BILOXI, MISSISSIPPI—The News & Observer reports that a Mississippi man will donate a bow that he discovered in a creek on his property to the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Scott Summerlin at first thought the 42-inch-long bow was a stick poking out of the creek bed, but he soon realized the object had been shaped and engraved with an image of a deer head and a cat-like animal. Summerlin said an indentation of a thumb in the bow's wood indicates the bearer was right-handed. Experts from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, The Cobb Institute of Archaeology, and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, which once lived in Mississippi, have examined photographs of the bow and believe it is between 300 and 500 years old. “This is something that was probably lost, floated down the creek, got water logged and sank,” said James Starnes of the Mississippi Office of Geology. “It was then covered with mud.” Starnes explained that the tannin-rich water in the stream helped to preserve the rare wooden object in Mississippi’s hot, humid climate. “It belongs to the Choctaw and they should get it back,” Summerlin concluded. To read about some of the oldest-known bows found in the course of excavations, go to "Weapons of the Ancient World: Hunting Equipment."
