Plates 34, 35, 36. 
These three plates illustrate digging tools used by Indians of the Mississippi culture. 
Those in Plate 34 are often called notched hoes in archaeological literature and the 
larger, unnotched forms shown in 35 and 36, spades. There is no question that both 
were sometimes used for digging in soil in which grass or corn (maize), which is also a 
grass, had grown. This is because of the gloss which those intensively used often 
exhibit, but there is some question whether the longer ones were hafted like a spade 
or like a hoe. 
Several years ago it was discovered that the shine or gloss, which can best be seen on 
the bit end of the right hand object in Plate 35, is a build-up on the tools of opaline 
inclusions in grasses which remain in the soil after the grasses decay. Those that are 
interested in the technical, physical and chemical processes involved will find expla- 
nations in John Wittoft’s “Glazed Polish on Flint Tools ”in American Antiquity, 
Volume 32, No. 3, pp. 383-388, 1967. 
One may sometimes find the same glaze on smaller flint tools that were used before 
agriculture for digging roots of edible wild plants in prairie soil. It is more commonly 
found on digging tools used by Mississippian Indians after A.D. 900 when the culti- 
vation of corn was extensive. 
All hoes were not of stone, although they have survived best. Hoes of more perishable 
materials such as wood, shell or bone have been subject to decay. Swanton (B.A.E. 
Bulletin 132 p. 129) documents the use of wooden hoes among the Caddo in what 
is now the eastern part of Texas, Well worn hoes of shells of river mollusks, perfor- 
ated for attachment, have been found in excavations and also hoes made of elk and 
deer shoulder bones. The agricultural Indians on the upper Missouri River used hoes 
made of bison shoulder bones, historically and prehistorically. 
Plate 34. C. t5X268 © trom 
Cobden, Union 
A. 15X22 from St, Co, iL 
Clair Co., IL 
D. 15X362 from St 
ed 
15X361__ proven- Charles Co,, MO 
ience is unknown 
rH 
15X264  proven- 
ience is unknown 
