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Bone “Gorget” from a Caddoan Mound Burial

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

C. H. Webb  and
Monroe Dodd
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Extract

The theory has been advanced that the pierced-tablet type of “gorget” may have served the prehistoric Indian as an arm guard to protect against the lash of the bowstring, in contradistinction to the ornamental pendant type. Most frequently surface finds, these artifacts are at times reported from burials, where their position in relation to the body may give some inkling as to their use. In only two such instances can we find records of their being in such association with the arm bones as to lend support to the arm-guard theory. Moorehead, in : Stone Ornaments of the American Indian (1), describes the skeleton of an adult in the Storey Mound, Ohio, with slate gorgets on each wrist. Lemley (2) found a double-perforated stone tablet beside the arm of a skeleton in a Ouachita River mound near Malvern, Arkansas. It may therefore be of interest to record our finding of a bone gorget (Plate 12, Figure 1) attached to the arm bones of an adult male in a mound burial, apparently Caddoan.

Type
Facts and Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , January 1939 , pp. 265 - 268
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1939

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References

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