Clovis Ovate Biface and the SHADOWS on the TRAIL Pentalogy

Figure One - An obsidian ovate biface probably made by
Paleoindians, most likely from the Clovis Complex.
Found on private land in Oregon in the 1960s.
John Bradford Branney Collection.   

One of the more controversial subjects to discuss today is climate change. I have no doubt that climate change is occurring today. The climate has never been stable in the history of this great planet! Climate change on Earth occurred one hundred years ago and one thousand years ago and one million years ago, and one billion years ago. Climate change is an ongoing process, it is going to happen with or without human help. The geological record of ole Mother Earth is loaded with examples of climate change. In Earth's prehistory and history, climate change is the rule, not the exception.   

One of the main themes in my original historical fiction novel titled SHADOWS on the TRAIL was that climate change was occurring around 12,500 years ago during the climate event we call the Younger Dryas. The changes in environmental conditions forced my characters from the Folsom prehistoric complex to abandon their canyon home where they had lived for close to a generation. SHADOWS on the TRAIL took the Folsom people on an adventure to a place called the North Country. It was their intent to find a place 'where the deer and the antelope play, and seldom is heard a discouraging word', and they could live in peace and harmony(a nirvana many of us still seek today).  

Figure Two - The inspiration for the SHADOWS on the TRAIL, a 4.1 inch long
discoidal biface made from Alibates agatized dolomite from the Panhandle of
Texas and surface found on private land in Northern Colorado.
This rock took a heck of a journey.  
John Bradford Branney Collection.

Below is a brief passage from my book SHADOWS on the TRAIL. In this passage, our hero Chayton is preparing to leave the canyon with his tribe, some 12,500 years ago. Since Chayton and the Folsom People really did not know what to expect on the journey, he visited a prehistoric quarry to mine raw material to take on the journey. Chayton actually visited the prehistoric quarry where prehistoric peoples mined Alibates agatized dolomite. In my book, the artifact in figure two left the prehistoric rock quarry with Chayton and ended up in northern Colorado where I picked it up. 

Here is that passage. See you on the other side.     

The elders selected three young hunters to be scouts for the journey. Chayton was one of the young hunters selected. He took his new role seriously. He prepared by visiting the rock quarry where he dug for the sacred red and white stone. Form the rock, he would make weapons and tools on the journey. The tribe could not rely on finding inyan wakan or sacred stone on the journey. He would take his own. Chayton walked deep into the canyon and found a pile of rubble where other humans had dug a deep hole in search of the precious inyan wakan. In the sweltering heat of the canyon, Chayton scraped through the rubble pile  in search of a few large pieces that the other humans missed. Once he found likely candidates, he took a large round river cobble from his pouch and hammered each large piece of sacred stone until it broke into smaller pieces. When he found a rock he liked, he used his river cobble and a soft hammer made from elk antler to shape the piece into a flat disc-shaped stone just a little bit larger than Chayton’s open hand. He continued the process until he had five disc-shaped rocks made from the sacred stone. Chayton would use these five sacred stones on the journey as a portable rock supply so that he could make blades, tools and spear tips on the spot. 

Chayton was preparing for a rainy day, and based on archaeological evidence this was a common tactic for Paleoindians. There are numerous examples of prehistoric people hoarding or caching non-localized raw material for stone tools. Since many of these prehistoric people lived a nomadic existence, they could not afford to arrive in a region and not be able to find raw material for making stone tools. They alleviated this problem by carrying some raw material with them.  

Figure Three - 6-inch long, thin Clovis preform/knife form dozed up near Sierra Blanca, Texas in the 1950s while building Interstate 10. John Bradford Branney Collection.  

One of the earliest examples of hoarding and caching of the raw material came from the Clovis Paleoindian culture, those hardy individuals who archaeologists for decades considered the First Americans. The Clovis People carried preforms and platters with them when they explored new areas. Preforms were not stone tools as such but were resources of raw material which could be transformed into the desired tool or implement on the spot. One of these preforms, which I suspect came from the Clovis People, is in figures one and four. Literature calls this particular type of preform an ovate biface. In the upcoming paragraphs, I plan on borrowing from a tremendous book by Michael R. Waters and Thomas A. Jennings entitled The Hogeye Clovis Cache, published in 2015 by Texas A & M.  

