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| 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).
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| 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.
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| 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.
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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).
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| 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.
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| 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.
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