Cone

A cone is a small, solid object of polished stone with a flat, round to oval base and sides that curve up to a point or a low rounded top; the apex is sometimes ground flat. Some are nearly flat, others as tall as the base is wide. The form grades into hemispheres, into egg-shaped and double-cone forms close to plummets, and into the more conical boatstones (Fowke 1896; Hodge 1907).

Hematite is the usual material, but steatite, compact quartzite, granite, sandstone, barite and galena were also used (Fowke 1896; Applegate 2008). Cones were ground and polished; some hematite pieces show flat facets from rubbing, and a few have a small pit in the flat base (Fowke 1896, 1902). There is no hole or groove.

Their use is unknown. Hodge (1907) suggested charms, part of a shaman's kit or game pieces, and noted that faceted hematite cones may have been rubbed on a stone plate to make red paint, as Pueblo people did with similar cones. In Kentucky and Ohio, hematite and barite cones were placed with burials in Adena and Hopewell mounds, and barite cones may also have served as pigment sources (Henderson and Schlarb 2007; Applegate 2008). The key trait is a small solid polished cone with a flat base and no hole or groove.

Small: like hemispheres, they rarely weigh more than a few ounces (under about 100 g; Hodge 1907). Height ranges from much less than to about equal to the base diameter (Fowke 1896). No published measured series was found.

Mostly east of the Mississippi, especially the middle Ohio Valley, eastern Tennessee and the Kanawha Valley of West Virginia (Hodge 1907; Fowke 1896); also Poverty Point, Louisiana (Gibson 1985).

Look for an evenly ground flat base, polish over the whole surface and no hole. Hemispheres have a dome rather than a point; plummets have a groove or hole at the top for hanging; boatstones are hollowed or perforated (Hodge 1907). Natural hematite nodules and paint stones can look similar but lack a regular outline. Fowke (1896) described a quartz piece intermediate between cone and hemisphere. "Cone" is a descriptive name only, and older works list cones among "problematical objects". Webb and Haag read the cones and boatstones from Tremper Mound, Ohio, as late Adena (Applegate 2008).