The Joshua Cache: salvage, description, and analysis of a possible Early Woodland (Adena) biface cache from Sugarcreek, Ohio, USA

• A cache of 11 stone bifaces was found in Sugarcreek, Ohio. • We describe and analyze the artifacts. • We provisionally conclude that the artifacts are Adena. The Joshua cache was discovered by accident in 2021 during modern development of a golf course in Ohio. It contains 11 beautifully flaked stone lanceolate bifaces, two of which archaeologists excavated. Carbonized wood samples with unclear association to the cache were dated via radiocarbon to the mid-twelfth to mid thirteenth centuries AD. However, the Joshua cache bifaces strongly resemble those from caches affiliated with the Early Woodland “Adena” culture (ca. 2500–1900B.P.). A geometric morphometric analysis comparing the Joshua cache to a variety of Pleistocene and Holocene caches in North America is consistent with this Early Woodland affiliation hypothesis. Microwear analysis suggests the bifaces were transported, but unused. Portable X-ray Fluorescence (pXRF) analysis indicates that the bifaces were likely made from Upper Mercer chert, which outcrops 43–45 km to the south of the cache find-spot. Given the circumstances of the discovery, and the nature of stone tool caches in general, we are left with more questions than answers, and our conclusions should be taken as provisional. But our analyses do lead to a discussion of several pertinent issues, including evolutionary convergence in stone tool technology and the identification of sources of artifact variation.