Thoughts on bannerstones and other objects with holes drilled through them.

[Ncsnipe]

  I was looking at some flint knapping videos on youtube and heard a guy talking about the mass of a hammerstone or bopper and how it relates to purcussion work. He said something along the lines of needing good mass to peel off flakes without having to take a big swing. I live in eastern N.C. and have not found any native rock with the qualaties that would make a good purcussion hammerstone. This got me to thinking as to the possability of bannerstones and such being used to increase the mass of antler batons for purcussion flaking. Just a thought. I'm new to this, so please don't laugh too hard, on the other hand maybe you should.

[Hillbilly]

I would doubt very seriously if that were the case. Antler billets don't really need added weight, if you don't have a lot of mass, you can make up for it with billet speed. I do a lot of knapping with small whitetail antler billets. Also, I think a lot of the aboriginal knapping of NC materials was done with hammerstones and wooden billets, both of which have plenty of mass. Plus, the shape and form of a bannerstone doesn't lend itself to attachment to an antler billet. I'm not even convinced that they were atlatl weights. If you can find a diabase dike (there are a lot of them in eastern NC), the diabase makes good hammerstones, as does sandstone.

[jamie]

The best evidence against this would be the size of the hole in the bannerstone. Too small to attatch to an antler. I think they were used as flywheels on dropspindles. 

[Bone pile]

Jamie wrote
The best evidence against this would be the size of the hole in the bannerstone. Too small to attatch to an antler. I think they were used as flywheels on dropspindles. 

I just made the same remark in the Atal section,I wish I could remember were the article was that I read on this subject .
Bone pile

[stickbender]

     Hillbilly, supposedly there was a lot of controversy over Bannerstones, till an intact Atlatl baton was found with a banner stone attached, in Alabama.  Most of the pictures of Banner stones, that I have seen were butterfly shaped, with no holes.  They were tied on with the wrapping going around in a figure eight, in the space between the "wings",and then tied off with wraps around the atlatl baton.

                                                                      Wayne

[jamie]

wayne they were probably used for a multitude of things. was even thinking as the atlatl as a weapon without the dart. hit somebody with it and itll hurt and maim. now tie a rock to it and its even more dangerous.

bonepile go to thunderbird atlatl. bob berg has some great info on atlatls. he has an article on bannerstones on the site