Figure Four - 6.3-inch long ovate biface of probable Clovis

Complex origin. Found on private land in the 1960s in Oregon.

John Bradford Branney Collection.

      

Why do I believe that this particular preform in figures one and four originated from the Clovis People? First, this type of biface has a well-documented association with the Clovis prehistoric culture (the Hogeye Clovis Cache is one example, there are several others). Some people refer to this artifact as a 'Clovis platter', but morphologically I believe it is best described as an ovate biface, distinguished by its oval shape with knapping on both sides. Ovate bifaces had no clear base or tip. They served Clovis People as flake cores or knife preforms. If the Clovis knapper needed a knife form, he or she sharpened the edges. If the Clovis knapper needed blades or scrapers for butchering, he or she could remove flakes from the mother rock. Regardless of their ultimate use, ovate bifaces and/or platters were a source of raw material for these early explorers.

I draw your attention to figure four. Note the wide, long, and shallow flakes running across the face of this prehistoric artifact. This flaking pattern is another Clovis knapping trait. Ovate bifaces were thinned by overshot and over the face flaking using both alternate-opposed and serial flaking (figure five). 

Figure Five - from The Agate Basin Site by George C. Frison and Dennis 
J. Stanford, page 203.    

For the ovate biface in figures one and four, the Paleoindian knapper used the alternate-opposed flaking method, a sequential method whereby the repeated removal of an overshot or over the face flake from one edge is followed by a similar removal from the opposite edge on the same face. This was a common flaking practice within the Clovis prehistoric culture.  

In figure six, I am demonstrating to the reader my theory on how bifacial reduction or the lifecycle of a Clovis ovate biface or platter occurred. Please disregard the different materials of the four artifacts and pretend the four artifacts are the same artifact and this represents this artifact's lifecycle from ovate biface on the left to Clovis spear point on the right. 

Figure Five - Bifacial reduction from left to right, from the
original 6.3 inch long ovate biface on the left to a Clovis spear point
on the right. John Bradford Branney Collection.  

Our Paleoindian knapper created the ovate biface on the left, perhaps at a prehistoric rock quarry. As time went on, the knapper whittled away at the ovate biface when he needed raw material for stone tools or the ovate biface needed sharpened. This reduced the overall size of the ovate biface (second from left). At some stage, the Clovis knapper created a spear or knife preform from his ovate biface (third from left). After more time passed, the knapper whittled the preform down into a knife or a spear point (far right). Eventually, the knife or spear point on the far right was reduced in size through sharpening until it was was eventually abandoned, lost or broken. I imagine that the process from left to right in figure five took anywhere from weeks to a year or so. Who knows for sure?

I hope you enjoyed our trip through time. You can join me on another trip through time in my prehistoric book adventure the SHADOWS on the TRAIL Pentalogy.     

CLICK to ORDERSHADOWS on the TRAIL Pentalogy for the rest of the story. Available at Amazon.com and other fine booksellers.

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Tough Enough to be a Paleoindian? READ and SEE

Third Edition 

Figure One - 4.1 inch long discoidal biface or core stone which was

the inspiration for the SHADOWS ON THE TRAIL Pentalogy.  

One of the goals when I wrote my prehistoric adventure book series the SHADOWS ON THE TRAIL Pentalogy was to squelch the myth that Paleoindians in North America were cavemen who lacked intelligence and were one step removed from chimpanzees. North American Paleoindians had the same intelligence level and foresight that we have, maybe more. They might have trouble passing an SAT to get into Stanford, but they knew how to survive without the modern conveniences that us 'snowflakes' seem to not be able to live without. I doubt that few people alive today could survive the rigors of North America thirteen thousand years ago. 

How well could you survive without your house, doctors, medications, smart phones, cars, television, grocery stores, fast food outlets, internet, social media, and law and order? How well would you do facing a small-faced bear or a mountain lion or an American lion armed with a spear? 

