Various examples of hafted drills including a pumped, revolving disc drill
Dovetail: In Pennsylvania, dovetail points and knives are commonly associated with the Middle Woodland Hopewell Period (ca.1500 – 2100 BP). These artifacts occur in burial mounds of the Squakie Hill Phase in western and northwestern Pennsylvania. The associated habitation sites are rare and poorly known. Dovetail points and knives are usually carefully made from high quality cherts, jaspers and chalcedonies traded from quarry sites far from their places of discovery. This observation argues that some form of trade and exchange of goods was operating between groups of the Middle Woodland Period. In the mid-west this manifestation has been named the Hopewell Interaction Sphere. Since prehistoric cultures were never static, it is no wonder that dovetail points have been found on many sites in numerous geographical settings but their numbers are never great at any one site.
Discoidals found in Pennsylvania
Discoidals: Discoidals or chunky stones seem to appear at sites dating late in Pennsylvania prehistory. In southwestern Pennsylvania they are principally found on Late Prehistoric villages (1100- 500 BP) of the Monongahela Culture. Discoidal stones look much like a prehistoric hockey puck, although they were not used for that purpose! Instead they were used in the game of chunkey. This game allowed a person to hone their spear throwing skill by throwing a stick at a rolling chunkey stone, hoping to either knock over the stone or land their stick closest to where the stone stopped . A few specimens have a concavity on each of its flat sides that can end as a perforation in the center of the stone. Some discoidals are made from fine to medium coarse grained sandstones from local source outcrops. While the more elaborate examples generally found at Mississippian sites further west in the Ohio/Mississippivalley or in the south, are often made from more resistant stone such as granite. Examples of discoidal stones in the archaeological collections of The State Museum of Pennsylvania reveal some hint as to their method of manufacture. A discoidal starts out as tabular stone that has been roughly chipped into a disc-shape. The irregular rough edges are then ground down to create the final shape. Engraved shell gorgets and pipe stones discovered at some Mississippian sites of the mid-West depict discoidals being used in contests whereby the individual is seen in a crouched posture ready to roll the discoidal along the ground.
A color example of a shell gorget found in Kentucky picturing a chunkey player