| The Davistown Museum |
| Native American Artifacts: Special Collections |
| In addition to the numerous Native American artifacts collected by The Davistown Museum during the last three |
| decades, the museum has also been able to purchase three intact collections of Native American artifacts. The |
| first collection is the Cohasset Hoard of artifacts purchased in the early 1990s. Because the artifacts in this |
| collection come from many different locations in New England as well as from other locations, the Cohasset |
| Hoard is not listed specifically as a separate collection, but is included in our general inventory of Native |
| American artifacts. Because the other two collections, the Coffin Stream Assemblage and the Wapanucket 8 |
| Hoard were collected in a specific location, by a specific person or persons, they are listed separately as special |
| collections. |
| Wapanucket 8 Hoard |
| The Wapanucket 8 Hoard (WAP 8) consists of a large number of projectile points and other artifacts recovered |
| by the archaeologist John Davis at the Middleborough, Massachusetts site known as Wapanucket. John Davis |
| worked under the archaeologist Maurice Robbins. The Wapanucket recovery effort took place over a period of |
| at least 30 years. Maurice Robbins published a complete description of his work at the Wapanucket site, |
| "Wapanucket: An Archaeological Report", a copy of which will be available to museum visitors after the WAP 8 |
| collection is installed during March of 2004. This is one of the more important archaeological sites in New |
| England and may be the largest Native American crematory in the United States and possibly the only crematory |
| documented in New England. The following artifacts were obtained from a collector in southeastern |
| Massachusetts who was a friend of John Davis and came into possession of these artifacts. |
| The extensive use of red ochre at this site over a period of thousands of years is an important fact that helps put |
| the so called Red Paint people of Maine in their proper context. The Red Paint excavations by Warren |
| Moorehead in eastern Maine document a community that appears to have flourished for only a few hundred |
| years. Once believed to have been an isolated community with little or no connections with other Native |
| American communities due to the extensive use of red ochre in the main burial sites, the later excavations at |
| Wapanucket and other New England locations proved that the use of red ochre in burial and crematory |
| ceremonies was much more extensive by New England's Native American communities than previously thought |
| in the era of Moorehead's discoveries (1920s). The use of red ochre at Wapanucket appears to have gone on for |
| thousands of years; many other examples of the use of red ochre in burials have been discovered in New England |
| since Moorehead did his first excavations in eastern Maine. The Wapanucket hoard therefore, helps illustrate |
| the long duration and ceremonial complexity of the burial rituals of southern New England Native American |
| communities and their close connection with the so-called Red Paint people of eastern Maine. |
| | Status | Location |
| Native American Artifacts I - Archaic Period |
| Red Paint |
| 011304NA10 | Red Paint cup and scrapers (4) | photo | DTM |
| Quartz and other stone, 3 1/4" long paint cup, 1 3/8" to 1 1/4" long points, case marked "BS"2 - 1971 M39-81", cup marked "B- |
| 5012-2" scrapers marked "B-5013-2; B-5014-2; B-5015-2". |
| This paint cup would be used with the scrapers and the Red Paint pestles (ID# 011304NA1) to create red paint powder. |
| 011304NA1 | Red Paint globules (6) | photo | DTM |
| Stone (red ochre), 1 1/4", 1", 1", 3/4", 3/4", 5/8", . |
| Red paint was traditionally made of ochre, a reddish mineral obtained from natural deposits of oxidized iron (hematite). These |
| specimens are ready for grinding into red ochre powcer in a paint cup (see ID# 011304NA10). These have a Taunton Mass. |
| area provenance. |
| Stone Tools |
| 011304NA48 | Adz | photo | DTM |
| Stone, 4" long, 1 1/4" wide, 5/8" thick, unmarked. |
| This adz has a nicely worked cutting edge. |
| 011304NA35 | Adz | photo | DTM |
| Stone, 4 5/8" long, 1 7/8" wide at tapered end, 1" thick, unmarked. |
| 011304NA37 | Ax head | photo | DTM |
| Granite, 5" long, 3 3/4" wide, 1 1/2" thick, unmarked. |
| This ax shows signs of lots of wear on the pointed end. |
| 011304NA36 | Ax head | photo | DTM |
| Granite, 4" long, 3 1/2" wide, 1 1/4" thick, unmarked. |
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