Figure Two - GHOSTS OF THE HEART, the second book in the
SHADOWS ON THE TRAIL Pentalogy. Available at Amazon.com 

How tough were the Paleoindians? 

Archaeological evidence demonstrates they were quite tough. I emphasized this in my books.

The excerpt below in blue is from my book GHOSTS OF THE HEART. In this specific passage, a Paleoindian named Kangi was confronted by something much larger and meaner than himself. 

How would you deal with this encounter? 

……….Squatting alongside the game trail was a grizzly bear cub, about the size of a small wolf dog. With his heart racing in his chest, Kangi glanced across the meadow, looking for the location of the mother. Instead he spotted another grizzly bear cub running straight toward him, making woofing and snorting sounds. 

Then the bear cub that was squatted on the game trail finally noticed Kangi and it rolled over onto its feet and immediately began bawling loudly. Kangi turned around quickly towards the tunnel, hoping to make a quick escape, but he ran right into the first hunter coming out. 

“A-ah! – Watch out!” Kangi screamed. “Mato! - Bear!”

The hunter appeared confused when Kangi shoved him back into the pine branch tunnel. 

“HOPPO! – LET US GO!” Kangi yelled, shoving the hunter into the tunnel. 

Coming to her cub’s rescue, the grizzly bear sow lunged through the water of the mountain stream, leaving a massive wake behind her. She was across the stream in two lunges and barreled across the meadow at full speed. With her head held low, she grunted loudly as her thick body shimmered and swayed. She closed the gap to Kangi with astonishing speed.

Kangi shoved the hunter into the deceptive safety of the tunnel, but there was still no room for him. Kangi turned to face the grizzly bear sow instead. He placed the butt of a spear into his spear thrower and raised the spear above his shoulder. He reared back his arm and with his entire body, he launched the spear at the charging bear. The spear left the spear thrower with tremendous speed, its trajectory heading straight at the massive grizzly bear sow’s skull. By the time the spear arrived at the grizzly bear sow, she had traveled much closer to Kangi. The spear flew harmlessly over her back, ricocheting off the rocks of the mountain stream. Kangi was just notching another spear when the humongous grizzly bear slammed into him, knocking him a good distance across the meadow where he landed hard on his stomach. With the wind knocked out of him, Kangi attempted to crawl away, but before he got very far, the grizzly bear landed on top of him with her front paws. 

“MATO! MATO!” the hunters screamed at each other in the tunnel, pushing and shoving each other back down the game trail. Chayton held his ground until the frightened hunters, heading in the opposite direction, plowed right over him. 

The grizzly bear sow pounced up and down on top of Kangi’s back, driving him into the soil of the meadow………..

Figure Three - The proposed burial orientation of Kennewick
Man along the Columbia River in Washington.  

Did Kangi survive? Read GHOSTS OF THE HEART to find out. Living in Prehistoric America was not for the weak or timid. Some of the best archaeological evidence to determine the lifestyle of prehistoric man are skeletons. Since skeletons are made up of perishable bone, they are rare to find, especially the old skeletons of Paleoindian or Archaic people.  

One of the more famous and controversial prehistoric skeletons is Kennewick Man. Renowned forensic scientists, Douglas W. Owsley and Richard J. Lantz, studied his skeleton and documented Kennewick Man's controversial history in an excellent book entitled KENNEWICK MAN The Scientific Investigation of an Ancient American Skeleton. Much of the information below came from this landmark study. I recommend you read this book, immediately after you read GHOSTS OF THE HEART. 

Let me introduce you to nine thousand year old Kennewick Man through the facial reconstruction in Figure Four. He came later than the Folsom 

Figure Four - Forensic reconstruction
of Kennewick Man's face.  

People in my SHADOWS ON THE TRAIL Pentalogy by about three thousand years, but as an early Archaic hunter and gatherer, he had the same lifestyle as the Paleoindian Folsom People. 

Two college students discovered Kennewick Man's skull in 1996 along the banks of the Columbia River in Washington. Scientists believe he was between 35 to 39 years old at the time of his death. They estimated that he was 5’7” or 5’8” tall and weighed around 162 lbs. 

