First Light, First Blood - A Pelican Lake Story

First Light, First Blood

A Pelican Lake Story

by John Bradford Branney

Figure One. Where my fictional story took place. 

First Light, First Blood

A new day began as morning light touched a distant mountain range off to the west. The desert landscape was slowly bursting into color as the sun climbed steadily above the horizon. A red-tailed hawk circled the round-topped hill and screeched a warning to the intruders creeping toward its hidden nest. Lying on the ground and peeking over the top of that hill were several prehistoric hunters. They were watching a small herd of bison milling about a muddy pool of water in a ravine below. All the beasts could not reach the water at the same time, so there was a lot of pushing and shoving. 

On the opposite side of the ravine and away from the herd, a massive bison bull stood on a sagebrush flat. The bull was welcoming the new day with its loud bellows. It swished its tail and heaved silt and sand across its sides and back with its front hooves, trying to rid itself of pesky deer flies. A matriarch led the herd. The bull's only purposes were to protect and procreate. The bull smelled something in the air.

To seize the opportunity, the hunters needed to move decisively. If the herd finished watering and reached the sagebrush flats, any advantage the hunters might have had would be gone. Hunters on foot could never chase down a runaway bison herd across flat terrain. The hunters planned to leave the great bull alone and to attack the young and weak while the beasts were still in the ravine. The risk of attacking the bull was too great. If the bull injured or crippled any of the hunters, the tribe would have to care for the injured party. That added a burden to the tribe.

Following their leader’s cue, the hunters pushed themselves back from the edge of the hill and scampered down the hill’s backside. Each hunter carried an atlatl and three or four darts tipped with barbed, corner-notched projectile points. Using hand signals, the leader divided the men into two groups. The first group snuck across the land toward the head of the ravine above the herd. A light morning breeze blew in the hunters’ faces; they were downwind from the beasts.

The second group of hunters threaded their way through tall sagebrush and greasewood below the herd. They would trap the beasts in a squeeze play with the other group of hunters, but first, they needed to get past the great bull. They did not expect any trouble from the bull, but one could never be sure. Once past the bull, those men would drive the bison herd up the ravine into an ambush set up by the first group. Timing was critical.

Once the hunters passed the bull, the attack was on. The hunters sprinted along the ravine's flank, screaming and yelling. The herd panicked and bumped into each other in the tight confines of the ravine. Confused, several of the beasts ran up the narrow ravine toward a trap that awaited them. Others galloped down the ravine while a confused yearling bull climbed out of the ravine right amongst the hunters. A twelve-year-old boy spotted the yearling in front of him and launched a dart from his atlatl. The dart struck the beast in the fleshy part of its hindquarters. The yearling bull kicked up its back hooves trying to dislodge the painful projectile point from its hip, but the barbed projectile point remained wedged tight.

The boy launched a second dart, tipped with an orangish-red jasper projectile point, his grandfather knapped. He released that dart too soon, and the prehistoric missile sailed over the hump of the bison. The boy took careful aim with his last dart and heaved it at the moving target. It was a direct hit. The stone projectile point struck the yearling’s lower rib cage and penetrated the beast’s vital organs. The young bison took several wobbly steps and collapsed to its knees. The boy sprinted toward the beast and leapt onto its back. The young hunter pulled from its scabbard a stone knife. He thrust the blade into the beast’s neck several times, ultimately severing an artery. The yearling made a dying attempt to escape, but its life ended.

Figure Two. The 2-inch-long orangish red jasper projectile
point that the boy lost three thousand years ago. 

The day had just begun, and the boy was already exhausted. His heart pounded. The surge of adrenaline drained him. He was both euphoric and nauseous. The boy remained on the back of the beast as his mind and body unwound from the event. It was his first bison kill, but he took no pleasure in killing the beast. To survive, his people needed food, and that was the only reason for them to kill. While the boy rebounded from the excitement, the other hunters were in hot pursuit of the stampeding herd.

It did not take long for the boy to regather his wits. He placed his hands on the young bull's skull. The boy thanked his Creator and prayed for the bison that gave its life so that his people could live. He appealed to the Creator that the bison would find clear water and green pasture on the Other Side.

Rested, the boy leapt to his feet and went chasing after the other hunters. He would return after the hunt to butcher the yearling bull. The boy never retrieved the second dart with his grandfather's orangish-red jasper projectile point. Three thousand years later, I recovered the orangish-red projectile point. 

The Pelican Lake Culture

Author’s note: In archaeology, BP stands for "Before Present" and is a standard dating system that scientists use in association with radiometric dating. BP represents uncalibrated radiocarbon years, with scientists using the baseline A.D. 1950 to avoid constantly updating the age. To convert uncalibrated radiocarbon years to calendar years, scientists must correct the raw radiocarbon measurement. That conversion is necessary because the basic parameter used to measure radiocarbon years, the radioactive isotope Carbon-14, fluctuated throughout prehistoric times (Branney 2019). Once scientists correct or calibrate the raw radiocarbon measurement, they can report the age of the site in calendar years, years ago, B.C., A.D., or cal BP. In the following text, the authors used all three designations: BP, B.C., and A.D.

