The Lenape Stone

On the top floor of the Mercer Museum in Doylestown, PA, you will find this 4 1/2-inch piece of stone. Upon closer inspection, you will notice markings depicting a woolly mammoth and small figures who seem to be fighting it. This is the infamous Lenape Stone.

The Wikipedia says:

The Lenape Stone is small slate, about 4.5 inches (11.4 cm) long, and is theorised to have been a 'gorget', or ornamental necklace. Supporting this theory are two holes drilled in the stone which would have enabled it to be worn about the neck. Clear engravings decorate both sides. On one side there are numerous depictions of turtles, fish, birds, and snakes. The reverse side shows an elephant-like creature, humanoid figures, what appears to be a forest, some teepees, and other markings. The humanoid figures appear to be in battle with the elephant-like creature, and one even appears to have been trampled by it.

The Lenape Stone is a controversial archaeological artifact, the earliest origins of which can be traced to Bucks County, Pennsylvania in 1872. The drawings on the stone appear to show Native Americans hunting a wooly mammoth, though most evidence suggests that modern humans did not co-exist with mammoths in North America. The circumstances surrounding the stone's discovery have made it impossible, to date, to prove or disprove its authenticity.

The first portion of the stone is reported to have been found by Barnard Hansell, a farmer, in the spring of 1872. In 1881, Hansell sold the fragment to Henry Paxon, a young man with an interest in Native American artifacts. A few months later, Hansell reported finding the second piece of the stone in the same field where he had unearthed the first, nine years before.

Once the pieces were joined, they were examined by members of the Bucks County Historical Society, including archaeologist/historian Henry Chapman Mercer. Despite evidence which cast the stone's origin in doubt, Mercer came to be an ardent proponent of its authenticity, an argument which he put forth in his 1885 book, The Lenape Stone, or the Indian and the Mammoth. Unfortunately, however, even Mercer acknowledged that the stone's unique nature and a lack of physical evidence (such as soil samples) made scientific certainty impossible.

There is much evidence against the authenticity of the Lenape Stone. The stone is unique in the fact that there are no other carvings depicting mammoths that have been found in North America. There were no witnesses to verify the circumstances under which the stone was found (this was true for both pieces of the stone). After it was found, the stone was cleaned multiple times, making geological tests virtually impossible. The carvings do not appear to cross the break in the stone, which may indicate that they were made after the stone was separated. This would show that the stone was in fact a forgery, or that the two pieces of the stone were not related.

The type of gorget the Lenape Stone resembles is known to have been popular no earlier that 1000 BCE--thousands of years after the mammoth was extinct. Additionally, three other artifacts found later on the Hansell farm bore engravings very similar to those on the Lenape Stone. All three were discovered by Barnard Hansell. These artifacts were able to be dated and were found to be from a time period not contemporary with the mammoth.

This isn't the first time that forgery and hoax have been linked to Lenape artifacts: The Holly Oak Gorget and the famous Walum Olum are other examples of forged Lenape artifacts.

Henry Chapman Mercer was convinced that the artifact was real. His book on the Lenape Stone The Lenape Stone; or The Indian and the Mammoth can be browsed here.

If it were a true artifact, it would be the only known depiction of mammoths by Native Americans ever found in North America. But before we dismiss the possibility, we should note that Lenape legends tell of a great battle against the mammoths, or "yakwawi." And so the mystery continues. Thank goodness.