Thirty-five years old is young compared to modern-day life expectancy, but Kennewick Man had already experienced some pretty traumatic health issues by the time he died. The scientists found that he had several healed depression wounds in his skull and may have been hard of hearing. Kennewick Man was right handed and there were indications that his arms had gone through strenuous use.

Figure Five - Throwing a spear dozens of times per day
for years using an atlatl would damage anyone's shoulder.  

The scientists found that while Kennewick Man’s left shoulder had normal morphology, his right shoulder and throwing arm exhibited degenerative wear and tear, arthritis, possible cartilage erosion, and a rim fracture of his right scapula. Since Kennewick Man’s survival depended on throwing spears at prey animals, we would expect some shoulder wear and tear, just as we would expect it from a major league baseball pitcher or a NFL quarterback.

Figure Six - Kennewick Man's teeth
were wore down to a nub. 

In addition, Kennewick Man’s upper arms were asymmetrical in both size and shape. The scientists determined that Kennewick Man had atrophy of his left humerus with bowing to the right side. The scientists postulated that a left arm fracture in his earlier life caused the condition. Of course, 'Kennewick Boy' did not have a doctor to consult with for his arm fracture. His arm healed the best it could on its own.    

Kennewick Man’s teeth were in bad shape for any age of man. Check out the photos in figure six and compare his tooth wear with your own. His teeth were wore down to a nub. Kennewick Man was missing a molar and molar wear suggested that he ate food contaminated with fine abrasives and courser particles, such as sand. His tooth wear also suggests he used his teeth for more than just chewing food. He probably used his teeth in task-oriented activities, such as hide preparation and cutting. 



Kennewick Man had extensive chest injuries during his short lifetime (figure seven). His skeleton showed the presence of healed fractures in at least five ribs on his right side. The broken ribs had failed to heal properly, causing flailed chest syndrome, a life-threatening medical condition that occurs when a segment of the rib cage breaks due to trauma and becomes detached from the rest of the chest wall. Kennewick Man received a possible left rib fracture at the same time that the right rib fractures occurred. The scientists found no indication of infection or significant blood supply issue associated with the chest injury. They postulated that this was another young adult injury. Perhaps, Kennewick Man had a collision with a three-thousand pound Bison antiquus? We will never know.

Figure Seven - I recently broke three ribs so I understand.
The difference was I had a doctor and hospital to go to.   

Kennewick Man had bad knees. He had a condition called osteochondritis which is caused from damage to the meniscus, which causes erosion of the cartilage. Osteochondritis occurs most often in children and adolescents. It can cause symptoms either after an injury to a joint or after several months of activity, especially high-impact activity such as jumping and running, that affects the joint. 

In real life, bone under the knee cartilage can die due to lack of blood flow causing bone and cartilage to break free, causing much pain. Eventually, Kennewick Man's  knees were bone on bone. The scientists determined that he lived with this inflammation of the cartilage and / or bone in the knee.

Then, there was the Grand Poobah of injuries. Kennewick Man had a stone projectile point imbedded in his right posterior ilium. The stone projectile had been in his hipbone long enough for the bone to regrow over it. Scientists speculated that the possible symptoms could have included pus drainage for the rest of Kennewick Man's life. This injury might have led to a moderate amount of pain all of the time. This injury might have led to anorexia, sleeplessness, derangement of secretions, great irritability and despondency. An analysis of his leg bones indicated that Kennewick Man had no lasting / significant mobility loss from this injury. The scientists believe that this injury occurred in Kennewick Man’s teen or young adult years. 

So, you think you are tough enough to be a Paleoindian? Not me. These people had an extremely intense existence. They could not dial 911 when they needed help or go to the doctor if they did not feel well or call a cop if they got into a bind. They were on their own, for better or for worse. So, next time any of us feel sorry for ourselves, think about Kennewick Man and what he endured. Amazing, all of a sudden I feel a whole lot better about my own aches and pains. ;). 

So, now your next assignment is to read the SHADOWS ON THE TRAIL Quadrilogy to see if I accurately depicted life 10,700 years ago. Then, let me know what YOU think!   

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