Rattlesnake Shake - A Shadows on the Trail Adventure

RATTLESNAKE SHAKE  

A Shadows on the Trail Adventure

by John Bradford Branney

Figure One – Lots of land for me to explore.

                                         

The sun popped up over the hills to the east, the start of another August scorcher. With my back to the sun, I walked up the dry streambed, my eyes searching the sand for prehistoric artifacts. That dry streambed was not always dry. At one time that stream flowed a good amount of water with an underground spring as its source. The ranch owner now diverts the spring water for domestic and agricultural use. Over the years, I found enough diagnostic artifacts along that streambed to prove that prehistoric man occupied the valley from north of 13,000 years ago right up until historical Indian tribes. That particular day I was deliberately walking past my previously discovered prehistoric campsites to check out a gully upstream from the underground spring. Yes, I did have a tough time walking past my prime artifact-hunting spots to check out a new location.    

When you hunt a prehistoric site long enough you notice when something is out of whack. It was apparent that the site had gone through some heavy rainstorms where the downpours cut a couple new channels into the pasture. Also, massive blocks of soil had broken free from the cutbanks and tumbled into the streambed. There is nothing like erosion to put a smile on an artifact hunter’s face.        

A buzzing sound yanked me from my daydream. About fifteen feet in front of me there was a rattlesnake and about ten feet behind that one, there was a second rattlesnake. When they sensed my approach, they took off and slithered up the rock-filled gully in the opposite direction. The larger of the two vipers suddenly reversed course and headed right toward me (figure two). I don’t know, it must have been something I said.    

Figure Two - Say "hello" to
my little friends.

Rattlesnakes can be quite dangerous if a person is careless. After a hundred or more close encounters with the slithering kind, I conclude that rattlesnakes are quite benign if you don’t surprise, threaten, or antagonize them. Give them respect, don’t box them into a dead-end corner, and always give them a wide berth. I tapped my walking stick on the rocks to remind Mr. Rattler that I was there. The big rattlesnake reared up into a tight coil, shook its tail, and reminded me that it was still there. After a minute or so standoff, I realized that the gully wasn’t big enough for the three of us, so I retreated. I stepped back hoping that I did not step on a third rattlesnake and then I took a detour around that section of the gully.   

         I walked the rest of the gully until I reached its head at the base of a sandstone cliff. My only reward for that hike was a few chert chips. The only highlight was my close encounter with the rattling kind. Don’t get me wrong, a hike on an artifact hunt is never a waste of time. I never know what I am going to find until I walk the land. I have found prehistoric artifacts in some pretty strange places.    

Not wanting to waste any more daylight, I headed back down the gully at a pretty fast pace, but still cautious about having a reunion with my slithering friends. I was anxious to get back to the prehistoric campsites and start finding artifacts. As I approached the underground spring, I knew I was back in artifact country. The layers of soil in the cutbanks alternated between light and dark shades of gray. The dark gray in the soil came from the soot, charcoal, and organic matter from thousands of years of prehistoric camping.   

Figure Three – The cutbank with
my walking staff. 

It was not long before I found my first prehistoric artifact. I found it at the base of the cutbank in figure three where the tip of my red walking stick marked the spot. Figure four shows the exposed base of a complete Pelican Lake dart point in situ. I have found many Pelican Lake points at that site, so that was not an unusual find. Pelican Lake people inhabited that site sometime around the time of Christ, give or take a few centuries.

Figure Four - in situ
Pelican Lake.  

That 1.6-inch-long Pelican Lake dart point was made from a grayish-orange quartzite, perhaps from the Spanish Diggings quarry in Wyoming or maybe from a local quarry. The author wrote about the Pelican Lake prehistoric culture in a previous article so will not cover it here. (Branney 2002).

In the afternoon, I was exploring a two-foot-high cutbank when I noticed a piece of chert stuck in a layer of soil. It appeared to be an artifact. My initial reaction was surprise which quickly evolved into anticipation as I pulled the suspected artifact from the soil. My next reaction wasn’t elation, it was a disappointment. I only found half of a projectile point. I wet the broken end of the projectile point with spittle to determine if it was a new or old fracture. I was disappointed to see the cloudy white patina return to the fractured end when the projectile point dried. That meant it was an old break which lowered my chances of finding the projectile point tip close by. The tip of the projectile point could be anywhere. The prehistoric hunter might have broken the projectile point while hunting and then discarded the projectile point base from its foreshaft when he returned to camp. I find projectile point bases in prehistoric campsites all the time. Nevertheless, I dug into that cutbank like a gopher on caffeine. After several minutes of poking and prodding, I gave up. If the other half of the projectile point was in that cutbank, finding it would have to wait. With my best Terminator impersonation, I peered down at the cutbank and said, “I’ll be back!”    

Figure Five - concave base, edge grinding, and basal thinning. 1.4” long
Goshen projectile point broken back found on Rattlesnake Shake Day.

