The Middle Archaic - The Mallory Projectile Point Type

 

Figure One - A few Mallory dart points and knife forms from the Author's collection.
All surface found on private land in Wyoming and Colorado. The centerpiece dart point
is 1.6 inches long. A good average age for Mallory is 4,500 years old.     

In my article, I will not use the term “point” 

in a functional sense, but as shorthand for “hafted biface”. 

Also, when I refer to generic "McKean points", I am 

referring to both Lanceolate and Shouldered varieties.   

In my last article on the Middle Archaic on the High Plains, I discussed the McKean Complex and two projectile point styles and types found with McKean cultural materials. Those two projectile point types were McKean Lanceolate and McKean Shouldered. Legacy writers and collectors often refer to the lanceolate-shaped projectile points as simply McKean points and the shouldered projectile points as Duncan and Hanna points. In my discussion below, I will refer to them as McKean Lanceolate points, and Duncan and Hanna points simply as McKean Shouldered points.  

Figure Two - Middle Plains Archaic projectile point types surface found on private land
on the high plains states. From left to right; Oxbow, McKean Lanceolate,
Hanna or McKean Shouldered, Duncan or McKean Shouldered, and Mallory.
Oxbow point is 2.7 inches long. John Bradford Branney Collection.    

There is another projectile point type associated with the McKean Complex that I did not cover in my first article on the Middle Plains Archaic. Archaeologists and collectors call this side-notched projectile point, Mallory (figure 1). In 1933, archaeologist W. D. Strong reported that investigators found side-notched points associated with lanceolate and shouldered points on an isolated mesa called Signal Butte along the North Platte River in western Nebraska. Ultimately, scientists classified those Signal Butte points as McKean Complex from the Middle Plains Archaic time period. 

Compared to McKean Complex type points, Mallory points are an 'odd duck'. When a person handles enough McKean points, they understand how lanceolate-shaped McKean points transitioned into or coexisted with the shouldered varieties of McKean points. However, the Mallory points have a different look and feel about them. Mallory points were quite thin, much thinner than your typical McKean point. Based on my experience, I believe Middle Archaic knappers made McKean points more robust and thicker than Mallory points on purpose. Perhaps, they used the thinner Mallory points for a different functional use beyond just projectile points. Of course, my statement assumes that the same culture who made McKean points made the Mallory points as well. 

Based on my own collection, the workmanship on Mallory points was better than your average McKean point. Anyone who has studied Mallory and McKean points side by side would question whether these point types were made by the same people or by two separate cultures of people, coexisting at the same time. 

Mallory points were thin, wide with deep side notches, and in some cases, a third notch in the center of their bases (figure three). In several examples in my collection, it appears the Middle Archaic flintknappers selected thinner flakes when they made Mallory points. Perhaps, Middle Archaic people used Mallory points as filleting or butchering knives where thinness and sharpness were required attributes. The thinness and fragility of Mallory points are the main reason artifact hunters and archaeologists seldom find them complete and unbroken.

Figure Three - Typical Mallory dart point. 
John Bradford Branney Collection. 

At Signal Butte in the 1930s, McKean styles and Mallory points were found within the same geologic strata at the lowest archaeological level, indicating the two types of points coexisted. Corroborating evidence for the coexistence of Mallory and McKean points at an archaeological site came in the 1970s, eighteen miles north of Sinclair, Wyoming. Amateur archaeologist William E. Scoggin discovered the Scoggin site, a Middle Archaic bison kill, while surface hunting for artifacts in the summer of 1971. The site lies at the foot of a hogback ridge near the edge of Coal Creek Canyon in the Haystack Mountains (figure four). Investigators found the remnants of a corral or pound structure with an extensive bison bone bed, food processing features, and an assemblage of McKean projectile points. Investigators found that two bison kill episodes occurred over a brief period of time. The radiocarbon date of the bone bed was 4540 ±100 years BP, placing it in the Middle Plains Archaic. The discovery of McKean and Mallory projectile points corroborated the radiocarbon date. 

Figure Four - The Scoggin site. Hunters drove the bison 
over the edge of the steep talus slope where at the bottom 
was a fence line. 

The investigators found postholes connected by a low wall of dry-laid flat stones at the base of a steep talus slope seven meters high (figure four). The hunters allegedly drove the bison over the edge of the caprock and down the steep talus slope into the fence line where the hunters dispatched them with spears and darts. The large numbers of McKean and Mallory dart points indicated the manner in which the hunters killed the bison. 

