Two thousand years ago, someone carried a sheet of Appalachian mica more than 400 miles into Ohio, cut it into a human hand nearly a foot tall, then buried it inside a mound.
5 Likes
Fascinating story. @Colonelx is there a news piece or site link that goes into the background story on this?
Thanks for including those links, Colonel
I can’t recall hearing of this artifact before; it seems rather intricate and well crafted. Apparently the Ohio Hopewell peoples this piece is attributed to didn’t have a written language, but yet…they had sufficient expertise and tool technology to produce a very detailed sculpture from a difficult medium (mica) to sculpt with.
My mind goes to the so-called Out of Place Artifacts idea in this case (OoPA), but perhaps there is a simpler explanation where the Hopewell culture had some means of creating intricate items like this.
2 Likes
This culture, and a few others in the southeast US are considerably different than those we are more familiar with. Some of the mounds further south required huge effort yet little understood as to the people and culture. If I were not old I might take up a study of the old Choctaw and the Natchez.
2 Likes