A Fourteenth-Century Southern Plains Star Chart

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 1978 excavations in the first of four houses at the Uncas site (34KA172) produced several pieces of a burned clay panel carrying multiple fingertip impressions. Uncas is a late fourteenth-century site north of Ponca City, Oklahoma and south of Arkansas City, Kansas overlooking the Arkansas River. Several pieces of this panel were reassembled at that time, and the impressions seemed to be in a pattern, but the exact pattern was unclear. No suggestions were made as to what the panel represented or what its purpose was. The Uncas collections were reanalyzed in 2015 and attempts were once again made to reassemble the panel. With recent archaeological interest in belief systems the possibility was recognized that this panel might be a star chart. Further consultation with amateur astronomers reinforced this idea. The purpose of this poster is to demonstrate the close similarity between the pattern of fingertip impressions and a specific arrangement of the Pleiades, Hyades, and other nearby stars. Also discussed are possible purposes for the chart.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24229