Figure Three is an example of a radiocarbon calibration chart with uncalibrated radiocarbon age on the y-axis and corrected calendar age on the x-axis (Reimer et al., 2016). After 4000 BP, the correction from radiocarbon years to calendar years becomes quite significant.  

Figure Three. Example of a radiocarbon calibration chart with conventional
radiocarbon age on the y-axis versus calendar age on the x-axis. The calibration line
comprises tree ring and coral data from various locations (Reimer et al., 2016).

Figure Four shows the 2.0-inch-long projectile point made from a beautiful jasper that the boy in my fictional story left behind. I found that projectile point lying on the ground on private land on September 5, 1992, in south-central Wyoming. The projectile point has deep, corner notches with barbs or tangs, which led me to believe that the prehistoric culture called Pelican Lake made it.

Figure Four. The boy's Pelican Lake dart point. 

Growing up in Wyoming, I found quite a few of those barbed corner-notched projectile points. They were among the easiest projectile point types to discover, although finding prehistoric projectile points was never easy. Back in my youth, artifact hunters called those barbed corner-notched projectile points Glendo, and not Pelican Lake. Anthropologist William Mulloy named those projectile points Glendo after the artifacts investigators found during the construction of the Glendo Reservoir in eastern Wyoming in the 1950s.

Steege and Welsh (1961: 70-71) described Glendo points as follows: “The distinguishing feature of this type is the corner-notching, which varies from quite shallow and broad to form a slightly expanded stem and hooked shoulder, to a fine deep notch which forms an expanded stem with pronounced barbs.”

It was not until my mid-twenties when I read George Frison's book (1978), Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains, that I discovered most archaeologists and researchers were not calling those barbed corner-notched projectile points Glendo, but instead called them Pelican Lake. The term Pelican Lake points has replaced Glendo points in most archaeological literature; yet a few artifact hunters on the northern plains still cling to the name Glendo to describe large, barbed, corner-notched projectile points or knife forms with rounded, convex bases. Old habits are hard to break (Figure Five).

Figure Five. What a few collectors
still call Glendo points.  

Frison (1991: 101) wrote, "Pelican Lake points are the oldest of several styles characterized by wide, open corner notches that form sharp points or barbs as they intersect blade edges and bases. Both blade edges and bases may be slightly convex, straight, or very slightly concave and they contrast sharply with earlier Middle Plains Archaic projectile point types.”

Wettlaufer (1955: 55) first documented barbed corner-notched projectile points associated with cultural materials at the lowest level of the Mortlach site in south central Saskatchewan and named that level Pelican Lake. The Pelican Lake level was not radiometrically dated at the time because the material was a poorly stratified layer in a stream-deposited sand. The Pelican Lake material came from two upper levels in that sandy zone. The separation between the undated Pelican Lake level and other cultural levels was based on cultural materials. Wettlaufer used overlying and underlying radiocarbon dates at the Mortlach site to bracket the age of the Pelican Lake material between 445 B.C. ± 290 and 1445 B.C. ± 200.

At the Long Creek site, Wettlaufer (1960: 108) found Pelican Lake material in level four above a large sand-and-gravel unit resembling the poorly sorted sand where he found Pelican Lake material at the Mortlach site. Based on the stratigraphic location of the Pelican Lake material at Long Creek, it appeared that it was younger than the Pelican Lake material at the Mortlach site. The investigators confirmed with a Carbon-14 date of around 293 B.C. ± 110. Did the younger age at Long Creek expand Pelican Lake's timeframe, or did a later group of people adapt Pelican Lake's effective projectile point technology?

Figure Six. Pelican Lake 
materials at the Mortlach site
 (Wettlaufer 1955: 107).

Wettlaufer described two of the Pelican Lake type points at Mortlach as corner-notched with oval cross-sections and fine parallel or diagonal flaking. He mentioned that the two points were widest above the notches and tapered to long symmetrical tips. He described the workmanship as superb and compared their quality to Early Archaic or Paleoindian.

In studying the photograph of the artifacts from level 5A of the Mortlach site in Figure Six, three points on the top row resemble typical northern plains Pelican Lake projectile points. The three points in the second row have Pelican Lake characteristics but appear smaller than typically found. The Pelican Lake points from the Long Creek site (Wettlaufer 1960: 47) also looked typical for Pelican Lake on the northern plains. Wormington and Forbis (1965: 34; 192) confirmed the presence of barbed corner-notched projectile points outside of Saskatchewan and Alberta, and extended the Pelican Lake geographical range across much of the northern plains. Pelican Lake was officially born.

