In celebration of the holiday season, we thought you’d enjoy this encounter we had with a 7 year old who visited the museum in Columbus during a special event.

She came by our table filled with stone pestles, pieces of pottery, bone tools, granite celts and chert projectile points; one of which made her face light up. “Oooh…it’s a Christmas tree!!!”  she exclaimed.

Photo by Linda Pansing

“It sure does look like it,” I said smiling, “do you want to hold it?”  She held out her hand, her eyes wide with wonder as I placed it in her palm. You could see connections being formed right in front of your eyes.

“How do you think people used it?”

At this point her imagination was in full swing! From combing hair (after all, what else would the edge ‘bumps’ be used for?), to making squiggly designs in dirt, and then settling on a mini saw for cutting things.  Between her answers I’d tell her more about the point and the people who crafted it.

After a while her group was ready to move to another station, and we said goodbye to our new friend.

Now, whenever I see this point,  I can’t help but see it through her eyes:

Image by Linda Pansing

Oh, if you’re interested, it’s actually a serrated Kirk Stemmed Point which was found in 1896 in Perry County, OH.  This type of projectile point is associated with the Early Archaic time period (8000-6000 BCE). Constructed out of Upper Mercer chert, it measures 26.2 mm wide, 51.3 mm long, 7.0 mm deep and weighs 8 grams.

Linda Pansing, Curator of Archaeology