The hunters at the Scoggin used local cherts to make their projectile points. The projectile points at the site showed excellent workmanship, and a few of the points were quite thin with collateral flaking on both sides (atypical for McKean points). The investigation concluded that the hunters at the Scoggin site used Mallory and McKean points during the two bison kill episodes. 

Based on what I have read and seen, I have a theory that Mallory points were more of a southern expression of the Middle Archaic McKean Complex. I have never heard of a Mallory point discovered north of Wyoming and South Dakota, including in Canada. To put things in perspective, just because I have not seen any evidence of Mallory point finds in the northern plains doesn't mean they did not exist there. Collectors might have them in their collections, but have not reported or publicized them. 

I base a lot of my theory on the fact that all of my Mallory artifacts came from the southern half of Wyoming or the northern half of Colorado. The farthest north that I have personally found a Mallory point was the Rattlesnake Hills, west of Casper in central Wyoming. Another collector informed me that he found a Mallory point base near Riverton, Wyoming. I do not believe that the archaeologists even found any Mallory points at the original McKean Complex type site in northern Wyoming.         

Figure Five - A few Mallory points from the author's collection showing variation 
in form and materials. The white basal fragment far left is 1.3 inches long.  

While notched points appear to have simplified and improved the hafting process of stone points onto knife, dart and spear shafts, I know from my fifty years of artifact hunting that notched points also tend to break more often than lanceolate-shaped or more robust stemmed points. This is due to the notches weakening the overall structural strength of the point. I have a lot more Mallory point pieces than I do complete or near-complete points. Any High Plains artifact hunter worth his or her salt can tell you that finding a complete Mallory point is a lot harder than finding a McKean lanceolate or shouldered point. One reason might be because they made a higher quantity of traditional McKean points, but I have no doubt that the Mallory points that they did make, had a tough time surviving due to the notches and thinness. 

Do you think McKean and Mallory points came from the same people? Were there formal or informal sects within the culture using different types of projectile points? If the same people made them both, why did you think the Middle Archaic hunters used different types of projectile points? Was it based on the knappers’ freedom of choice and preference, or was there something else driving the choice? Did notched points serve a different functional purpose than unnotched points in the Middle Plains Archaic? 

We might never know the answers to these questions. The only thing we can conclude at this stage is both Mallory and McKean points are Middle Plains Archaic and that both existed at the same time at least in some instances.   

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Branney holds a geology degree from the University of Wyoming and MBA from the University of Colorado. John lives in the Colorado mountains with his wife, Theresa. His recently published adventure titled Beyond the Campfire is his eleventh book. 

On the Trail in the Middle Plains Archaic

Figure One - A mixture of McKean Complex projectile point types from the
Middle Plains Archaic. John Bradford Branney Collection.  

 

All dates/ages in my article are uncalibrated radiocarbon years unless otherwise stated. For a date/age estimate in calendar years, add approximately 600 to 800 years.

I am not using the term "point" in my article to describe the artifact's functionality, but as shorthand for "hafted biface". 

For years, archaeologists have been searching for evidence of prehistoric man on the prairies of the High Plains during the period from around 7,000 to 4,500 years ago. During that time frame, evidence of humans is extremely rare. In 1948, Ernst Antevs coined the term Altithermal to represent this time-interval, a period of dramatic climate change resulting in a much hotter and drier environment on the High Plains. 

Archaeological evidence indicates that the Altithermal was perhaps the hottest and driest period of time since the last Ice Age. There is no modern-day analogy for the centuries-long droughts that occurred during the Altithermal. This inhospitable climate was hard on plants, animals, and humans. Prairie grasses withered, water tables lowered, and ponds and streams dried up. With less grass and water, bison herd populations dwindled and the beasts that did survive relocated to ‘greener pastures’ along the Rocky Mountain foothills and the major river systems to the east, such as the Missouri River tributaries. Humans followed the bison herds, abandoning most of the prairies along the High Plains. 

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When bison returned to the plains around 5,000 years ago, the Bison occidentalis species had evolved into Bison bison, the modern species of today. Humans followed the bison herds back onto the High Plains. One of the first groups of humans to return to the prairies was a group of prehistoric hunters and gatherers from what archaeologists named the Oxbow Complex. Archaeological and geological evidence from Oxbow Dam in Saskatchewan placed the Oxbow Complex in the Middle Archaic around 5,200 years ago. Archaeologists and collectors have found evidence of the Oxbow Complex in Saskatchewan, Alberta, Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Nebraska, and northern Colorado. 

