Images

Introduction

This ancestor is a medium beige pop-eyed birdstone that has a broad teardrop-shaped base with feet, both of which are perforated.  It has teardrop shaped pop-eyes on both sides of its head, and a long, sloped neck and a rounded beak. Its back is ridged and it has a pointed tail. This ancestor has concentric circles formed by the stone’s lamination at the top of its eyes, head and tail. There are scratches and yellow stains on its body, and fractures on its head, beak, and its right eye. Where its head and tail are broken, the natural fissile planes of the stone create a flat surface. Currently, this ancestor resides at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 

The term birdstone is a legacy of earlier archaeological work and does not consider the full variety in shape and functionality these relatives may have had within Indigenous communities. We invite Great Lakes nations to help us improve our understanding of how to identify and name these relatives. Birdstones have been found and collected from various contexts including hearths inside houses, in fields, and burial contexts. To the best of our knowledge, none of the birdstones in GRASAC’s Knowledge Sharing Platform come from burial contexts

Reasons for connecting this relative with particular nation(s)

It is difficult to know the cultural origin of this ancestor due to its age, the unknown context of its collection, and the fact that birdstones have been found throughout the American northeast. It may have travelled long distances.

Place of Origin: Ontario, CAN

Date Made or Date Range: Ca. 2900-2400 BP

Summary of Source(s) for this Relative

Information from this entry comes from the ROM's catalogue alongside Dr. Tiziana Gallo's research on Birdstones.

Source of Information about Places

Royal Ontario Museum records

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