Stone Gorget

A stone gorget is a thin, flat, ground and polished plate of stone, typically about 100 mm long, 40 mm wide and 9 mm thick, pierced by two or more holes drilled through its face. Outlines include rectangular, trapezoidal, oval or elliptical, expanded-center ("bow-tie"), concave-sided and keeled or hollow-faced forms (Peabody and Moorehead 1906; Ellis 2002; Bell 1980).

Most are slate, shale or similar fine-grained stone, often banded slate. A slab was roughed out by percussion or pecking, ground on gritty stone, drilled and polished, and the early shaping scars were usually ground away (Bell 1980; Moorehead 1910). Holes are usually countersunk and drilled from both faces, though Adena gorgets are often drilled from one side only (Peabody and Moorehead 1906; Ellis 2002). Broken gorgets were reground and redrilled, or laced together through extra repair holes (Bell 1980).

Their use is uncertain. Most show little or no wear in the holes, though some have cord wear and some have small notches ("tally marks") along the edges. Suggested uses include ornament, bow guard, spindle whorl and atlatl weight; Ellis (2002) finds the evidence for any one use weak, and their positions in Adena burials suggest most were not worn at the throat. The key trait is a thin, flat polished stone plate with two or more holes drilled through the face.

Mean 94.6 × 42.9 × 9.5 mm (Andover collection); length 30–190 mm, width 13–120 mm (377 specimens, Peabody and Moorehead 1906). Oklahoma examples are mostly 8–12 mm thick (Bell 1980).

Eastern North America, most common in the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes region: 89% of a sample of 377 came from the Midwest and 62% from Ohio (Peabody and Moorehead 1906). Found east to New York, Ontario and Maryland and west to eastern Oklahoma, where they are uncommon (Ellis 2002; Melton and Luckenbach 2013; Bell 1980).

Holes through the flat face, usually two and spaced symmetrically, make a gorget; a single hole near one end makes a pendant (Ellis 2002). Bar amulets and birdstones are drilled into the base, and bannerstones through the long axis. Outline helps with age: Glacial Kame has bar and constricted-center forms, Meadowood large trapezoidal forms, Orient rounded ends, and Adena broad rectangular and expanded-center forms, often drilled from one face (Ellis 2002; Henderson and Schlarb 2007). The name comes from the European armor gorget and probably does not describe how they were used (Ellis 2002). Glacial Kame "sandal-sole gorgets" are marine shell, not stone (Donaldson and Wortner 1995). At Pig Point, Maryland, Adena gorgets were deliberately broken and then re-incised (Melton and Luckenbach 2013).