SpiroMound.com- Spiro Mound Artifact Db- Arrowpoint Page

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Spiro Mound
Artifact Database
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Arrowpoints

Beads

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Spiro Mound Artifact Database

Arrowpoint Page

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Photograph provided by Dr. Robert E. Bell

Arrowpoint 1*

Figure 12: The Tribute Points Frame

Mr. Schellenberger of Dardanelle, Arkansas originally assembled this outstanding frame of 205 bird points from Spiro. Robert E. Bell took this picture in April 1935.

The twenty Tribute (Craig) points that make up the center design of the frame are part of a cache of maybe 25 points. One other example is located on the outside circle of points in this frame, at the bottom of the picture near the middle. Two other Tribute points have been shown in Figures 9 and 10, thereby accounting for 23 of a reported 25 examples. These are large, thin, well-made tri-notched points with serrations common around the base. They are certainly some of the finest bird points from Spiro or anywhere else. The first picture taken of this frame by Robert Bell was in Spring 1934. That means the Tribute points were recovered early in the digging and had to come from the lesser cones of The Spiro Mound and not the Hollow Chamber of the Main Cone (the Great Temple Mound)

* History of the collections this frame has been in was excluded from this caption.

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Photograph provided by Dr. Robert E. Bell

Arrowpoint 2

Figure 8: 3000 arrowpoints

This photograph shows an incredible cache of around 3,000 arrowheads. This cache was found in April 1935. These were sold to Mr. Cooperrider of Indianapolis, Indiana, a secondhand furniture dealer, for a price of $100. Dr. Robert E. Bell said the cache would fit in his camera bag. They are shown sitting on someone’s lunch sack. These pieces are probably the source of some of the nice Spiro arrowhead frames assembled years ago by the “old time collectors.” Jacob S. Royer reported that G. E. Pilquist said over 10,000 “war points” were taken out of the mound.

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Photograph provided by Dr. Robert E. Bell

Arrowpoint 3*

These arrowpoints were in the collection of Harry T. Bell, Dr. Robert E. Bell’s father, when this photograph was taken. Harry T. Bell sold his collection to Earl C. Townsend, Jr., in 1956. This group includes typical Spiro “birdpoints”, also called “war points”. Interesting examples include the two quartz crystal points, the unusual double-barbed Ashley Chocoville point and a Tribute (Craig) point. There are also two Perdiz points top right, as well as Scallorn, Homan, Hayes, Agee, Keota, Sequoyah, and Morris type points.

* There is a black and white photo of these points and a few others in The Spiro Mound: A Photo Essay