An Unusual Pick Banner
Approximately 7,000 years ago, an early American lost or buried a large, bi-pointed stone tool in the Piedmont. Some 7,000 years later, this tool was found on the surface of this now plowed agricultural field which bisects the modern border of central Virginia and North Carolina. This rare artifact would, today, be called an unusual Pick Banner.
Bannerstones or as they are simply called by collectors today - banners, are problematic artifacts in that we do not know exactly their purpose to the prehistoric people. About a hundred years ago, early archaeologists coined the word bannerstone for these unique artifacts with the belief that they were attached to a staff by the ancients and served as an emblem of authority or a banner. Since that time, much study has been done on these rare artifacts and more definitive ideas of their usage have been developed. Bannerstones are intriguing tools that come in a myriad of shapes from rounded balls (called ball banners) to elongated pick-like objects (called pick or crescent banners) to flattened artifacts with wing-like extensions (called wing or butterfly banners) and many shapes in between. There is usually a hole drilled in the center of the object that is presumed to be for the purpose of accepting a shaft of some type. These tools were made in most of the Eastern USA and were made of many types of lithic material including banded slate, quartz, limestone, quartzite and schist but the majority found in the Piedmont seem to be made of steatite, greenstone or granite. They were made by early Americans in the Archaic Period, maybe 8,000 years ago, and continued to be made into the Woodland Period about 1,000 years ago. Today most banners are believed to have served two purposes - spearthrower counter weights for the simple shapes and true authoritative emblems for the more complex forms.
This particular banner would be classified as a pick type or maybe a crescent. It is nine and one-quarter inches long and one and a half inches thick at the mid line and is made of steatite. Pick and crescent banners are found throughout the eastern half of our country and here in the Southeast have been archaeologically associated with the Early Archaic Period people who made the point type called the Stanly which places them around 5,000 BC. They can be straight to slightly curved and can be flattened oval or rounded in cross section. Most have a reasonable size hole drilled in the center that can be as small as about ¾ inches to as much as 1 plus inches in diameter and are often slightly oval shaped.
That is the usual description of this artifact type but this particular banner does not fit this category. First off, it is unusually large because most pick and crescent banners are in the four to six inches long range. Secondly and even more important, it does not have a center hole for attachment to a shaft. Instead there are grooves on each side of the banner at the center lengthwise. The grooves are each about 7/8 of an inch wide by about 3/16 inch deep. Drilled pick and crescent banners, while not common, have been found in fair numbers in the Piedmont. This writer, though, has knowledge of only four grooved banners found in the region and this one is by far the largest and best made. Presumably this banner, which the finder thinks was found in Stokes County, NC, was tied onto a shaft and used by a regional Indian leader as a symbol of authority. It is probably too large and heavy to have been used as a counterweight for a spear thrower. But whatever its original purpose was, it is, today, a very Unusual Pick Banner.
REFERENCES:
Coe, Joffre L.
“The Formative Cultures of the Carolina Piedmont”,
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Hothem, Lar
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Lutz, David L.
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