A Glimpse of Native Americans in 2,500 B.C.

Imagine a Native American burial in 2,500 B.C. in Ohio.  The body is dressed in a fine deerskin outfit, completely covered with sewn-in small marine shells obtained from traders from the Gulf Coast.  The shell beads are also on the warrior's necklace, spaced artistically between the hollow leg bones of a Great Blue Heron and the teeth of bear and elk, along with a few human teeth.  Part of a wolf jaw bone is the centerpiece of the necklace.

Another honor for the warrior:  A stone weight of the type attached to a spear throwing device made from an elk antler.

It wasn't hard for amateur archaeologist Greg Shipley to imagine this scene since he saw much of it in  a cemetery below a farm field in Champaign County, Ohio.

He found nine of the stone weights (bannerstones) , a few thousand shell beads, and the necklaces.  He only had to guess the deerskin part because the clothing the beads were once attached to had long disintegrated.

Shipley is one of many citizen science archaeologists making contributions in the field.  Now armed with ground penetrating radar he is calling attention to what lies under our feet.

Oh, and he dated the cemetery finds to 2,500 B.C. give or take 80 years when a scientist carbon-dated charred material Shipley found in the cemetery.

I saw Shipley's presentation, both slides and actual artifacts, at April's meeting of the Kokosing Chapter of the Archaeological Society of Ohio at Mt. Vernon, Ohio.

While glimpses of Native Americans in 2500 BC excite Greg Shipley, he has a special passion for the waning days of the American and Ohio frontier, in the days of General Anthony Wayne, shown here dictating the treaty terms that ended Native American control of much of Ohio.  (Painting on display in Ohio Statehouse.)