{"id":"AIKENS1970-001","label":"Hogup Cave bull-roarer, Stratum 3","people_or_site":"Hogup Cave, Early Archaic occupation (Unit I, Stratum 3)","country_current":"United States","historic_region":"Hogup Mountains, Box Elder County, Utah (eastern Great Basin)","macroregion":"North America / Great Basin","local_name":"","source_term":"Bull-roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"Populus blade 19.0 cm long, 3.6 cm wide at the centre and 1.2 cm thick; slightly crescentic in outline, roughly lenticular in cross-section, tapered toward both ends and bowed along its length, with a 3 mm hole 2.5 cm from the narrow end whose edge is constricted and worn where a cord was tied.","function_summary":"Not recorded. The excavator tested the specimen and found that it sounded.","attestation_type":"archaeological_find","source_key":"aikens1970_hogup_cave","source_type":"archaeological_report","source_url":"https://archive.org/details/hogupcave0000aike/page/173","page_or_plate":"p. 173 (section BULL-ROARER); Fig. 123 on p. 175","map_confidence":"medium_high","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Hogup Mountains range anchor, Box Elder County; the excavation coordinates are protected and are not published here.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Seven thousand years ago somebody in the Hogup Mountains, on the old shoreline west of the Great Salt Lake, shaped a cottonwood blade, thinned it to a lens in section, gave it a gentle bow along its length, and hung it from a cord through a small knot-hole near one end. It lay in Stratum 3 of the cave until 1967. When C. Melvin Aikens published the excavation he did the one thing archaeologists almost never do with an object like this: he spun it. It \"speaks,\" he wrote, with a satisfying if subdued voice. Nothing else like it had come out of the dry caves of the Great Basin, and he was careful to say the identification was not beyond doubt - the cord hole sits off to one side rather than centred, which is not how the California cave specimens are strung. What the Northern Paiute did with theirs is on record, from Isabel Kelly and Julian Steward both: children played with them, and a man whirled one to call up a warm wind.","pull_quote":"Because of the antiquity and widespread distribution of such artifacts, an early appearance in the Basin would not be particularly surprising.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Aikens, Hogup Cave (1970), section BULL-ROARER.","term_gloss":"","cls":"unknown","class_label":"Function not recorded","color":"#6B7884","is_candidate":false,"flags":[],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"f_archaeology":true,"archaeology_kind":"object","date_display":"c. 7840–4540 BC","date_qualification":"Modeled Strata 1–7 range; object from Stratum 3.","date_basis":"stratigraphic","date_confidence":"low","date_citation":"AIKENS_1970_HOGUP_CAVE, Aikens 1970 p. 173 and fig. 123 p. 175; Martin, Coltrain and Codding 2017 pp. 301–324","sources":[{"citation":"C. Melvin Aikens, Hogup Cave, University of Utah Anthropological Papers No. 93 (1970), p. 173 (section 'BULL-ROARER'), specimen illustrated as Fig. 123 on p. 175","url":"https://archive.org/details/hogupcave0000aike/page/173"}],"source_citations":"C. Melvin Aikens, Hogup Cave, University of Utah Anthropological Papers No. 93 (1970), p. 173 (section 'BULL-ROARER'), specimen illustrated as Fig. 123 on p. 175","source_display":"C. Melvin Aikens, Hogup Cave, University of Utah Anthropological Papers No. 93 (1970), p. 173 (section 'BULL-ROARER'), specimen illustrated as Fig. 123 on p. 175","date_citation_display":"Aikens 1970 p. 173 and fig. 123 p. 175; Martin, Coltrain and Codding 2017 pp. 301–324","object_display":"Populus blade 19.0 cm long, 3.6 cm wide at the centre and 1.2 cm thick; slightly crescentic in outline, roughly lenticular in cross-section, tapered toward both ends and bowed along its length, with a 3 mm hole 2.5 cm from the narrow end whose edge is constricted and worn where a cord was tied.","function_display":"Not recorded. The excavator tested the specimen and found that it sounded.","confidence_display":"medium to high","attestation_label":"archaeological find","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"hogup cave","display_name":"Hogup Cave bull-roarer, Stratum 3","image":{"full":"assets/objects/NAMER-008_prm_1903-36-42_mishongnovi.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/NAMER-008_prm_1903-36-42_mishongnovi_thumb.jpg","alt":"Hopi bullroarer with cord and handle, Mishongnovi (Pitt Rivers Museum 1903.36.42).","credit":"Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (1903.36.42)","license":"© Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford","source_page":"https://prm.ox.ac.uk/collections-online#/item/prm-object-39592","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Hopi bullroarer with cord and handle, Mishongnovi (Pitt Rivers Museum 1903.36.42).","pool_id":"american-west-hopi-mishongnovi","last_modified":"2026-08-11"},"slug":"aikens1970-001-hogup-cave-early-archaic-occupation-unit-i-stratum-3"}