The Bullroarer Atlas

SANTACRUZ2026-001 - archaeological find

Santa Cruz Island ochre-filled bone pendants

United States - Santa Cruz Island - Channel Islands - California - North America

Archaeological datec. 1400 BC–AD 300Middle Period phase M1 site/cemetery horizon; the pair is not directly dated.

Function not recorded Candidate only

Gifford's Q8 drawings of the two Santa Cruz Island C83 bone blades, pierced near one end, with dotted zigzag and crosshatch.
Gifford's Q8 drawings of the two Santa Cruz Island C83 bone blades, pierced near one end, with dotted zigzag and crosshatch. · Public domain Image source

Source term: bullroarer-like pendant

Q8: Gifford's catalogue class for two bullroarer-like bone pendants

Red ochre still sat in the tiny punctures of two bone blades from site C83 on Santa Cruz Island. One carries a jagged, lightning-like design; both have a single hole at one short end. Gifford filed them among pendants but thought their broad whirling shapes - and that lightning mark - might tell another story. No cord survives and no one has studied their wear, so the pair remains poised between ornament and sounding blade.

Possible use suggested by shape of both, and lightning-like design on 1.

Gifford 1940:175
Object
Two broad thin bone blades with one terminal perforation each; one bears a lightning-like punctate design, and both retain red ochre in punctations on one face.
Function
Possible bullroarers; excavated and catalogued as pendants.
Map confidence
low - Santa Cruz Island centroid used pending recovery of C83's site coordinates; not a findspot.
Source location
Page references

printed pp. 174-175; exact drawings p. 221, Q8

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