Radiocarbon Dating - Part One - The Process

Figure One - Three-inch long Montana Clovis point made from a multi-colored jasper and around 13,000 years old. How do we know who old Clovis points are?  Radiocarbon dating John Bradford Branney Collection.

Radiocarbon dating is a controversial subject. People either believe it works or they don't, and a lot of people including myself have assumptions about the way the process works and how scientists report its results. I am not here to convince you that radiocarbon dating works or does not work. That you must decide on your own after doing your own investigation. The process has its advantages and its limitations, as does any process. I will share what I learned during my investigation on the subject. 

In Part One of my two-part series on radiocarbon dating, I present an overview of the radiocarbon dating process and some of its pitfalls. It is not my intent to cover every nuance and detail of the radiocarbon dating process but to supply readers with enough information for a basic understanding. During my research, I found that the radiocarbon dating process is a lot like making sausage; we all have a general idea of how the sausage-making process works, we just don’t want to know the ingredients that went into making the sausage.  

 

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Over the decades, I have read many books and reports on archaeological sites, especially those related to my stomping grounds, the high plains of North America. I read these books and reports because I have hunted prehistoric artifacts for five decades plus and I have a passion for learning about the people who made my prehistoric artifacts. Reading these archaeological reports also helps me to write good stories for my historical fiction book series titled the SHADOWS on the TRAIL Pentalogy.  

I have always been curious about how and why archaeologists report radiocarbon dates the way they do. There does not appear to be any standard as to how archaeologists and scientists report the dates. Archaeologists use a plethora of confusing terms and phrases when reporting radiocarbon dates. For example, these are radiocarbon dates from two reports: 10,000 RCYBP and 10,000 years BP. Does this mean both sites are 10,000 years old? For someone unfamiliar with the terminology, they might say yes, but the answer is no. The first date reports an uncalibrated radiocarbon date while the second date is a calibrated radiocarbon date. Either the reader or the author must correct the uncalibrated radiocarbon date to get something meaningful like calendar years old.

Radiocarbon dating is indispensable in archaeology. Every archaeologist uses radiocarbon dating in one way or another. If we understand the basics of the radiocarbon dating process, it helps us to better understand archaeological reports and the limitations to the process. As consumers of these reports, we need to have a basic understanding of the process and its strengths and weaknesses. 

Figure Two – Variations in Cody Complex artifacts surface found on private land on the High Plains of North America. From left to right; Eden (Colorado), eccentric Cody Complex knife form (Wyoming), Eden? (Colorado), Scottsbluff knife form (Colorado), Cody knife (Wyoming), and Cody knife (Colorado). Eden on left is two inches long. Based on several radiocarbon dates (Knell and Muñiz 2013:13). Cody Complex's age is 11,600 to 8785 cal BP. John Bradford Branney Collection.  

Radiocarbon dating is one of the most widely used methods for scientists to figure out the relative ages of biological samples, such as wooden artifacts or bones. The process uses a natural phenomenon occurring in the Earth’s atmosphere (figure three). When cosmic rays from the sun bombard nitrogen atoms in our upper atmosphere, it creates an unstable, radioactive carbon isotope called carbon-14. This radioactive carbon-14 isotope oxidizes into a carbon-14 dioxide isotope which settles in the lower atmosphere. Plants and algae take in the carbon-14 dioxide isotope at the same ratio that exists in the atmosphere for that specific time. Other living organisms exchange carbon with the atmosphere through respiration and by eating plants and organisms that have the carbon-14 isotope in their tissue.

 

Figure Three - How the radiocarbon dating process works by Pass My Exams. 

When an organism dies, its carbon intake stops, and the radioactive carbon-14 isotope in its tissue begins to decay into a stable carbon-12 isotope. Radioactive decay is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy (in terms of mass) by emitting radiation. The carbon-14 isotope has a known radioactive half-life of approximately 5,730 years. This means that in 5,730 years half of the carbon-14 isotope in the dead organism will decay into the stable carbon-12 isotope. To figure out the age of the dead organism, archaeologists and scientists test the remains for the presence of the radioactive carbon-14 isotope and its ratio to the stable carbon-12 isotope. Wood and charcoal are the best materials to use in the process, but other previously "alive" materials also work.

 

Figure Four - Paleoindians from my book Shadows on the Trail.

Radiocarbon dating is one of the most reliable means in the toolbox for dating archaeological sites, but the process has a few challenges that we should be aware of. The first challenge for the field archaeologist is to find a reliable and uncontaminated sample within the cultural material desired. The archaeologist must ensure that the sample tested is associated with the cultural material in question and that unrelated organic deposits have not contaminated the sample. As an example,  testing a piece of charcoal from a prehistoric fire hearth in a geologic formation where there are clinker coal deposits from an earlier geological episode presents a problem. The radiocarbon date might turn out too old.   

