Introduction
A Paleo Bird Effigy is a stone artifact directly associated with ancient tree and platform burials, mankinds oldest and most widespread way of dealing with a body after death.A mysterious ritual practice of making and using a stone "Bird Effigy" at funerals and cemeteries appeared here in Michigan over 13,000 years ago by people moving North after the last Ice Age.The original 'Paleo' styles and patterns of the stone bird effigy continued in use, unchanged, through the long Archaic and later Woodland Periods. The mostobvious ones have been found around skeletons in many excavated burial mounds.Considered "curious" or barely ever mentioned, thesesimple natural rocks and stones fall under the huge category of artifacts called "PROBLEMATICALS" - a category clearly recognized and accepted over 100 years ago. Exactly why they were made, and the true purpose they served remains a mystery to this day. That's the problem with Problematicals!During the Paleo period-14,000 to 10,000 years ago- amobile culture of Big Game Hunters stretched from Western Europe through Russia, Central and Eastern Asia, and all across North and South America.The North American Paleo presence consists mostly of occasional thin scatters of broken stone, typical evidence of intermittant hunting camps or Big Game kill sites. Deep stratified sites are rare.In the dry American West, ancient trails, trail shrines, mysterious rock alignments, stone piles and circles ofstone are associated with the earliest Paleo period.Thousands of years of forest and vegetation growth hasobscured that kind of evidence in Eastern North America.We know there were low population densities, lots of room to roam and an incredible amount of wild food almost everywhere.Yet we know little about the people of the Paleo becausestone is usually all that remains and few human bones have ever been found.Back then, almost everyone who died was wrapped in skins,along with their personal possesions, tied up in a tree, orplaced high up on a scaffold out of reach of scavenging animals.Usually the highest ground was used for this funeral practiceknown as 'Aerial Sepulture'.Though commonly called 'Platform Burial', it is with out a doubt mankinds oldest and most widespread way of dealingwith a body after death.Here in West Michigan, the SDM site is just one among many around the world where there were concentrations of 'Platform Burials' by the people of the Paleo period.What remains are simple, abstract stone 'Bird Effigies', in all sizes, and the tools they used to make them with.This 'Bird' at a funeral/cemetary idea appears fully developedhere over 13,000 years ago and was practiced right up to historic times.The presence of fine retouched bi-faces, polished stoneimplements and bits of pottery, for example, found on the later Archaic (10,000 to 3,000 years ago) and Woodland (3,000 to historic) funeral sites, over shadows the rough stone 'Bird Effigies' and usually go unnoticed by relic collectors.
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