PREHISTORIC "ARROWHEADS" FROM HADLEY, MASSACHUSETTS

For inquiries contact Joan C. Hare , Instructor, Division of Continuing Education, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Dr. Hare is Abenaki.

The flaked stone implements shown in these photographs were found on a farm in Hadley, Massachusetts. Lot 1 is the property of Don Sabola, and lots 2 and 3 of his father, John Sabola Sr., both of Hadley. A family member, digging and weeding onion beds, found and gathered these artifacts over a period of years beginning about 1930.

The collection, taken as a whole, shows considerable variation in size, shape and construction material. Materials include flint, chert and white quartz. The two largest implements, found in lots 1 and 3, are leaf knives, each about three and a half inches long. The remaining points are mostly spear points, but some might have been used as knives,arrow points or tools.

Comparison with published photographs and drawings indicates that the Hadley implements were left by Indians of the Late Archaic Period (6,000 to 3,000 years ago) and possibly of the Ceramic-Woodland period (3,000 to 400 years ago) as well. Lot 2 includes eared, side-notched and corner-removed spear points typical of the Late Archaic.

References:

Brawn, Esther K. and Donald P. Braun. The First Peoples of the Northeast. Moccasin Hill Press, Lincoln, Massachusetts,

1996.

Haviland, William A. and Marjory W. Power. The Original Vermonters. University Press of New England, Hanover, New

Hampshire, 1994.

Moorehead, Warren K. Prehistoric Implements. Behnken Publishing, Lilburn, Georgia, 1983. (Reprint of the 1900 edition.)

Wilbur, C. Keith. The New England Indians [2nd Edition]. The Globe Pequot Press, Old Saybrook, Connecticut, 1996.