An Unusual Virginia Plummet
Reasonably small tear drop and/or cigar shaped Indian artifacts have been found throughout much of the continental United States for many years. Early scholars and collectors named these objects, which are usually two to five inches long, plummets because the basic shape is that of a plum-bob or plummet which is a tool used to find true vertical in carpentry work. So for well over one hundred years we have used the name plummet for these rare artifacts. In the early 1960’s one was found that is even more rare than most of the others – an unusual Virginia plummet.
These plummets, like many Indian artifacts, are a puzzle as to their usage by the ancient natives. Many guesses have been made as to their original uses including fishing line sinkers, bolo weights and fishing net anchors. Plummets are rare and if they were used for fishing purposes, one should believe that many more would have been found than has actually happened. The same can be said for their supposed use as bolo weights to ensnare flying ducks and geese. Plus most of these plummets are too well made and polished to have been fishing or bolo weights where simple river rocks would have been effective. Best guess today, is that these rare objects were some type of pendant or charm or other type of ornamentation. Most have a drilled hole or grooves cut in one or both ends onto which a leather thong could have been attached to the plummet and worn around a person’s neck or maybe sewn onto clothing. Another oddity about these artifacts is that many have been found near bodies of water – oceans, rivers or lakes. That makes one want to believe the suppositions that the objects were somehow related to fishing and/or water birds. Maybe they were religious amulets used to assist the natives in their fishing or water bird hunting adventures.
Plummets were made by the Amerinds of this continent since maybe the Late Archaic Period or 3,000 BC and they have been found throughout North America including Canada. The primary time frame for the production and usage of plummets seems to be the Woodland and Mississippian Periods, 1,000 BC to AD 1500. The people used about every imaginable material to make these objects including many types of stone, native copper, antler, galena, marine shell, bone, and hematite. The material used seems to be what was naturally found in the area where the plummets were made. Along the Southeast coastal regions, especially in Florida, the natives used shell for their plummets because marine shell was plentiful. Basically they would take a shell such as a conch or whelk and painstakingly cut and remove the inner core or columella. This core was then ground until the desired plummet shape and size was obtained and then it was polished. Marine shells were obviously traded throughout the eastern half of our country since many shell artifacts, which originated from Atlantic or Gulf coast mollusks, have been found as far north and west as Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio and Missouri. The columella was probably a byproduct of the native’s manufacture of shell cups or gorgets and since the Indians were possibly the first recyclers, it would seem only natural that they would also use the shell cores for something. Many shell artifacts have been found in Southwestern Virginia so it would seem logical that a shell columella plummet would also be found there. But this plummet does not exactly fit the category of shell plummet.
In the early 1960’s, a local collector by the name of Rufus Pickle found a rare plummet in Smyth County, Virginia. As already stated, shell artifacts have been found in reasonable abundance in western Virginia, so it should come as no great surprise to find a shell columella plummet there. This 4 13/16 inch long cigar shaped artifact has the typical grooves around each end for attachment and the typical spiral convolutions around the body that were a part of the original shell core. It is somewhat odd in the fact that it is dark tan in color instead of the normal white as is usually seen in these shell artifacts. But there is a good reason for that dark color - it is not shell! It is made of local tan sandstone instead of a shell columella. For some reason, an artisan decided to make a plummet from a piece of sandstone and also to make it look exactly like it was made of shell. There are considerable formations of sandstone in Smyth County and the surrounding area, so the maker should have had no problem securing the material. What an oddity. Marine shell is made of calcium carbonate and is very hard and difficult to work especially with stone tools but sandstone is also hard and would also be difficult to manipulate into a given shape. So why would the craftsman choose sandstone to make a reproduction of a shell columella if both materials were difficult to cut and work? Maybe he wanted a shell plummet but had no collumella with which to make his artwork. Maybe he was a master stone worker who wanted to show that a shell facsimile plummet could be made of sandstone. Maybe a shell plummet wearing visitor from the coast was at the village and a local artisan simply copied his ornament – only in stone. Whatever the reason, a great piece of ancient art was made some 300 to 800 years ago by a craftsman using local rock. “Why” is the great unanswerable question concerning this ornament? But after spending many years studying these elusive Indian artifacts, this writer is familiar with unanswerable questions. And they do not pose any great mystique as long as one can marvel at the subtle beauty of an art object such as this unusual Virginia plummet.
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