Based on corner-notching and barbs, archaeologists and researchers expanded the geographical range of Pelican Lake from its humble beginning in southern Saskatchewan to major portions of southern Alberta and Manitoba, and south into Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Nebraska, and even Colorado.

The Pelican Lake people’s economy on the northern plains focused primarily on bison procurement, just like the prehistoric people before and after them. Dyck (1983: 107) described the Pelican Lake lifestyle: “Although they were certainly not inventors of bison jumps and pounds, Pelican Lake peoples were the first to use some mass kill locations that were used repeatedly, in some cases more intensively, in later times.”

Based on radiometrically dated components in Saskatchewan and Alberta, Dyck (1983: 105) suggested a timeframe from 3300 BP to 1850 BP for Pelican Lake. Dyck (1983: 107) investigated the question of the origin of the Pelican Lake barbed corner-notched projectile point. He noted that corner-notched projectile points with barbs or tangs were widespread across North America throughout prehistory. Dyck suggested that to determine both the origin of Pelican Lake and its fate, a broader inquiry was necessary. He observed that while prehistoric people in Saskatchewan were using Pelican Lake projectile points, they were also using other styles of projectile points.

This author researched barbed corner-notched projectile point types across North America using Overstreet’s guide to projectile point typology (Cooper and Rowe 2018). Barbed corner-notched projectile point types from the Archaic period were common across North America, from the Eastern Seaboard to the Far West, from Canada to Texas. Those projectile point types were younger, older, and of similar age to Pelican Lake. Archaeologists and collectors used different names for those projectile point types, but if found on the northern plains, they would be considered Pelican Lake. The relationship between barbed corner-notched projectile points from other regions and Pelican Lake projectile points is unknown. One thing became clear to me after my analysis: Pelican Lake people did not invent barbed corner-notched technology because the technology and style previously existed in other parts of  North America. 

Reeves (1983: 76) spread Pelican Lake influence by suggesting a Pelican Lake phase across the northern plains based on barbed corner-notched projectile point technology. He defined phase as a series of locally adapted nomadic hunting-and-gathering populations that were geographically separated but shared a common cultural tradition. Reeves (1983: 40) defined cultural tradition as a “persistent configuration in a number of cultural systems which interact to produce an archaeological unit distinct from all other archaeological units conceived on the same criteria.”

Reeves (1983: 76) divided his Pelican Lake phase into eight subphases based on ninety components across the northern plains. Reeves (1983: 42) defined components as "residential groups which change in composition over space and time." The eight subphases extended from the South Platte River drainage in Colorado on the south to the Saskatchewan River drainage on the north. Reeves described the subphases as regionally adapted societies that participated in a common cultural tradition across the northern plains. Reeves used geography and the various sizes and shapes of the barbed corner-notched projectile points to better define each subphase. He even resurrected William Mulloy’s largely forgotten term "Glendo" for the southernmost subphase.

Reeves (1983: 135-138) contended that the Pelican Lake phase occupied the northern half of the Great Plains and certain adjacent areas in the north part of the Rocky Mountains from around 1000 B.C. to A.D. 100. Even though Reeves revealed a strong bias toward a north origin for Pelican Lake, he was unable to rule out other possible origins such as Eastern Woodlands, British Columbia, central Idaho, and even the south. Reeves (1983: 136) concluded that, “If the Pelican Lake Corner-notch point type did not develop out of the preceding Hanna point type, it may have come from one of several sources.”

Reeves (1983: 80; 137-138) proposed that Pelican Lake was part of a serial phase within the cultural tradition he called Tunaxa. According to Reeves, the Tunaxa tradition lasted for approximately two and a half millennia, with temporal phases defined by three diagnostic projectile point types: McKean, Hanna, and Pelican Lake. Reeves supported that theory by pointing out the consistency of tool types surviving across the three temporal phases. Schlesier (1994: 310) agreed with that assessment, stating that many researchers believed that McKean-Hanna-Pelican Lake were serial phases of the same tradition that entered the plains from the Rocky Mountain west. If Schlesier’s assertion was correct, Pelican Lake projectile points evolved from Hanna projectile points. Foor (1982) proposed that the gradual transition from Hanna to Pelican Lake projectile points occurred around 1300 B.C., with Pelican Lake taking over completely by around 1000 B.C.

Kornfeld et al. (2010: 122-124) added that around 3000 BP, two Late Archaic manifestations on the Northwestern Plains and Rocky Mountains began replacing projectile points from the Middle Archaic McKean Complex. The first manifestation was the widespread cultural horizon extending across much of the northwestern and northern plains called Pelican Lake. The second manifestation the authors named was Yonkee, but it had a lesser geographical reach than Pelican Lake.

