kneelingwarrior
Jr. Member
- May 20, 2009
- 30
- 6
Thanks "uniface". Here are two better organized photos for scrutiny. Need help with descriptions and opinions. Thanks, KW
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2Photos of Finds--uniface
- Thread starter kneelingwarrior
- Start date
uniface
Silver Member
Hi KW
I have no doubt that you've probably sorted them intelligently. That's a good start. The problem on this end is trying to visualise what something in the middle of a pile looks like.
How about if we start out from this approach : The basalt stuff in the middle sections of the first row of the first picture with the rounded cortex are exterior portions of cobbles they were reducing to get to the inside parts. That gives you a clue right there. I.e., basalt was locally available in cobble form -- probably washed and tumbled smooth in a stream or river from a source upstream. Now every culture used locally available materials, but with twist. In the Archaic era, that's pretty much all they ever used in most places. In the Early Archaic era they were turning to second-choice material to get by with (a reflection of increasing population density and distance from resources). In your area, as I understand it, the Paleo and Plano folks were still making the seasonal round from Central Texas out west for the summer and back again. The local stuff they exploited to supplement what they carried with them was such cobbles of agate, chalcedony & jasper as turned up (like the ovate blade with most of the cortex worked off). This doesn't rule out the basalt stuff as being Paleo, but makes that seem less likely even when the technology and end result was the same or similar.
If these reduction flakes show edge retouching or evidence of casual use, they're in the tool class.
Now. Still in the top row of picture number one, you've got a small white lamellar blade at right, and a larger "dog-leg" lamellar blade (also white) at left. This tells you that whoever was making the white stuff was using a (polyhedral) core and blade technology. What Tony B surmises was middle period Paleo definitely did, but, based on what he and his family have found going back to the dustbowl era, he opines that Folsom and other Plano cultures abandoned this approach (a generalization that seems to hold broadly true across most of North America). The booger is that not every last culture did, and it made a definite re-appearence in the Middle Woodland era. So you kind of have to learn everything you can about cultural sequences and lithic technologies in your area to place stuff like that. I.e., what era something would be from in Indiana isn't much help with what the same thing would be from in Arizona.
In your second picture, with the possible exceptions of the two top middle sections, you've got points (mostly exhausted), broken biface blades and examples of these "salvaged" by re-working their bases for re-hafting and otherwise squeezing some further usefulness out of them.
In general again, edge work/wear is a key on a lot of tools that don't look much like "tools."
Hope this is of some help. to get beyond this you'd have to help me by posting images (both sides) of specific pieces.
I have no doubt that you've probably sorted them intelligently. That's a good start. The problem on this end is trying to visualise what something in the middle of a pile looks like.
How about if we start out from this approach : The basalt stuff in the middle sections of the first row of the first picture with the rounded cortex are exterior portions of cobbles they were reducing to get to the inside parts. That gives you a clue right there. I.e., basalt was locally available in cobble form -- probably washed and tumbled smooth in a stream or river from a source upstream. Now every culture used locally available materials, but with twist. In the Archaic era, that's pretty much all they ever used in most places. In the Early Archaic era they were turning to second-choice material to get by with (a reflection of increasing population density and distance from resources). In your area, as I understand it, the Paleo and Plano folks were still making the seasonal round from Central Texas out west for the summer and back again. The local stuff they exploited to supplement what they carried with them was such cobbles of agate, chalcedony & jasper as turned up (like the ovate blade with most of the cortex worked off). This doesn't rule out the basalt stuff as being Paleo, but makes that seem less likely even when the technology and end result was the same or similar.
If these reduction flakes show edge retouching or evidence of casual use, they're in the tool class.
Now. Still in the top row of picture number one, you've got a small white lamellar blade at right, and a larger "dog-leg" lamellar blade (also white) at left. This tells you that whoever was making the white stuff was using a (polyhedral) core and blade technology. What Tony B surmises was middle period Paleo definitely did, but, based on what he and his family have found going back to the dustbowl era, he opines that Folsom and other Plano cultures abandoned this approach (a generalization that seems to hold broadly true across most of North America). The booger is that not every last culture did, and it made a definite re-appearence in the Middle Woodland era. So you kind of have to learn everything you can about cultural sequences and lithic technologies in your area to place stuff like that. I.e., what era something would be from in Indiana isn't much help with what the same thing would be from in Arizona.
In your second picture, with the possible exceptions of the two top middle sections, you've got points (mostly exhausted), broken biface blades and examples of these "salvaged" by re-working their bases for re-hafting and otherwise squeezing some further usefulness out of them.
In general again, edge work/wear is a key on a lot of tools that don't look much like "tools."
Hope this is of some help. to get beyond this you'd have to help me by posting images (both sides) of specific pieces.
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