#catlinite

This semicircular flat piece with eight small notches cut into one edge might have been a reshaped fragment of a disk pipe. It is made of a red Minnesota pipestone known as catlinite. Although they are uncommon, flat pieces of catlinite with notched marks (referred to as "counters") have been found at other precontact sites. This one was excavated in the mid-1980s from a site north of La Crosse, Wisconsin.

This week's feature was also highlighted in the 2009 article from the Newsletter of the Iowa Archeological Society we mentioned the other week. Authors Rich Fishel and Jason Titcomb featured several incredible objects in their article, "Sourcing Red Pipestone Artifacts from Northwest Iowa," and this is another one! Our friends at the Sanford Museum & Planetarium sent us these photos of the tablet, which is currently on display. This Oneota engraved tablet is from the Phipps site in Cherokee County. Both front and back views are shown. This tablet was found on the surface of a field by a high school group and their teachers in the 1960s, and was donated to the Sanford Museum in 1992. The tablet exhibits engraved birds with intertwined necks, with arrows emanating from their eyes (left image). The opposite side displays a mythological creature and another bird.

Portable rock art such as this pipestone tablet is sometimes found at village and camp sites. If found with pottery, stone tools, charcoal, or other material, portable rock art can often be dated more easily than glyphs carved or painted onto walls. This tablet shows a large circle with radiating lines that might represent the sun. To the right is a circle surrounding a headless “bird-man” with a star above and a moon to the right. This tablet was found on a 500-year-old village site near La Crosse, WI, but the pipestone came from southwestern Minnesota, nearly 250 miles to the west.

This fragment of a small stone disk pipe was found during 1988 excavations at the Midway Village (47LC19). The material is a kind of pipestone, often called catlinite, that comes from the Pipestone, Minnesota, area. The Midway Village site is a well-known, late precontact Oneota habitation and burial site north of La Crosse that was first investigated by Will C. McKern of the Milwaukee Public Museum in 1929. Today, after decades of sand removal and other activities, little of the site is left.

Link to information about working catlinite: https://mvac.uwlax.edu/past-cultures/native-knowledge/technologies/#Catlinite

Pictured is a fragment of a pipestone (catlinite) tablet inscribed with the head and upper torso of a large animal, probably a bison (note the horns at the left, and the hump). A "heartline" runs from the mouth into the region of the animal's vital organs. Heartlines are a widespread motif in rock art depictions of animal figures. An angular "figure eight" across the heartline might represent a symbolic kill or similar hunting theme.  The tablet was found on the surface of a field in southeastern Minnesota.

This semicircular flat piece with eight small notches cut into one edge might have been a reshaped fragment of a disk pipe. It is made of a red Minnesota pipestone known as catlinite. Although they are uncommon, flat pieces of catlinite with notched marks (referred to as "counters") have been found at other precontact sites. This one was excavated in the mid-1980s from a site north of La Crosse, Wisconsin.