Figure Seven. Possible transition from the bifurcated bases of Middle Archaic Hanna points
to the barbed, corner-notched Pelican Lake point. John Bradford Branney Collection.     

That Hanna projectile points from the Middle Archaic transitioned into Late Archaic Pelican Lake projectile points is not an unreasonable theory. Many Hanna points were already showing signs of corner-notching with the presence of tiny barbs or tangs. Figure Seven is a photograph of Hanna and Pelican Lake projectile points from my collection, side by side. The goal is to demonstrate through examples what the transition from Hanna (points on the left) to Pelican Lake (points to the right) looked like. It is entirely possible that Pelican Lake was the successor to Hanna. If that is the case, the next logical question is, where did the Hanna projectile point technology come from? Unfortunately, that is a topic for another day. 

What happened to the Pelican Lake culture on the plains? According to Reeves (1983: 185), a similar adaptation named Besant, in what he called the Napikwan cultural tradition, eventually displaced the Tunaxa tradition. Based on the temporal and spatial distribution of sites, Schlesier (1994: 312) proposed that the Tunaxa cultural tradition retreated westward from the eastern side of its range, and by the third century A.D., Besant completely replaced Pelican Lake on the northern plains.

Not everyone has agreed with the reported widespread distribution of Pelican Lake across the northwestern and northern plains. Peck (2011: 256) questioned archaeologists and researchers who largely ignored the typological differences between Wettlaufer's original Pelican Lake projectile points at the Mortlach site and other barbed corner-notched dart points found elsewhere on the northern plains. Peck believed that a Pelican Lake cultural tradition was overextended and that Pelican Lake projectile points had unfortunately become synonymous with every barbed corner-notched projectile point found on the northwestern and northern plains.

Peck (2011: 280) argued that investigators and researchers should reconsider using the term Pelican Lake altogether since Wettlaufer applied Pelican Lake to a specific location and projectile point type found at the Mortlach and Long Creek sites in Saskatchewan. Peck contended that investigators and researchers had used the term Pelican Lake too broadly. He suggested that archaeologists have lumped all Late Archaic corner-notched projectile points with barbs and tangs into a single Pelican Lake cultural tradition without understanding its origin or its use by other Late Archaic cultures.

Peck eloquently summarized the position, writing, “The various corner-notch dart forms from geographically distinct parts of the Northwestern Plains could likely trace their origin to a common source in their distant pasts; the notion does not necessarily link them to a single culture. Consequently, continuing to refer to all these archaeological materials under the rubric of “Pelican Lake” is problematic. It is suggested that Reeves’ Pelican Lake subphases should be retained as phase names to reflect the differences between the peoples of the corner-notch horizon.”

Peck has a point. Figure Eight is one example of the wide variation within what I am calling Pelican Lake projectile points from the High Plains. The only common denominators are the corner notching and barbs. Otherwise, the projectile points show variation in basal finishing, notching angles, and flaking patterns.  

Figure Eight. Pelican Lake points show variation in basal edges from 
convex, concave, straight, and everything in between. 
John Bradford Branney Collection 

Conclusions

1) Dyck (1983: 105) suggested a timeframe from approximately 3300 BP to 1850 BP for Pelican Lake. Fourteen hundred years is more than adequate time for a relatively small population to spread barbed corner-notched projectile points far and wide across the expansive northern plains. For example, a nomadic population of one thousand hunters, each losing ten projectile points per year, for fourteen hundred years would leave behind fourteen million barbed corner-notched projectile points in the archaeological record. Over a millennium, small wandering bands of Pelican Lake people would leave behind a significant archaeological record.       

2) Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Did people on the northern plains independently invent barbed corner-notched projectile point technology, or did the technology arrive from the outside world via migration or technological diffusion? In the former case, Pelican Lake projectile points could have evolved from the Middle Archaic Hanna projectile point, which already existed on the northern plains. In the latter case, barbed corner-notched technology existed in several other regions of North America, earlier in time than Pelican Lake. The relationship between the Pelican Lake projectile point type and those similar projectile point types outside of the northern plains is unknown. 

3) Archaeologists and researchers are unable to determine the origin of the Pelican Lake cultural tradition on the northern plains. Reeves, the original advocate for a Pelican Lake cultural tradition, revealed his strong bias for a northern origin but was unable to rule out other possibilities. At this stage, we do not know the origin of the people who spread barbed corner-notched projectile point technology across the northern plains. Was it a single culture or multiple cultures copying an effective projectile point technology?         

4) The only common thread weaving Reeves' eight Pelican Lake subphases together appeared to be a single diagnostic artifact type: the barbed corner-notched projectile point. The other artifact types found across Reeve’s ninety components were not exclusive nor diagnostic to the Late Archaic period or to Reeves' Pelican Lake cultural tradition. Prehistoric peoples across various regions of North America used barbed corner-notched projectile points from the Archaic period onward. Therefore, it is difficult to conceive that Reeves' Pelican Lake subphases originated from a single source or culture.

