Typology

There are currently over 10,000 bannerstones in public and private collections.[2] During the Archaic period, thousands more would have been made that still remain in caches, burials, and middens under industrial farms, golf courses, asphalt highways, homes, or forest floors throughout the Eastern United States. For the bannerstones currently known, I have categorized them into twenty-four distinct types [see Typology Section on BP site]. These types are consolidated from those originally proposed by Byron Knoblock in 1939 and refined by David Lutz in 2000.[3] These kinds of typologies assist us in the study and understanding of bannerstones. However, as Knoblock noted in his analysis of 3,600 stones, 47% of them were what he calls “blended forms” that share traits of more than one type. This range of variation further attests to the desire for uniqueness and self-expression amongst the sculptors.[4]

When photographing bannerstones, it is important to take images that represent and reveal specific elements that include perforations, spines, notches, wings, and carved anomalous elements. Indigenous North Amercians often sculpted bannerstones in relationship to the natural contours or elements of the lithics they had chosen. Photographs that can reveal the unique sculptural interplay between materials and form will further add to our understanding of the choices sculptors made.

Recommendation: photograph the front and back of the stone standing up when possible. Use a metric indicator with at least one of these images to represent scale. Also, photograph the edge of the stone lying down; this will reveal important aspects of the composition that the front or back view cannot provide. Finally, choose angles that can then accentuate and express the unique contours of each sculpted form. Looking at your photographs decide whether additional details, varied angles, or shifts in lighting will bring out the chosen actualized interplay of materials and morphology of the bannerstone.

[2] David L. Lutz, The Archaic Bannerstone: Its Chronological History and Purpose From 6000 B.C. to 1000 B.C. (Newburg: David L. Lutz, 2000), 21.

[3] Byron Knoblock, Bannerstones of the North American Indian (Quincy IL 1939), 126ff. Knoblock’s entire text is available on this website for review or download. David Lutz, The Archaic Bannerstone its Chronological History and Purpose from 6000 B.C. to 1000 B.C. (Newburgh IN. 2000).

[4] Knoblock, 140-141.