When I cleaned the dirt off the projectile point base, I was impressed by the beautiful material. It appeared to be petrified wood with very cool banding (figure five). I could tell by the flaking scars that the projectile point was probably made by a Paleoindian.    

My brain kicked into second gear trying to identify the projectile point type. The base of the projectile point consisted of a concave base with pronounced ears. Based on those characteristics it could be a Midland or a Goshen or even a McKean Lanceolate point from the Middle Archaic. I was hoping that it was not a McKean. There is nothing wrong with McKean points, but Paleoindian points are a better prize.     

With my thumb and forefinger, I ran my fingers up and down the basal edges and found them to be polished and smooth. That characteristic gave me a clue that the projectile point might be of Paleoindian or Early Archaic origin.       

I ran my thumb across the bottom of the base, and it was quite sharp. I noticed the four or five pressure flakes running vertically up from the base of the projectile point. The flaking on the projectile point was done very well with one face exhibiting horizontal transverse flaking while the reverse side was comprised of collateral flaking. Based on those clues, and the fact that I previously found several examples of the same projectile point type on that site, I concluded the projectile point came from the Paleoindian Goshen Complex.

Figure Six – 2.1-inch-long Goshen point (bottom) and broken Goshen point (top).

Figure six shows two more probable Goshen points found at the same site. Orthoquartzite was used to make both of those points. The author found the lower Goshen point on June 1, 1999, near the underground spring while the ranch foreman recently found the upper Goshen point near the ranch’s barn.     

What are Goshen points? To answer that question, let’s take a brief tour to an archaeological site in Wyoming.  

The Hell Gap Site

It was 1958 and The Bridge on the River Kwai won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Nikita Khrushchev became Premier of the Soviet Union. Unemployment in Detroit reached twenty percent, marking the height of the 1958 Recession. Have Gun Will Travel debuted on American radio.  

It was May 23 of that same year when two Wyoming teenagers named James Duguid and Mel McKnight discovered Paleoindian projectile points in an arroyo near Hell Gap in Goshen County, Wyoming. Understanding its archaeological significance, Duguid showed the potential site to George Agogino of the University of Wyoming, and in the spring of 1960, excavations began at what is now called the Hell Gap site. In 1961, Agogino turned the site over to Harvard University to excavate under the direction of Henry and Cynthia Irwin-Williams.    

Figure Seven – Hell Gap Site in Goshen County.

By 1966, the investigators were excavating four different localities at the same time at Hell Gap. On August 15th, only days before a planned shutdown of excavations, the investigators encountered a deeper productive zone at Locality 1. The investigators thought they might still be in the Folsom strata until they discovered a different style of projectile point. After studying the newly discovered projectile points, the archaeologists ruled them out as Clovis points. Eight days later on August 26, 1966, the Hell Gap site was cemented and sealed off and Henry and Cynthia Irwin-Williams never returned to the site.     

Henry Irwin recognized the similarities between Plainview points documented in Texas and the newly discovered projectile points from the deepest level at Locality 1 at Hell Gap. However, Irwin ran into a challenge in assigning the newly discovered Hell Gap projectile points to the Plainview projectile point type. The stratigraphy and radiocarbon dates from the Plainview site in Texas indicated a younger age than Folsom while the newly discovered projectile points at Hell Gap were older than Folsom. Irwin proposed a new projectile point type and named it and its associated artifacts the Goshen Complex after the county where the Hell Gap site exists.

Cynthia Irwin–Williams et al. (1973:46) described the Goshen projectile points as follows:

Typical Goshen projectile points were lanceolate-shaped with parallel to slightly convex sides and concave bases. The overall shape of Goshen points resembled the Clovis form but the flaking technology for Goshen was more refined. Flaking patterns for Goshen points were excellent and executed with a combination of percussion and pressure flaking. Most flake scars were uniformly directed at right angles to the long axis of the point. Most points were basally thinned with the removal of multiple flakes. Specimens were uniformly thin and the basal edges were ground or polished along the lower third of the point.

Henry Irwin died in 1978, and with him died his thoughts and conclusions about the Goshen Complex. After Irwin’s death, Frison (1996:205) examined Irwin’s field notes from Hell Gap and confirmed that Irwin opined that the Goshen projectile point type was typologically the same as the Plainview projectile point type.

The 1960s excavation at the Hell Gap site was never thoroughly documented and after the death of Cynthia Irwin–Williams on June 15, 1990, the chances of the site ever being properly documented went down significantly. But the 1980s brought about a resurgence of interest in the Hell Gap site. The original field notes were reexamined, the collections were located and studied, lab analysis was done, and a new round of excavations began. All of those actions led to a better understanding of the Hell Gap site and Paleoindians on the High Plains (Larson, Kornfeld, and Frison 2009).    

Figure Eight – Probable 3.4-inch-long Goshen knife form. 