5) There is a wide variation in form for Pelican Lake projectile points and knife forms on the northern plains. Pelican Lake can have convex, concave, and straight projectile point bases. Their notches can be wide or narrow. The barbs or tangs can be short or long. Flaking patterns are random on most points. Do those differences reflect variation in flintknapping within a Pelican Lake cultural tradition, or are the variations due to different cultures applying barbed corner-notch technology? The variations are significant enough to ask that question. Corner-notching with barbs was an effective projectile point technology used by numerous groups throughout the entire Archaic period in North America.  

6) Peck suggested abandoning the term Pelican Lake outside of the immediate area around the Mortlach and Long Creek sites in Saskatchewan. He recommended using Reeves' eight Pelican Lake subphases to reflect geographically diverse populations using similar projectile point technology. Even if researchers could differentiate between the barbed corner-notched projectile points in each subphase, that does not eliminate cultural connections between the populations within each subphase. 

After all was written, we still must answer the question: Was Pelican Lake a cultural tradition sweeping across the northern plains, or did different Late Archaic cultures independently adapt an effective projectile point technology? Until that question can be answered, the Pelican Lake moniker for barbed corner-notched projectile points found on the northern plains should remain intact, if for no other reason than simplicity's sake.   

References Cited

Branney, John Bradford

2019  Radiocarbon Dating 101 – The Process. Academia.  

 

Cooper, Steven R., and Matt Rowe

2018  The Official Overstreet Indian Arrowheads Identification and Price Guide. Fifteenth Edition. Krause Publication. Stevens Point, WI.  

 

Dyck, Ian

1983  “The Prehistory of Southern Saskatchewan” in Tracking Ancient Hunters: Prehistoric Archaeology in Saskatchewan, edited by Henry T. Epp and Ian Dyck, pp. 63-139. Saskatchewan Archaeological Society. Saskatoon.   

Foor, Thomas Allyn

1982  “Cultural Continuity on the Northwestern Great Plain, 1300 B.C. to A.D. 200: The Pelican Lake Culture.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Michigan. University Microfilms International. Ann Arbor.

Frison, George C.

1978  Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains. Academic Press, Inc., New York.

1991 Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains. Second Edition. Academic Press, Inc., New York.     

 

Kornfeld, Marcel, George C. Frison, and Mary Lou Larson

2010  Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers of the High Plains and Rockies. Third Edition. Left Coast Press. Walnut Creek, CA.   

 

Peck, Trevor R.

2011  Light from Ancient Campfires. AU Press. Edmonton.  

 

Reeves, Brian O.K. 

1983  Culture Change in the Northern Plains - 1000 B.C.- A.D. 1000, Occasional Paper No. 20. Archaeological Survey of Alberta.   

Reimer, Paula J. et al.

2013  IntCal13 and Marine13 Radiocarbon Age Calibration Curves 0–50,000 Years cal BP. Radiocarbon. January 2013 55(4).

 

Schlesier, Karl H.

1994  Plains Indians, A.D. 500-1500. University of Oklahoma Press. Norman.

 

Steege, Louis C., and Warren W. Welsh

1968 Stone Artifacts of the Northwestern Plains. Northwestern Plains Publishing Company. Colorado Springs.

 

Wettlaufer, Boyd

1955 The Mortlach Site. Anthropological Series No. 1. Department of Natural Resources. Regina.  

 

1960  The Long Creek Site, edited by William J. Mayer-Oakes. Anthropological Series No. 2. Saskatchewan Museum of Natural History. Regina.

 

Wormington, H. M., and Richard G. Forbis

1965  An Introduction to the Archaeology of Alberta, Canada. Proceedings Number 11, Denver Museum of Natural History. Denver.

About the Author

John Bradford Branney was born and raised in Wyoming and became interested in Prehistoric America through his grandfather's artifact collection. From the time he could walk, Branney went hog wild collecting and documenting prehistoric artifacts and sites along the High Plains. 

Branney has written fourteen books and approximately one hundred articles on archaeology, geology, and life. He holds a B.S. degree in geology from the University of Wyoming and an M.B.A. in finance from the University of Colorado. He lives in the Colorado mountains with his family.  

Who Dun It? A Unique Projectile Point Cache

Who Dun It?

A Unique Projectile Point Cache

By John Bradford Branney

Figure 1 - A cache of projectile points surface recovered in
Weld County, Colorado, by the late Robert A. Roth. 

 Purpose

This article documents and analyzes a cache of five projectile points surface recovered from the prairie in northeastern Colorado. The analysis provides visual evidence for the possible sources of the raw material and a proposed projectile point type for the five artifacts.

