An Elm Point Plummet	by Ronald J. Scheffers
Central States Archaeological Societies 2021 October Journal	South Holland, Illinois

 

This excerpt from "An Elm Point Plummet" published in the 2021 Central States Archaeological Societies 2021 October Journal Read the complete column in the Central States Archaeological Societies 2021 October Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2022

Both faces of the plummet from St. Charles, Missouri. It measures 3” in length.

I recently acquired the plummet shown in Figure 1. It is a little less than 3” long, and it is made of some type of hardstone (not hematite). Based on the tag on the plummet with the catalog number PL-23, I believe it is from the well-known collection of the late B. W. Stephens of Quincy, Illinois. Stephens usually used round tags on his artifacts, but someone may have cut off part of the tag from this plummet. I have a copy of the B. W. Stephens catalog. When I looked up the catalog number PL-23 it showed a 3” long stone plummet (Fig. 2). It even showed a small sketch showing the outline that matches my plummet. A copy of the page from the catalog is shown in Figure 2. The catalog shows that this plummet was one of seven plummets from a cache found in St. Charles County, Missouri. There is faint writing on my plummet saying “ST. CHARLES CO. MO.” The catalog shows that Stephens obtained all seven plummets in the cache from G. Ladassor on July 1, 1955. The catalog also shows that Titterington catalog No. 1571 was on all seven plummets. Apparently the plummets were formerly in the collection of Paul F. Titterington. I can barely make out the number 1571 on my plummet. This is convincing evidence that my plummet came from the cache of plummets in the B. W. Stephens collection.

This type of plummet with an expanding top is sometimes called “bottle top” or “mushroom headed.” I couldn’t remember the official name, so I decided to look it up online. I found an article in the April 2008 Central States Archaeological Journal (Lang 2008:90-93). I have this journal, but it can also be found online at www.jstor.org. The article describes four types of plummets: Elm Point, Gilcrease grooved, Godar drilled and Synder grooved. My plummet matched the description of the Elm Point type. The article states, “Elm Point plummets, first discovered at the Elm Point site northwest of St. Charles, Missouri (Titterington 1950:24), are teardrop shaped and have a “bottle top” expansion at the top end.” I found the 1950 referenced Titterington article online using the website jstor.org. In that article, Titterington describes the Elm Point site. It says in the early 1940s a farmer uncovered a mound at the site. It says that seven “plumb bobs” (plummets) were recovered. Also found was a tube pipe and 48 blades, including 47 of the turkey tail type and one stemmed type. All seven of the plummets were described in the article. There were two grooved type, one drilled type, and four with a small knob at the top. Most of the plummets were made of hematite, but one was copper and one was stone. All of this information agrees with the descriptions of the seven plummets in the B. W. Stephens catalog. Three of the plummets were shown in a picture in the article but not the stone plummet. The stone plummet is...

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Read the complete column in the Central States Archaeological Societies 2021 October Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2022

The page from the B.W. Stephens catalog showing plummets. The author’s is near the bottom and listed as PL-23.