Late Archaic Period

Carbon-14 analysis of the carbonized material found in the intrusive, yet isolated Woodland pits, Features 2, 3 and 4 described above, was employed to demonstrate a distinct chronological separation of the cremation activity found on 36UN10 from the earlier Archaic components also present on the site.

Cremation Chronology
A sample of charcoal directly associated with the cache submitted to the University of Arizona Radiocarbon laboratory returned a date of 1680+/- 40 radiocarbon years B.P., (before present). Utilizing two sigma ranges the corrected dates are 246 AD: 434 AD. Partially preserved charred remains of bark lining in pit (Feature 3) was discovered nearby and likely belongs with the Woodland cremation component at 36UN10. A sample of bark from this pit, also dated by the University of Arizona, yielded a corrected date range of 128 AD: 384 AD.

The overlapping of the two dates would indicate that the features are contemporary and date to the Middle Woodland Period, thus demonstrating that burial ceremonialism continued after the Early Woodland Period ended in the Susquehanna Valley. The presence of a Hellgrammite point/knife with the 36UN10 cremation would imply that the long held notion of Hellgrammite point/knife types being a regional manifestation of the Early Woodland needs to be rigorously tested with more investigations at other comparable sites in the valley. In contrast to the cremation feature found at 36Un10, other mortuary sites of the Susquehanna Valley are radiocarbon dated to the earlier part of the Woodland period (1,000-500 BC.). Artifact assemblages from such sites tend to include Meadowood blades, stone tube pipes, gorgets, copper ornaments and rarely, bird and boatstones (Kent 1994).

References
Kent, Barry C.
1994 Discovering Pennsylvania’s Archaeological Heritage. The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

Wall, Robert D.
2000 A Buried Lamoka Occupation in Stratified Contexts West Branch Valley of the Susquehanna River, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania Archaeologist 70(1):1-44.

For more information, visit PAarchaeology.state.pa.us or the Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology at The State Museum of Pennsylvania .