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BONE TOOLS The Mitchell site produced many tools that were made from bone. Most of the bone came from bison. The hardness and toughness of this material is the reason it was used for so many different kinds of tools and ornaments. Most of the artifacts in this picture are represented by long narrow and pointed awls that were made from the long bones of bison. Awls were mainly used for piercing holes for various purposes such as sewing. Longer forms of these tools may also been used as hair pins or as pins to hold down mats. The two largest bone artifacts in this picture are bone fleshers. One is serrated on the end and the other is smooth. Fleshers were used as scraping tools to scrape animal hides. The bone artifact at top right is a squash knife that was used to clean the seeds from inside squash. It was made from a bison scapula. Squash knives were sometimes made from broken bone hoes. The artifact at the top left appears to be a side-notched point projectile point. But it's not a typical artifact so it may also have been an ornament that was suspended like a pendant. The artifact located just left of center is a perforated deer phalange. It was made from the toe bone of a deer. Its exact use is unknown but it may have been used as a game piece in the ring-and-pin game. The two delicate fishhooks represent some of the more rare artifacts found on the Mitchell site. These two examples were made from the scapula of a bison. Rather than used singularly they may have been used on trot lines which would have had many hooks placed along a long central line.
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