Any relation between LaMotte Culture and Adena Culture?

[DiversionHound]

I've always wondered why I tend to find these points where ever I find Adena artifacts. They look to be Lowes to me which would belong to the LaMotte Culture. I found all of these in a summer or 2 in a field in Bullitt Co KY. I can think of at least 3 sites I have hunted in Bullitt Co KY where I found both types of artifacts.

Could be I'm mistaken and these are Hopewell?

Many sites I have hunted have been multi-cultural but these 2 seem to go hand-in-hand where I've hunted.

Any thoughts? Maybe just so happened both cultures liked the same areas for food, water, materials etc?

[paohrocks]

Some of them certainly have Hopewell characteristics.

[Narrow Way Knapper]

Maybe an ancient battle ground or border region where two cultures were shooting two different point types at each other?

[Narrow Way Knapper]

The Adena culture could have split up into multiple cultures similar to the Mayans. The Mayans initially split up into three different nations the Maya-Quiche, the Cakchiquel and the Tzutuhil.

[DiversionHound]

Right, that makes sense. Thanks! Suppose it wasn't as simple as just one clean transition. I guess slight differences in beliefs and/or culture could have split them up into many different groups. Sometimes I think "what killed them?" or "where did they go?", but maybe they didn't go anywhere, but they instead just split up, and it was more of the culture that "declined" rather than the people.

[Narrow Way Knapper]

It gets to be pretty complicating for sure. The Pueblo people were split between the Mexicans and the Navajo. The Navajo would sometimes steal wives from the Pueblo and I think the remaining Pueblo were absorbed into Mexico. The Spanish had no record of the Navajo when they first landed in that region, so Transient cultures make the puzzle even more complex.

[gregszybala]

What Narrow Way said, You have Adena, Poverty Point, Watson Break and numerous other and later mound cultures. I have one in my county that is called Goodall Focus or Tradition depending upon archaeologists interpretations. It relates to other mounds in NE Illinois and SW Michigan yet doesn't relate to others in the same area. Later than Adena but related. These different mound cultures had their own local or regional idiosyncrasies but overall were very similar to earlier and current but other cultures. The culture/s passed down through generations and across through trade.

[DiversionHound]

Thank you! I appreciate the help and knowledge. There are so many pieces of the puzzle into really understanding a single artifact it seems lol. That's one of the things I love about this hobby, there is always more to learn.

[sailorjoe]

The first photo shows two that look like atlatl points. The others were used as knives. The three points in the 2nd photo are all knives. I don't think they are Adena points cause I never saw an Adena with an expanding stem. Two types in that area that have expanding stems like the ones you have are Baker's Creek and Lowe. I think both may be related to the Copena culture.

[oldrocks2]

Hard to say on a multi period site. I had one site that I found transitional Paleo a nd Mississippian and everything in between . I believe it was just a good location that many found attractive, I don't think any of the points you show are Adena. Sure look like Copena points I have found.

[DiversionHound]

Yeah I didn't show any of the Adena points I had found in those pics, sorry. I never found anything that great that was Adena there but found plenty of pieces that would have been. I'll post them below.

[DiversionHound]

sailorjoe, oldrocks2 thanks for looking and responding. Sorry I did not include the pieces I am considering Adena in my original post. All the ones in my original post I am considering to be Lowe/Chesser/Baker's Creek.

Please see below the pieces I found at the same site that I consider Adena. Again, nothing remarkable, I put that last one in a frame and I've posted it here before. But it was part of this site I hunted. Thanks again!


Some bases...




Some midsections that I THINK were probably Adena...





And the only decent Adena find of mine at this site...

[DiversionHound]

sorry 1 more pic of a couple Adena bases found at that same site...

that small piece could be a base or a tip, I've heard they liked using the whole rock working from cortex to cortex

[clovisoid]

Unwinding the different groups in the early to late woodland will drive you crazy.

A lot of the smaller cultures in Indiana (like Allison Lamotte, Crab Orchard, etc.) were named based on pottery studies done by Glenn Black lab at IU and a generation of graduate students who documented sites up and down the Wabash River. They are all valid, distinctive groups, but the stone tools are pretty common between them and all the different groups that made up the early to middle Woodland period in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, and Eastern Missouri. So without the pottery shards that are typically found only at the mound sites, it's hit or miss to pin many of them down. Saratogas, Lowes, Matanzas and a host of other point types that are similar to Hopewell and Adena types. The later Madison triangles are a great example. They were named for the Oneota groups, and technically as defined originally if they aren't found on an Oneota site they are something else. But all Mississippian groups made identical triangle arrowheads so they name stuck broadly.

I don't know how far towards Bullitt County Lamotte would have gotten, they interacted with the Mann site in Posey County Indiana, and the Woodland mound builders at Angel mounds when it was probably a minor site. (It became a dominant site during the Mississippian phase.) So maybe not quite as far east as you. A lot of the influence in your part of Kentucky came from Ohio and that part of northern Kentucky across from Cincinnati & Portsmouth. You get towards Owensboro and it's a lot more related to Illinois, Western Kentucky, and Missouri. Spencer County Indiana is a good example of the split. The Kramer Mound site is related to groups to the west, the woodland part of the Crib Mound site is clearly in the Ohio Hopewell Sphere of influence..

[DiversionHound]

Thanks so much for taking the time to share the knowledge! Much appreciated. Very interesting to me that's for sure!

[sailorjoe]

Hi Dh. Me again Yes the new photos look Adena to me. Baker's Creek is often referred to as a stemmed Copena. and were found in the same strata in controlled excavations I think Copena is thought of as a southern form of Adena that dominated in the Ohio River region. Copena is a combination of the words copper and galena that are two materials that were often found together in burials in Copena mounds near the Tenn. River in North Alabama.

[DiversionHound]

Phew, sorry, yeah I see that now. Complicated for sure.

[sailorjoe]

That is OK. It does get kinda confusing sometimes. Sometimes we try to be too precise when it comes to IDing of points. Remember that Archaeology is a Social Science and as such is not a "real" science like chemistry, biology and physics which most of the times can be precise. My mentor of long ago was James Cambron. He was an amateur archaeologist and identified more different point types than anyone I know of both professional and amateur. I would sometimes ask him the type of a point that I had found. He often said, " I don't know but it looks like some kind of Late Archaic or Early Woodland point". I believe there may be quite a few types that we find that have yet to be named. They just need to be found in abundance enough in an area or over a wide enough areas that some archeologist can do the research and publish on it.

[DiversionHound]

Thanks. Wow James Cambron sounds familiar... but he sounds like a friend of mine who is much more knowledgeable than me. When I try to worry too much about IDing a type. He says things like, "It's not like they knew anything about what we call them or they picked up a rock and said 'I think I'm going to make a Bakers Creek'". It seems the more I learn, the more I forget and the more I realize I don't know. lol

[KyChipStone]

The above statements say it all. I have been down this rabbit hole a couple times only to realize that until further study has been done and viewed from a broader perspective, the answers will remain mixed and totally confusing. Like you, I too always find these two point types together being the Adena and Lowe type points. The Raddatz/ Godar is another confusing example ( in my opinion), of the same point with different names, based on location. Anyway, I feel your confusion in trying to understand these clusters and I hope you have better luck than I did in figuring them out..lol