The most distinctive artifact from this complex is a side-notched dart/knife form with deep basal indentations and prominent ears (figure two). The concave basal edge separated basal corners or ears that extended downward and outward. Basal thinning was common and light grinding often occurred on the stem edges of most points. 

Figure Two - 2.5 inch long Oxbow dart point made from
Knife River Chalcedony and surface found on private land in
Campbell County, Wyoming. John Bradford Branney Collection. 

Around 4,900 years ago, a different style of projectile point started showing up on the High Plains. The archaeological complex associated with these different projectile points became known as the McKean Complex from evidence found at an archaeological site in Crook County in northeastern Wyoming. 

The McKean Site (48CK7) was originally recorded by the Missouri River Basin Survey of the Smithsonian Institution in 1951. Extensive excavations were conducted at the site in 1951 and 1952. Large quantities of lithic artifacts were recovered, predominantly from two cultural levels which are now designated Middle Plains Archaic. The investigators recovered over one hundred projectile points from these cultural levels.

Investigators at the McKean site found a wide variety of projectile point styles. The initial investigator at the site, Richard P. Wheeler, proposed 'splitting' the projectile point variations into three separate point types. He named three-point types at the McKean site that still survive in the literature today; McKean Lanceolate, Duncan, and Hanna. 

University of Wyoming anthropologist William Mulloy later investigated the McKean site and interpreted the different styles of points as variations along a common theme. Mulloy proposed 'lumping' all three-point types into one single point type called McKean. 

Today, some of us split the McKean Complex points into two separate projectile point types; McKean Lanceolate and McKean Shouldered. These Middle Archaic points either have shoulders or they don't. Personally, I do not see much benefit in differentiating between the Hanna and Duncan types. Some points fit well within Duncan or Hanna, but many McKean Shouldered points morphologically fall in between.      

There is another Middle Plains Archaic point type not found at the McKean site but later associated with McKean points called the Mallory point. I will discuss Mallory in my next article. 

Figure Three - McKean Lanceolate points from the author's collection. 

Middle Archaic flintknappers made the McKean Lanceolate point type with convex blade edges that were slightly narrower at the base than in the middle. The base of the McKean Lanceolate point was indented, sometimes so deeply indented that it appeared to be a notch. Stem edges were NOT ground. In outline, McKean Lanceolate points look like some of the earlier point types, but morphologically they could not be more different than each other. While a few McKean points show good workmanship, most were asymmetrical with random flaking patterns.   

  

Figure Four - McKean Shouldered points from the author's collection. 

These were previously broken down into two-point types;

Duncan and Hanna.  John Bradford Branney Collection, 

The Middle Archaic flintknappers made the McKean Shouldered point type (figure four) with triangular blades with straight to slightly convex edges and angular to sloping shoulders. The point type had straight to slightly expanding stems with a v-shaped notch in the base. The points varied from shallow, angular shoulders to expanding stems with rounded or lobed corners. Blade edge notches were broad and shallow. Stems were seldom ground.

Figure Five - McKean geographic distribution
from www.projectilepoints.net. 

  

What was the typical lifestyle in the Middle Plains Archaic? 

The Middle Plains Archaic was a different lifestyle than the previous Early Plains Archaic people who abandoned the prairies at the beginning of the Altithermal. The McKean Complex, representing the Middle Plains Archaic spread quickly across the High Plains. These Middle Plains Archaic hunters and gatherers brought with them a new adaptation model that relied more on the seasons of the year for subsistence activities. Grinding stones for processing wild plants increased in quantity and roasting pits, sometimes used for centuries, were developed and extensively used. Across the High Plains, the quantity of stone circles increased substantially in the Middle Plains Archaic. The people most likely used these stone circles to hold down the bases of their tipis or lodges, although the stone circles appeared to have other purposes as well. Although bison were still an important dietary component within the Middle Plains Archaic lifestyle, smaller mammals and reptiles were also important.

John Bradford Branney holds a geology degree from the University of Wyoming and an MBA from the University of Colorado. He held various positions in the energy industry during his thirty-four-year career before he took up writing full-time. John has published eleven books and many magazine articles on prehistoric America and life in general. John lives in the Colorado mountains with his wife, Theresa, three German Shepherds, and an ex-feral cat

His latest book, Beyond the Campfire, takes place on the Pleistocene high plains of North America.