More Spheres

On the subject of small spherical objects, here is a clay marble recovered from the plowzone in Unit 44. It is about 0.7 inches in diameter and is slightly eccentric, as clay marbles tend to be. (No; it doesn't exhibit strange behavior...it just isn't perfectly round.)


Heidelberg student Magan Schlegel has been analyzing marbles from Port Tobacco and, I think, those recovered from the Johnson's Island prisoner of war facility in Ohio. I'm not sure what Confederate officers were doing with these toys in the early 1860s, but in Port Tobacco they were almost certainly used by children.

Archaeologists tend to overlook children in the archaeological record; yet most would agree that children's play is vital in socialization...it helps make the adults who eventually become the subject of archaeological study. There have been some forays into this line of archaeological research, but the archaeological study of play remains largely unplowed ground.

Jim