The clay objects occur in considerable numbers in all parts of the site and throughout the deposit and constitute the biggest percentage of all the brickette material from the site. In point of fact these items are not broken bits of daub, such as are so common on Mississippian sites, but are items of domestic importance in the material culture assemblage, and must be so treated in the final analysis. They are not accidental formations, such as building daub, but have been precisely formed to a pattern. While many seemed to conform to a cylindrical shape others did not. One specimen has a groove around it but its position with reference to the complete object was not apparent. One piece shows a coarse textile impression on one side and a surface well smoothed on the other. It is not a potsherd. Another piece shows the imprint of a finger apparently curled around the clay—a very small finger—probably that of a child at play. One piece looks as if it could have been a pottery trowel, but is a questionable specimen.
Two of the broken clay objects have been secondarily used as abraders for sharpening bone awls or similar pointed items. One specimen (FS 217) is the stem of a pottery trowel, a standard item of Mississippian groups. A complete modified conical object was recovered from a nearby site and is a graphic representation of another shape of these objects ([Fig. 27];2).
Figure 27. Brickettes or Fired Clay Artifacts
(Brickette with central hole, 2. Semi-conical clay objects. 3. Rectanguloid clay brickette)
It should be obvious from the above that much of the burned clay material from Lawhorn is not truly daub but rather fragmentary pieces of a multitude of domestic utility objects which played an important part in the material culture of the people.
Shell Artifacts
Six beads were made from marine shell ([Fig. 28];1). These were small, being from 7 to 10 mm. in diameter and 10 to 16 mm. long. One drilled mussel shell hoe or scraper was found in the general digging and this is typical of the specimens commonly found on Mississippian sites ([Fig. 28];2).
Vegetal Remains
Carbonized food occurred in several instances. A few acorn hulls were found in Feature 18, a nut shell in Feature 5, both fire basin and a small number of corn cobs in the general midden excavation. The corn cobs according to Nash, seem typical of the Eastern Complex corn. They are all fragmentary but three specimens show a tapering cob. The first of these had twelve rows of kernels spaced as pairs. The cob was probably not over 6 cm. in length and had a diameter of 2 cm. some distance from the probable butt. Kernels measured about 4 mm. wide and 2 mm. thick. The second specimen had ten paired rows of kernels and was 1.6 cm. in diameter. The third specimen had been split longitudinally but indicated twelve paired rows of kernels. The cob was 1.7 cm. in diameter. The largest kernels were 5 mm. wide and 2.4 mm. thick (See [Appendix B]).