The Midland Point Mystery Along the Shadows on the Trail

 

Figure One - High Plains Midland Projectile points from the author's collection.
The longest point is 2.4 inches long. Photo by John Bradford Branney.  

Some people claim that Midland projectile points are unfluted Folsom projectile points while other people profess that Midland was its own archaeological complex, separate from the Folsom archaeological complex. The people with the latter opinion call attention to the Midland-only site named Winkler-1 discovered by amateur archaeologists in southeastern New Mexico (Blaine et al. 2017). There, artifact hunters surface collected Midland points from an active sand blowout. Perhaps, the Midland projectile points above in figure one started out as Folsom projectile point preforms and were too thin for the knappers to flute, or maybe the knapper was not skilled enough to flute a Folsom point, or perhaps Midland projectile points were deliberately made that way. We will never know for sure, at least until the next great discovery.

The Midland projectile point type is somewhat of a 'catchall' for several other types of projectile points. It is my experience that collectors and professionals alike tend to lump different types of indented Paleoindian projectile points under the Midland projectile point type umbrella. I have seen what I would call Goshen-Plainview, Allen, and even Cody Complex points categorized as Midland points. That does not make me right and those other people wrong. It just demonstrates the difficulty people have differentiating Midland projectile points from other thin, indented base Paleoindian projectile points. I have that same difficulty.  

Figure Two - The first historical fiction book in my five-book series titled
the Shadows on the Trail Pentalogy. Available at Amazon.com.   

Well-respected archaeologist Bruce Bradley (2010:475) provided one of the better definitions of the Midland projectile point. He described Midland flaking as wide and relatively shallow, producing projectile points with flat cross-sections. Bradley noted that pressure flaking was often used along the edges and the bases of Midland projectile points, but that for the most part, the Midland knapper did most of the flaking using percussion! He noted that Midland points showed abrupt and continuous marginal retouch along the edges which thinned and narrowed the Midland points enough to eliminate the negative bulbs produced from the percussion flaking process. 

Have you ever checked out the edgework on a well-made Midland point? Check out figure three! Wide and shallow flaking across the face of the projectile point with pressure flaked "mouse nibbling" around the circumference of the edges. In his analysis, Bradley concluded that Midland points were technologically distinct from Folsom points.

Figure Three - 1.8-inch-long Midland projectile point

surface found 9/2/1997 in Logan County, Colorado.

Note flaking and edgework. John Bradford Branney Photo.

Bradley made that last argument from a technical flintknapping perspective. He stated that Midland points were more than just unfluted Folsom points. He noted that there were two distinct technological differences between Folsom and Midland in the final shaping and thinning, and the marginal retouch. Bradley suggested that Goshen-Plainview points complicated Paleoindian projectile point identification due to several similarities in form and technology. Anyone who has attempted to differentiate between Midland and Goshen-Plainview points can vouch for Bradley's opinion.  

One important fact not to lose sight of; as of this article's revision date, there were no 

radiocarbon dates or geological/stratigraphic relationships that conclusively resolved the temporal relationship or contemporaneity of Folsom and Midland!

Figure four. Broken backs surface found in Wyoming. 
Folsom (upper) and Midland (lower) projectile point
bases. John Bradford Branney photo and collection.   

Bradley (2010:474) noted that even though investigators have found Folsom and Midland points at the same sites, they have not discovered them together in a well-defined archaeological context that provides the geologic evidence required for proposing that the two projectile point types were in use at the same time! Finding Folsom and Midland points together at a single-episode bison kill site would be an example of the evidence required to define contemporaneity (both point types occurring at the same period of time).  

Bradley noted that archaeological investigators have not found Midland points in sealed stratigraphic units without Folsom points which seems to at least suggest that Folsom and Midland points were linked. He noted an exception to that; the Gault site in Texas where investigators found a Midland point three centimeters above a Folsom point in a sealed stratigraphic unit, indicating that the Midland point was younger than the Folsom point. What we do not know is whether those three centimeters represent one week or one year or one hundred years or more of sedimentation. 

Figure five - The King of Kings. 1.65-inch-long Folsom projectile
point surface found by Albert Bellgardt in Montrose
County, Colorado. John Bradford Branney Collection.

What is your opinion on Midland and Folsom?

Based on radiocarbon dating, it appears that Goshen-Plainview projectile points were coeval or contemporaneous with Folsom/Midland (Waters and Stafford 2014). Goshen-Plainview and Folsom knappers brought pressure flaking to its perfection. When Midland showed up, it was a short technological leap to Goshen-Plainview or vice versa. A much easier leap than to Folsom. Archaeological evidence is now leaning towards Goshen-Plainview, Folsom, and Midland overlapping in space and time, at least during a short period. 

I believe that Paleoindians did not adopt and use just one projectile point type at a time, but like modern-day deer hunters who use different calibers of rifles, Paleoindians used a variation of projectile points. Archaeological evidence just needs to catch up so that some of these theories can be either supported or denied based on evidence.    

             

Blaine, Jay C., S. Alan Skinner b and Molly A. Hall

2017  The Saga of Winkler-1: A Midland Site in Southeast New Mexico in Paleoamerica.   Texas A & M University.  

Bradley, Bruce A. 

2010  Paleoindian Flaked Stone Technology on the Plains and in the Rockies in Prehistoric Hunter and Gatherers of the High Plains and Rockies by Marcel Kornfeld, George C. Frison, and Mary Lou Larson. Left Coast Press. Walnut Creek, California.  

Waters, Michael R., and Thomas W. Stafford Jr.
2014   Redating the Mill Iron Site, Montana, in American Antiquity 79(3).

 

The historical fiction novels written by John Bradford Branney are known for their impeccable research and biting realism. In his latest blockbuster novel Beyond the Campfire, Branney catapults readers back into Paleoindian America where they reunite with some familiar faces from Branney’s best-selling prehistoric adventure series the Shadows on the Trail Pentalogy.

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