Introduction

The late Robert A. Roth of Gill, Colorado, recovered the five projectile points together in Figure 1 on the surface of private land in Weld County, Colorado, north of the South Platte River. Based on the similarity in morphology, size, and knapping technology, I suspect the same individual made all five points. Based on the fragile tips, a lack of evidence for resharpening or use wear, and the similar sizes, I surmise the prehistoric craftsman never used the artifacts. I contend that the craftsperson stashed the five projectile points for later use, or lost or abandoned them under indeterminable circumstances. Unfortunately, we will never know the answers for sure.

Raw Material Sourcing

Figure 2 - Boulders and flakes  
of stone tool material in a
prehistoric quarry northeast
of the cache discovery.   

The first thing I tackled with this project was determining the raw material the prehistoric craftsperson used to make the five projectile points. The photograph in Figure 1 illustrates that the raw material was beautiful and diverse. The craftsperson made the first three projectile points out of orthoquartzite, the fourth projectile point out of a dusky-red jasper, and the fifth projectile point out of a semi-translucent chalcedony. Those general rock types were readily available in prehistoric times throughout the Rocky Mountain region, so that did not help me much in tracking down specific sources. I wanted to know if the prehistoric craftsperson imported the material or artifacts from another area or used the available raw material within the same area as the discovery site. 

The multi-colored raw material used to make the first projectile point in Figure 1 was a real headscratcher. Having artifact hunting Weld County for four decades, I found plenty of the yellowish-orange orthoquartzite found on the proximal end of the first point. However, the moderate red hue on the distal end puzzled me. The second point from the left had the same texture and yellowish-orange hue as the distal end of the first point, so I assumed they came from the same source. 

I recalled that a prehistoric rock quarry I discovered in 2022 produced that yellowish-orange orthoquartzite, so I drove there (Figure 2). The prehistoric rock quarry is situated along a major creek drainage. That creek is mostly dry today. As the crow flies, the rock quarry is approximately forty miles northeast of where Mr. Roth discovered the cache. I matched the yellowish-orange and moderate red orthoquartzite to projectile points one and two, and found a possible raw material match for the third projectile point (Figure 3). 

Figure 3 - The five projectile points alongside raw material found at the prehistoric rock quarry.  

When sourcing an artifact’s raw material, my philosophy is simple: start with the closest source possible. After all, the Rocky Mountain region had hundreds, if not thousands, of raw material sources during prehistoric times. Raw materials were widely available for prehistoric people crossing the Rocky Mountain region. Prehistoric people did not need to haul a lot of raw material around with them on their nomadic treks. That does not mean a High Plains artifact hunter like me does not find the occasional artifact made from Alibates agatized dolomite out of Texas or Knife River chalcedony out of North Dakota. I do. Iconic and desirable raw materials traveled.

The dusky red jasper from the fourth point is reminiscent of Bighorn chert out of the Phosphoria or Amsden formations in the Bighorn Mountains of northwest Wyoming. For it to end up along the South Platte River in Colorado would be a hundred-mile-plus jaunt. The prehistoric craftsperson could have visited the Bighorn Mountains or traded for the material from another tribe. Since that particular projectile point was morphologically similar to the other four points and undamaged like the others, I contended that the five points were made near the discovery site or at least near the prehistoric rock quarry. The other option for the dusky red jasper of the fourth projectile point was a localized Bighorn chert lookalike.

Figure 4 - May 5, 2025. Cobbles and
flintknapping debris detritus at 
prehistoric quarry two.

On May 5, 2025, I visited the same creek drainage where the prehistoric rock quarry lies. I wanted to find dusky red jasper. Approximately three miles downstream from the first prehistoric rock quarry, I discovered another sourcing area with orthoquartzite and colorful jasper (Figure 4). The hillside was littered with cobbles, corestones, and chipping debris made from orthoquartzite and, surprisingly, pieces of yellow, brown, and red jasper. While jasper was rare at the first prehistoric rock quarry, it was more plentiful at the second prehistoric rock quarry. Upon visual inspection, it gave me confidence that the source for the fourth point could be along that creek drainage.          

The raw material of the fifth point was the simplest for me to identify (Figure 5). Anyone who has hunted artifacts in northeastern Colorado, eastern Wyoming, or southwestern Nebraska can recognize the yellowish-brown material as chalcedony from the White River Group of Oligocene geological age. Numerous quarry sites along the High Plains yield that popular tool-making material. The most famous site is Flattop Butte in Logan County, Colorado (Branney 2018). Flattop Butte is located approximately one hundred miles northeast of the cache discovery.

Figure 5 - Projectile point number five made from chalcedony from the 
Oligocene-aged White River Group on the High Plains. 
 

