NAMER-005 - archaeological find
Site 40HW44, Hawkins County, Tennessee
United States - Tennessee - Hawkins County - site 40HW44 - North America - Eastern Woodlands
Function not recorded
Source term: bone bullroarer
A bone bullroarer was buried with the dead at site 40HW44 in Hawkins County, Tennessee, in the Holston River drainage. From June 23 to August 19, 1976, the University of Alabama's Office of Archaeological Research removed the remains of at least 13 individuals from the site; five radiocarbon dates place its primary occupation in the Early Woodland period, 1000 to 300 B.C. The bullroarer was one of 132 associated funerary objects, lying among 69 drilled bear canines, beaver incisors, an antler handle, a bone pin, chert debitage, and an animal-tooth pendant. The Tennessee Valley Authority later determined that no shared group identity could be reasonably traced between these dead and any present-day Indian Tribe. Nothing in the record says how the instrument sounded or who once swung it.
The 132 associated funerary objects include two animal bone fragments; one animal tooth pendant; one antler handle; two beaver incisors; one bone bullroarer; one bone pin; 23 pieces of chert debitage; 69 drilled bear canines
Federal Register 2019-00836, Notice of Inventory Completion: Tennessee Valley Authority, Knoxville, TN (Feb. 4, 2019)
- Object
- Federal Register NAGPRA notice lists a bone bullroarer among associated funerary objects from site 40HW44 in Hawkins County, Tennessee.
- Function
- Function not recorded.
- Map confidence
- medium - Representative Hawkins County / site 40HW44 anchor from the notice; not a public exact site coordinate.
- Source location
- Federal Register 2019-00836 / site 40HW44