The Plymouth Colony Archive Project

The gravestone below is an example of Stone 5 from the Plympton County cemetery, as depicted in Figure 3 of the study by James Deetz and Edwin Dethlefsen entitled Death's Head, Cherub, Urn and Willow.

We see in this stone that the teeth of the earlier skull design have been replaced with a heart-shaped element for the mouth. Note also that every other row of feather ends is reversed on this stone, creating wavy lines that evolve eventually into the curled hair of the "Medusa" design, as shown in Stones 7 through 10 (Figure 3).