08/25/2026
A year ago today, one of the best finds to date! The birdstone accompanied with the arrowheads found on the same adventure. (Video in previous post)
Trekking through Wisconsin’s rolling Amish country (Taylor County) turned into an unforgettable search when I uncovered the prize of my lifetime.
Holding that piece of ancient history while draft horses worked the adjacent hay fields made the thrill of the discovery feel like pure wonder!
Dreams don't die!
Back up in Taylor County, Wisconsin! The welcome sign on the front door cleared some nerves from the first visit several months ago.
I stumbled across the L****'s, an amish family of 6 kids.
They work with 70sum acres. They have 8 Belgians and 4 American Saddlebreds, 12 head of angus. They have oats, corn and alfalfa, a variety of fruit trees; apple, pear, plum, huge garden, they even can their own meet which I had no idea that was even possible! They even harvest their own honey!
Little did I know and never expected, I would have seen the best artifact collection in my entire life at this Amish farm. Everything was pulled right out of this current ground in the last 32 years, last Spring they took out some trees and turned it into crop ground where more relics were.
They know all their relics are from ancient man but they have no idea what they really are, how old they are and regardjng all the terminology, age and the details behind them.
Explaining everything was pretty fun and interesting to see the expressions of their faces. They were surprised and in awe, when I explained what they had.
I, myself was in awe by what they had. Thousands of years of evolution, artifacts showing evidence of trial and error! From arrowheads from early Woodland to paleo speara, fluted/reguler axes, birdstones, blades, grinding bowls! Their collection, hidden from the public, they always called this stuff "Knick knacks from the field"
At the end of the day, they even gave me some honey, straight from their farm!
" The Popeyed Birdstone "
The most mysterious and sought after relics in the Native American world.
The majority of these styles of birdstones are found in New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and in the lower region of eastern Canada. Mainly in the area of the Great Lakes region.
The bust style birdstone is even more rarer.
Although some examples are crudely made, birdstones represent one of the most impressively crafted ground stone artifacts found in North America. The fact that they were made from durable material but very attractive material suggests that these were important objects.
The use of them is still a mystery, we really don't know what they were used for. The more elaborate, popeyed, fantail or long bodied styles would have required a fair amount of skill and time to make them.
For over a hundred years, the professional and amateur archaeologist, and the curious have been investigating and excavating many of the hundreds of thousands of ancient campsites and earthworks that dot the North American landscape, the unresolved archaeological mysteries waiting to be discovered.
This long-awaited study has finally brought to attention an unsuspecting rich and powerful art tradition by a native people living thousands of years ago in these same neighborhoods we call home today.
It represents one of the more artistic forms and has the more rarely seen addition of feet, most birdstones do not have any projection on the bottom but instead have smooth flat undersides, they are also drilled on the front and back corners indicating they were once attached to some object.
Still to this day, nobody really has the answers to what they were actually used for, some say they acted as a counter weight on a throwing spear to add momentum, some say their cordage were made with these, some say these were anchored on the side of a dug out log canoe and helped relieve some of the tension from their fishing line, or where they could tie on their string somehow. I have actually even heard from others that women may presented these in their hair somehow.
I hope we never figure it out, it would stop us from wondering! If we knew everything, it would be a world of blah! It's just a world of mystery!
Such relics come from the Late Archaic to Early Woodland Periods 3,000–5,000yrs old
All that anyone can hope for now is to discover how they may have been physically used and to acquire more datable finds.
Nonetheless, the birdstone will remain one of the biggest mysteries in the archaeology world!
