Gaitskill clay tablet recovered in 1920 from the Gaitskill mound in Montgomery County, Kentucky. The image is interpreted as a spider but it is common in the Adena iconography to visually play with images on shapes to produce complex readings, here the back of the spider appears as a human face.
http://www.picturesofrecord.com/NAADE016.jpg

The Adena people carved these small stone tablets, usually 5 inches by 4 inches and 0.5 inches thick. On one or both flat sides were composed stylized zoomorphs or curvilinear geometric designs in deep relief.

This kind of sandstone tablets could have been used for tattooing. They are grooved on the back side like whetstones, supposedly used for sharpening bone needles. The engraved surface, could have been covered with paint, and possibly pressed against a person's body, stamping it with the image.

The process may have been part of an initiation into a social group. Paint has been found on some of the Adena tablets but archeologists are not sure about their function. For that reason they think these stone tablets were probably used to stamp designs and perhaps the combinations of birds, animal and humans on some of the tablets represent dancers or shamans.

The Adena culture was a Native American culture that existed from 1000 BC to 200 BC, during the early Woodland Period. They are well known for their burial complex and ceremonial system. Lived in different locations like: Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, and parts of Pennsylvania and New York.

The Wilmington Tablet.
http://www.usao.edu/gallery/indianart/course/pics/tablet.jpg
Source(s):
http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=509

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http://prehistoricstore.com/item.php?item=1384

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