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Native American Artifacts in Frederick
The Indians . . . will often carve figures on their
pipes not destitute of design and merit. They will crayon
out an animal, a plant, or a country . . . They astonish
you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as
prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination
glowing and elevated.
- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781
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| Digital reconstruction
of artifact |
Actual Native American human effigy |
This carved human effigy excavated in Frederick City
dates to circa AD 1450. Archeologists from the Archeology
Society of Maryland recovered this object from an ancient,
overgrown Native American village trash pit that itself
dates as far back as AD 1040. The pit is located in Frederick
City and contained many other items, including a small
stone carved with the face of an owl.
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| Stone carved with the face of an owl |
The human effigy was incised in what is probably a
deer bone, but only half if it was found. The image shown
above is a digital reconstruction by artist William Cochran,
based on the conjectural sketches of archeologists. It
is not known if this image, unfinished, was accidentally
broken during the carving process by its maker before
it was completed or if it was completed and later broken
by accident. It may have been made locally or it may
have been a gift or trade item passed along through the
far-flung native trade networks that could carry an object
hundreds of miles or more.
Archeologists from the New York State Museum have identified
this squatting human figure as a “hocker”,
an image found both Old and New World artifacts but quite
rare east of the Mississippi, except in the art of the
Seneca Iroquois, located in upstate New York. This is
one of the earliest hockers ever found in the East.
Artifact images courtesy of the
Archeology Research Unit at the Maryland Historical
Trust, Crownsville, MD |