Projectile Point Type  

Harvey Mackey once said, "First impressions are lasting impressions." My first impression of the cache was that the points were from a projectile point type called Lovell Constricted, also known as Lovell or Fishtail points. Paleoindians made Lovell points in the Late Paleoindian to Early Archaic prehistoric periods. 

From 1962 to 1964, archaeologist Wilfred M. Husted (1969) excavated rock shelter sites east of Mummy Cave in the Bighorn Canyon of Wyoming and Montana. The sites were in jeopardy of imminent flooding due to the construction of Yellowtail Dam. Husted discovered two new projectile point types in three closely spaced rock shelters: Sorenson, Mangus, and Bottleneck Cave. He christened the new projectile point types Lovell Constricted and Pryor Stemmed.

Figure 6 - Lovell Constricted 
projectile points from the type site.
Husted (1969:46)  

Husted recovered Lovell Constricted projectile points stratigraphically below Pryor Stemmed projectile points, indicating that Lovell Constricted points were older than Pryor Stemmed points at those rock shelters. The geologic strata holding the Lovell projectile points yielded a radiocarbon date of around 8,000 years or slightly older, or around 8,800 to 8,900 in calendar years (Kornfeld et al. 2010:36). 

Figure 6 shows a drawing of the original Lovell Constricted type points that Husted et al. excavated in Bottleneck Cave (Husted 1969:46). Note the similarities between the complete point on the left in Figure 6 and the five projectile points in the cache. 

Husted (1969:12) described the Lovell Constricted projectile point type as follows:

“Medium to large in size with a concave base and a definite constriction of the lateral edges slightly distal to the base. The lateral edges above the constriction usually are smoothly convex. Basal edges vary from shallowly to moderately concave. Flaking is crudely parallel oblique with the flake scars extending downward to the right. Lateral edges are ground smooth from the base forward for up to one-half of the length of the points. Cross sections are lenticular.”

Husted (1969:83) hypothesized that when Agate Basin people arrived in the Rocky Mountain region, they displaced the people making and using fluted points. Based on his work in the Bighorn Canyon, he suggested that after the Agate Basin people arrived, they split into at least three branches: Mountain, Plains, and West. Husted (1969:87) suggested that the presence of obliquely flaked, lanceolate-shaped projectile points on the open plains represented an expansion of the Mountain branch before the Altithermal climate event made the open plains practically uninhabitable. I find Lovell and other oblique parallel flaked points on the open plains, so I can vouch for those people's presence. 

George Frison expanded on Husted's work in the Bighorn Basin and defined a subsistence strategy called the Foothill/Mountain Paleoindian Complex, in which he included Lovell Constricted artifacts. Frison surmised that around 10,000 years ago, two distinct Paleoindian subsistence patterns were existing on the High Plains: one subsistence pattern on the open plains where the hunter and gatherers survived mostly on bison, and a second subsistence pattern along the foothills and mountains where the inhabitants relied more on an archaic existence with mountain sheep as their main nourishment (Frison 1991:67; Kornfeld 2013:51). 

Figure 7 - Projectile point number one from the cache. The red arrows show  
oblique parallel flakes and the flaking direction along the left-hand edge.   

Figure 7 is a photograph of the first projectile point in the cache. It possessed all of the Lovell Constricted characteristics defined within Husted’s original description except stem grinding. During my analysis, I noticed something different about the five projectile points in the cache. The left-hand edges of the five projectile points exhibit oblique parallel flaking (red arrows), while the right-hand edges show collateral flaking. 

The oblique parallel flakes along the left-hand edge of the first projectile point were slanted at an obtuse angle to the long axis of the point. Oblique parallel flakes were usually uniform in size, shape, and regularity. Along the right-hand edge of the first projectile point, the craftsperson used collateral flakes that were at right angles to the long axis of the point. Collateral flakes were mostly uniform in size and regularity. That unique knapping strategy on all five points provided me with circumstantial evidence that the same individual crafted them all.  

The only feature from Husted's original description missing from all five points in the cache was stem grinding in the hafting region above the bases of the projectile points. If the craftsperson ground the stem edges on the five points, he or she did it lightly. Most experienced people contend that Paleoindians dulled the stem edges in the hafting area of projectile points to ensure sharp edges did not cut or fray the deer or bison sinew used to bind the stone projectile point to a spear or dart shaft. While that was a common Paleoindian practice, not all Paleoindians did it. My collection has many examples of diagnostic Paleoindian points with only light or no stem grinding.

 

Figure 8 - Projectile point number four demonstrates oblique parallel flaking 
on the left-hand edge and collateral flaking on the right-hand edge.
That is a common thread between the cache's five projectile points.   

Projectile point four in Figure 8 is another example showing the common thread that ties all five projectile points to the same craftsperson: oblique parallel flaking along the left-hand edge and collateral flaking along the right-hand edge.

