Flaked Stone Tools
Figure 1. Fort Ancient Triangular
arrowheads
Figure 2. Fragments of arrowheads.
Figure 3. Small arrowheads.
One of the defining characteristics of Fort Ancient culture are unique triangular shaped arrowheads like those in Figure 1. These arrowheads were hafted to wooden shafts using sinew or plant fibers, and they were used to hunt a variety of animals. During the spring, birds such as wild turkeys were hunted. Hunting also took place in the fall, when the animals were increasing their fat stores for the coming winter. Some of the animals hunted were whitetail deer (Odocoileus virginianus), raccoons (Procyon lotor), elk (Cervus canadensis), bear (Ursus americanus), rabbits (Sylvilagus floridanus), and opossums (Didelphus marsupialis). Archaeologists conjecture that the smaller arrowheads like those in Figure 3 were used for smaller game.
Flake tools were also used to process meat and hides. Blades, the long flakes in Figure 4, provided ideal cutting edges for slicing meat and flesh. Scrapers are flake tools that have steep edges, and they were used to clean hides used for clothing. The scraper in Figure 5 is a special variety called an end scraper because the end of the tool was purposely shaped so that the edge holds a steep angle. The other end of the scraper could have been attached to a wooden or bone handle.
The shorter flakes in Figure 4 are engraving tools. These tools are thought to have been used to etch designs into bone, cannel coal, and other material.
Figure 4. Blades and gravers.
Figure 5. End Scraper.
Figure 6. Drills.
Drills like those in Figure 6 could be either fully flaked or made from debitage. Both types of drills serve the purpose of boring holes through other materials such as stone for pipes and cannel coal for ornaments. Drills might be hafted (for example: the large drill on the left in Figure 6) or simply used by hand. One characteristic all drills have in common are sharp points on ends opposite to handles. Points on drills wear down with use and break, but drills might be reworked into sharp points.
Other flake tools include spokeshaves and reworked tools from other objects such as arrowheads. The left object in Figure 7 might have been a spokeshave (a tool used to straighten arrow shafts). The shaft of an arrow would be pushed and/or pulled through the notch in the tool and would allow the arrow shaft to be whittled to a desired size. Occasionally arrowheads that were broken during use were reshaped into scrapers such as the object on the right in Figure 7. Figure 8 illustrates flakes that were probably not selected for tool manufacture. Notice that the flakes on the right in Figure 8 show a reddish color which indicates that they were heat treated.
Figure 7. Spokeshave? and
reworked arrowhead.
Figure 8. Flake debitage
and shatter.