   

Stanford et al (2005:335) reported a study by Frederic Sellet involving the Goshen Complex at Hell Gap. The objective of Sellet’s study was to refine the microstratigraphy at the Hell Gap site. Sellet confirmed that the deepest productive zone at Locality 1 was Goshen-only. On top of the Goshen-only zone was Folsom strata, and above the Folsom strata was a zone with an indeterminate projectile point type. The level above that contained a mixture of Folsom and Agate Basin projectile points. And Sellet reported that the zone above that contained a mixture of Folsom- and Goshen-styled projectile points. If Sellet’s analysis was correct, it supports the notion that there were multiple projectile point styles used during the same period at Hell Gap and most likely across the rest of the High Plains.   

Figure eight is a 3.4-inch-long knife form made from a semi-translucent Flat Top Chalcedony that the author found on August 30, 2006, at the same site as the Goshen points in figures five and six. The flaking technology used by the Paleoindian was oblique transverse with a relatively flat cross-section and no medial ridge. A small portion of the base was missing from the knife form when the author found it. That made it impossible to determine the point type with one hundred percent certainty. Based on the location of the basal thinning scars and the cross-section of the broken base, the author estimated that one-quarter to one-half inch of the projectile point base was gone. If more of the base was missing than the author’s estimate, the thinning scars could actually be fluting scars. The projectile point could be Clovis, but it is the author’s opinion that the knife form was from the site’s Goshen Complex.   

Conclusions

1.  There has been considerable progress made in understanding point-type chronology and stratigraphic relationships between Clovis, Folsom, and Goshen, but we still lack evidence of the cultural or social relationships between those three groups. There are many examples of archaeological sites where a single projectile point type was used, providing evidence that projectile point type was one basis for defining a specific social group. When two or three point types are found at the same site with similar or overlapping radiocarbon dates, it creates many questions. Was the same social group using different point types or were there different social groups using the same site? If they were different social groups, did they share the site with other groups at the same time?  

2.  Many investigators believe that Goshen and Plainview projectile points are typologically and technologically the same point type. However, the time gap between the use of Goshen points on the northern plains and the later use of Plainview points on the southern plains has not been adequately explained. If the time gap was due to the north to south dispersion of Goshen point technology, why did it take approximately one thousand years to travel several hundred miles from the northern plains to the southern plains? Why have we not seen a similar time gap from north to south with Clovis and Folsom?

3.  Surface artifact hunters are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to identifying Goshen and Plainview points. Without knowing the archaeological or stratigraphic context of the artifact, it is very possible to misidentify the projectile point type. Numerous projectile point types were lanceolate-shaped with concave bases, edge grinding, and basal thinning or fluting. Those point types spanned a time frame of over 3000 years on the High Plains (Frison 1991:24f). Clovis and Folsom points are easily differentiated from Goshen points, but other projectile point types such as Allen and Midland are not easily differentiated from Goshen points (Branney 2022).

 

Selected References  

Bradley, B. A. and G. C. Frison

1996  Flaked-Stone and Worked-Stone at the Mill Iron Site. In The Mill Iron Site. Edited by George C. Frison. University of New Mexico Press. Albuquerque.

Branney, John Bradford   

 2002   First Light, First Blood. In Prehistoric American, Volume XXXVI, Number 3: Pp. 55-57.

2022   Unwinding a Twister, Goshen-Plainview/Midland. Academia.     

Frison, George C.

1991   Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains. Second Edition. Academic Press. San Diego.

1996   The Mill Iron Site. University of New Mexico Press. Albuquerque.

1999  The Late Pleistocene Prehistory of the Northwestern Plains. In Ice Age Peoples of North America, edited by R. Bonnichsen, pp. 274-275. Oregon State University Press. Corvallis, Oregon.

Irwin-Williams, C., C. H. T. Irwin, G. A. Agogino, and C. V. Haynes Jr.

1973  Hell Gap: Paleo-Indian Occupation on the High Plains. In Plains Anthropologist 18(59):40-53.

Knudson, Ruth

2005   On Plainview. In Prehistoric American, Volume XXXIX, Number 2.

Larson, M. L., M. Kornfeld, and G. C.  Frison

2009  Hell Gap: a stratified Paleoindian campsite at the edge of the Rockies. The University of Utah Press.

Sellards, E. H., G. L. Evans, and G. E. Meade

1947 Fossil Bison and Associated Artifacts from Plainview, Texas. In Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, Vol. 58, PP. 927–954.

Stanford, D., R. Bonnichsen, B. Meggers, and D. G. Steele

2005  Paleoamerican Origins: Models, Evidence, and Future Directions. In Paleoamerican Origins: Beyond Clovis, edited by Robson Bonnichsen et al. Center for the Study of the First Americans. Texas A & M. College Station.

 

About the Author

John Bradford Branney is a geologist, prehistorian, and author with eleven books and numerous journal and magazine articles on archaeology and paleontology published. Branney grew up in Wyoming and began hunting artifacts practically from the time he could walk. He has cataloged and classified several thousand prehistoric artifacts and fossils in his collection. Branney and his family reside in the Colorado mountains.