The McKean Lanceolate Projectile Point Type 

The only other possibility of a projectile point type for the cache is McKean Lanceolate, a Middle Archaic lanceolate-shaped projectile point. McKean Lanceolate points had convex blade edges that were narrower at the base than in the middle. The flintknappers normally indented the proximal ends of McKean Lanceolate points, sometimes so deeply that it appeared to be a notch. The flintknappers normally did not grind or polish the stem edges, something that Paleoindian and Early Archaic knappers often did.

Figure 9 - McKean Lanceolate points from the author's collection.

In outline, McKean Lanceolate points looked similar to earlier point types, such as Lovell Constricted, but morphologically, they could not be more different (Figure 9). While an exceptional McKean Lanceolate point might show decent workmanship, most were not made all that well. Many McKean Lanceolate points were asymmetrical with random flaking patterns. Workmanship was a lower priority for Middle Archaic flintknappers than their earlier counterparts in Paleoindian and Early Archaic times. Perhaps Middle Archaic flintknappers realized that knapping overkill and a higher workmanship standard did not necessarily translate to better hunting success.

As a sidenote, Husted and Edgar (2002:119) proposed that Lovell Constricted projectile point technology evolved from older Angostura projectile point technology. Once the Lovell Constricted projectile point technology phased out, what was the new technology? Based on similar morphology and features, it seems logical to assume that McKean technology evolved from Lovell (and Pryor Stemmed) technology. But, not so fast. According to the archaeological record, there was a two-to-three-thousand-year-long gap between when Lovell technology phased out and McKean technology phased in (Branney 2016). The two technologies existed on opposite sides of a period of relative warmth during the middle of the Holocene called the Altithermal. Lovell Constricted technology came before the Altithermal, while McKean technology came at the tail end of the Altithermal. So what happened in between? That is a story for a different day.  

Conclusions  

I labeled this section "conclusions," even though I only present "my opinions and claims." Determining raw material sources via visual inspection with rock sample comparisons is tricky business. And projectile point typology can be quite subjective, especially on uniquely crafted projectile points with few diagnostic features. If I find a Clovis or a Folsom on the ground, I know what it is, but the projectile points in the cache above are not so definitive. Opinions on the projectile point type for projectile points without specific diagnostic features can create debates, with sometimes no definitive conclusion drawn from it.

1) I am confident in the raw material source for projectile points one, two, and five. I am comfortable with the raw material sources for three and four. I believe the raw material sources for projectile points one, two, three, and four were those prehistoric rock quarries along that specific creek drainage, approximately forty to fifty miles northeast of the cache's discovery location. There is an offhand chance that the raw material for projectile point four was Bighorn chert, but I doubt it. On May 13th, 2025, I returned to the prehistoric rock quarries and found a match for the red jasper (Figure 10 below). 

2) I am confident that the cache of five projectile points originated in the Late Paleoindian or Early Archaic time frame, specifically Frison's previously mentioned Foothill-Mountain Paleoindian Complex.    

3)  I contend that one individual made all five projectile points based on similar forms and technology, with a unique and individualistic twist of using oblique parallel flaking on one edge and collateral flaking on the other. 

4)  I do not believe the craftsperson ever had a chance to use the five projectile points based on the needle-like tips and lack of stem grinding.  

Figure 10 - Projectile point four with red jasper 
samples and an end scraper from the
prehistoric rock quarry. 

References Cited  

Branney, John Bradford. 2018. Flattop Chalcedony Along the Shadows on the Trail. Academia.

Branney, John Bradford. 2016. Lovell Constricted (Fishtail) Projectile Point Type. Academia.  

Frison, George C. 1991. Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains. Academic Press. New York.

Husted, Wilfred M. 1969. Bighorn Canyon Archeology. Reprints in Anthropology, Volume 43.

Husted, Wilfred M, and Robert Edgar. 2002. The Archaeology of Mummy Cave, Wyoming: An Introduction to Shoshonean Prehistory. U.S. National Park Service Publications and Papers.

Kornfeld, Marcel. 2013. The First Rocky Mountaineers - Coloradans Before Colorado. University of Utah Press. Salt Lake.  

Kornfeld, Marcel, George C. Frison, and Mary Lou Larson. 2010. Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers of the High Plains and Rockies. Third Edition. Left Coast Press, Inc. Walnut Creek.    

About the Author

John Bradford Branney is a geologist, prehistorian, and author who developed a passion for archaeology around the same time he learned to walk. Branney grew up in a small town in Wyoming, where his family had two and a half channels on television, and family weekend outings consisted of hunting, fishing, and artifact hunting.

Branney has written thirteen books and over one hundred papers and articles on archaeology, geology, and life. He holds a B.S. in geology from the University of Wyoming and an M.B.A. in finance from the University of Colorado.