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PIERCED STAFF This picture shows the only pierced staff ever found on a Clovis site in North America. It was discovered in two pieces below a "black mat" on the Murray Springs site in Arizona. Authors refer to this artifact as either a shaft straightener, shaft wrench or bone wrench. It is very similar to examples that have been found on Upper Paleolithic sites in Europe. The purpose of these artifacts is not clearly known. But as Gary Haynes states in "The Early Settlement Of North American, The Clovis Era, "----their applicability to straightening spear shafts is as good a guess as any." Although many pierced staffs from Europe are engraved and carved with either geometric designs and animals, the Murray Springs bone wrench is plain. The interior of the hole does not show any polishing or rounding but it does have pronounced beveling at the top and bottom of the interior hole. The hole measures between 1 and 1 3/16 inches (2.5 to 3 cm) wide. The Murray Springs Clovis "wrench" is made of bone and it measures 10 1/4 inches (25.9 cm) long.
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