Chipped Stone Hoe

A chipped stone hoe is a broad, flat biface with one wide working edge (the bit) and a narrower upper end for the handle. Outlines are ovate, triangular or flared toward the bit, often with side notches or a short stem; the Illinois State Museum sorts Mississippian hoes into oval, flare-bitted and notched forms. Cross-sections are flat to plano-convex. The long oval forms are treated in this Library as Chipped Stone Spade.

Hoes were shaped mainly by percussion (Fowke 1896) from flat chert nodules. Mississippian workers dug Mill Creek chert from pits 7.5 m or more deep in Union and Alexander counties, Illinois, and roughed out notched hoe blades at nearby workshops (Holmes 1919); Dover chert from Stewart County, Tennessee, served the same purpose (Parish and Butler 2015). The blade was lashed to a wooden handle set at an angle to it (Rau 1869; Bell 1980).

Use leaves a glassy polish on the bit, with fine striations running in the direction the tool entered the ground (Rau 1869); Bell (1980) calls it corn gloss. Haft wear smooths the notches or upper edges (Riggs and Davis 2015). Dulled bits were resharpened, shedding polished hoe flakes, until worn hoes became short and blunt (Illinois State Museum). The key trait is a glossy, striated use polish confined to the broad bit.

Length 80–140 mm for most Oklahoma hoes and stemmed hoes (Bell 1980). Large South Carolina hoes up to 140 mm long and 60 mm wide at the bit; resharpened ones about 90 mm long and 40 mm wide (n = 8, Riggs and Davis 2015). Notched Mill Creek hoe blades 100–200 mm long (Holmes 1919, converted from inches); a notched hoe from St. Clair County, Illinois, 191 mm long, about 150 mm wide and 13 mm thick (Rau 1869, converted from inches); a flare-bitted Mill Creek hoe 218 mm long (Illinois State Museum). St. Clair-style notched hoes are generally 100–180 mm long and nearly as wide (Morrow 2016).

Central Mississippi and lower Ohio valleys: Mill Creek hoes reached Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio (Holmes 1919), and Dover hoes the Tennessee and Cumberland valleys and the lower Ohio (Parish and Butler 2015). Hoes of local stone occur in eastern Oklahoma and the Ozarks (Bell 1980), the Carolina Piedmont (Riggs and Davis 2015), southern Wisconsin and the Northeast (Moorehead 1910); reworked Mill Creek hoe fragments reached Minnesota (Morrow 2016).

Identification tips: Check the bit for gloss and fine striations, and the notches, stem or upper sides for haft smoothing (Rau 1869; Riggs and Davis 2015). Small flakes with a patch of the same gloss on the outer face are hoe-resharpening flakes; with hoe fragments they dominate some Mississippian chipped-stone assemblages (Illinois State Museum; Pollack 2008).

Similar types: Chipped Stone Spade is long, oval and never notched (Moorehead 1910). Celt is narrower and thicker in body (Holmes 1919). Chipped double-bitted axes have two working edges (Bell 1980). Unfinished preforms lack bit polish, and digging pits or roots leaves the same polish as farming (Bell 1980).

Naming: Rau (1869) sorted Illinois digging tools into shovels and notched hoes; the BAE Handbook (Hodge 1907) called the short or notched forms hoes but judged the hoe-spade split of little significance. Bell's stemmed hoes are also called single-bitted flaked axes.

Dating evidence: Chert hoes are diagnostic of the Late Woodland Lewis phase (Applegate 2008).