Magnetite at the Jones Mill Site

Archeologically, magnetite is typically associated with Late Archaic period (ca. 1700-600 BC) plummets found at the Poverty Point site in northeastern Louisiana. Magnetite is one of several nonlocal raw materials found at Poverty Point and contemporary sites in southeast Arkansas that could have come from the Ouachita Mountains region (Jeter and Jackson 1994; Webb 1977). Similar objects were found at the Woodland period Plum Bayou site outside Little Rock (Rolingson and Howard 1997). Was magnetite from Jones Mill traded to other communities during the Late Archaic or Woodland periods? We found no drilled or grooved pieces of magnetite at Jones Mill that were finished or partially finished plummets.

I decided to do some experimental replication to compare with the magnetite at Jones Mill. Most pieces appear to be unworked. Instead, they have a cortex or weathered surface all over, either rounded or angular because of past breaks. Occasionally there are facets on a piece, similar to that experimentally produced by grinding or smoothing on a sandstone slab. There are some examples that look similar to an experimentally battered piece. Most of the pieces I identified as worked have battered surfaces, while a few have striations, faceting, chipping, and smoothing. Several pieces may have been used as hammerstones. If the Late Archaic residents of Jones Mill were sending magnetite down the Ouachita River to Poverty Point, it was in raw or cobble form rather than as partly or finished plummets.

Perhaps people used magnetite to hold the heat of the fire in hearths or earth ovens. What does heated magnetite look like? I did a baking experiment, but did not notice a visible difference other than a little reddening on the exterior surface. The magnetite did not fracture from the heat, and it seemed to hold the heat for a long time.

Magnetite was used as temper in some ceramic sherds at the Jones Mill site. The majority of ceramic sherds from Jones Mill were tempered with grog or a grit-grog mixture, with shell and bone occurring in a minority of them. Sherds with a grit-grog mixture range from grog-tempered sherds with occasional pieces of grit (quartz, novaculite, or hematite), to those heavily tempered with grit. There are also sherds that were exclusively tempered with grit, specifically with a mica-magnetite mixture. These can be typed as Ouachita Ironware, a Fourche Maline or Woodland period type in the middle Ouachita River valley region (Early and Trubitt 2021; Schambach 1998; Trubitt 2019). This is based on macroscopic identification; we would have to use petrographic analysis or another technique to identify tempers with certainty. Grinding or battering small pieces of magnetite for temper is not difficult or time-consuming since it is so friable. Some of the magnetite from the site has seams of mica, so may have produced both kinds of grit.