Pair of Large Tennessee Native American Chert Stone Drills – Prehistoric Knapped Artifacts

Arrowheads and stone tools weren’t just tools—they were often traded like money. Tribes valued them for their usefulness and skillful craftsmanship, making them a form of early currency in Native American trade long before coins came along.

A Rare Matched Pair of Prehistoric Stone Drills from Tennessee

A distinctive pair of elongated knapped-stone tools attributed by the collector to Tennessee and identified as prehistoric drills. Both exhibit long, narrow working sections and extensive bifacial flaking, with markedly different overall profiles — making this a visually compelling study pair.

The Specimens

The two artifacts are visually quite different, which adds to their interest as a pair:

• Left artifact: Broad, asymmetrical upper body tapering into a long narrow point, with substantial flake scars and areas of original cortex or weathered surface remaining.
• Right artifact: Unusually long and slender, with extensive flaking along essentially its entire length and a narrow terminal working end — a particularly striking example of the drill form.

Function & Context

Drills were functional tools rather than projectile weapons, used to perforate materials such as wood, shell, bone, and other workable substances. Tennessee archaeological research also shows that drills were sometimes reworked from earlier projectile points — so their asymmetrical or unconventional shapes can reflect repeated use and resharpening rather than poor manufacture.

The Smithsonian documents prehistoric chert drills from Tennessee and the broader Southeast, confirming chert as a recognized material for this tool class. Archaeological Tennessee assemblages likewise contain drills, including examples identified by their narrow working bits.

Dating & Identification

These are described conservatively, as drills occur over an enormous span of prehistory and cannot be reliably dated from morphology alone:

• Region: Tennessee, per collector attribution
• Artifact type: Drills / boring tools
• Material: Chert (probable) — Crystal system: Trigonal | Mineral class: Silicate (Tectosilicate) | Composition: micro/cryptocrystalline SiO₂ (quartz/chalcedony)
• Culture: Prehistoric Native American / Indigenous North American
• Period: Undetermined (Archaic through Woodland contexts possible)
• Quantity: 2 (sold as a pair)
• Manufacture: Chipped / bifacially flaked stone

Provenance Note

These artifacts are accompanied by their original handwritten collector card reading "PAIR OF TENNESSEE DRILLS" — preserved as part of the collection history. While this is not independent archaeological provenance, it is a meaningful piece of the objects' collecting history and is included with the pair.

No specific cultural or period attribution is claimed from photographs alone. Offered as collector specimens with the above conservative identification.