The second challenge is that the site must be less than 50,000 to 60,000 years old. As I previously mentioned, the half-life of the radioactive carbon-14 isotope is 5,730 years. If you cut the amount of carbon-14 isotope in half several times through radioactive decay, there comes a point where there is not enough carbon-14 isotope left to supply a statistically reliable answer. Over the years, advances in measurement technology have improved the ability to measure smaller amounts of carbon-14 isotope , but it still is a challenge.   

The third challenge is the biggest hurdle of all. In my fourth paragraph, I explained how cosmic rays from the sun bombarded nitrogen atoms in our upper atmosphere and created the radioactive carbon-14 isotope which is the key element needed for radiocarbon dating. We know the half-life of carbon-14 and we know the amount of carbon-14 currently produced in the atmosphere. Therefore, we should be able to calculate the amount of carbon-14 isotope left in our sample and therefore figure out its age. Unfortunately, it is not that easy.

The big snafu is that the amount of bombardment of cosmic rays from the sun has not been consistent through time. Therefore, the production of the radioactive carbon-14 isotope has not been consistent through time. The inconsistency in the production of radioactive carbon-14 throws a wrench in the monkey works. Throughout geologic time, there were peaks and valleys in the production of the carbon-14 isotope in the atmosphere. One example of this is between 11,300 to 11,600 years ago; scientists believe the atmosphere produced less carbon-14 isotope. A reduction in the production of carbon-14 isotope in the atmosphere results in a difference between measured radiocarbon years and actual calendar years. The reduction resulted in a flat plateau on the radiocarbon calibration curve and a compression of the true or calendar age.   

To correct for these discrepancies, scientists tied radiocarbon dating to tree rings (dendrochronology) and how much carbon-14 is there. This is challenging at best and probably why so many archaeologists cite uncalibrated radiocarbon years in their reports and not calibrated radiocarbon years. Readers of these reports must be aware of how the author or authors are reporting dates. There is a monstrous difference between uncalibrated and calibrated (corrected) radiocarbon ages, especially in the older Paleoindian sites!  

Figure Five – Generic example. The difference between uncalibrated radiocarbon dates          (vertical axis) and calibrated radiocarbon dates (horizontal axis).

Figure five is a simplified version of a radiocarbon date calibration curve and illustrates my point. The vertical axis (left-hand side) shows years in uncalibrated radiocarbon years. This stands for the raw radiocarbon measurement for my example. The horizontal axis (across the bottom) shows years in calibrated calendar years from the baseline year of 1950. The red curve illustrates a simplified calibration curve for the data. In this example, you enter the uncalibrated radiocarbon date on the vertical axis and where it crosses the red line you read the calendar years on the horizontal axis. For example, a site yielded an age of 10,000 radiocarbon years calibrates to 11,400 calendar years, a correction of 1,400 years! If the author of the data reports the uncalibrated age of 10,000 radiocarbon years, an unsuspecting reader might think this is how old the site is in calendar years. It is not! 

It is easy to see how this can lead to confusion for those not living archaeology every day. While some authors report uncalibrated radiocarbon years others report calibrated radiocarbon years. 

In Part Two of my two-part series on radiocarbon dating, I will cover some of the different ways archaeologists report radiocarbon dates from archaeological sites. 

Reference Cited

Knell, Edward J., and Mark P. Muñiz

2013 Paleoindian Lifeways of the Cody Complex. The University of Utah Press. Salt Lake City.   

 

 

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Clovis First? Second? Third? Fourth?

Figure One - Five High Plains Clovis spear points/knife forms surface found on private land.
Note that each of these points has a flute starting at the proximal end and terminating midway
or less than midway into the body of the point. The longest point is 3.85 inches long.
John Bradford Branney Collection.  

Close your eyes and imagine the emptiness of North America thirteen thousand years ago. No cities, towns, highways, or planes. Not much of anything except a few bands of roaming Paleoindians spread across the expanse of an entire continent, living amongst countless herds of animals.

After its discovery in 1929 by Ridgely Whiteman in New Mexico, North American archaeology coronated the Clovis Paleoindian culture as royalty. Scientists proclaimed that the mammoth hunters who made the Clovis artifacts were the First Americans, i.e. the first humans to ever walk on North American soil. Since its discovery, Clovis technology has taken the breath away from artifact hunters and scientists alike. Books and magazine articles have filled our insatiable appetites for everything Clovis, including speculating about the lifestyles of those Paleoindians. No other prehistoric culture in North America has captured more attention than Clovis.

Figure Two - Edward Howard in 1933 at the
Clovis-type site in New Mexico.

We know from current archaeological evidence that Clovis flintknapping technology started showing up in North American sites around 13,500 years ago. But where did the Paleoindians who made that technology come from? That's the million-dollar question. The first and longest-held belief was the Clovis First Theory which in broad strokes stated that ancestral Clovis people originating in Siberia, crossed the Bering Strait from Siberia into Alaska during the last ice age when ocean levels were low. The theory proposed that the ancestral Clovis people holed up in Beringia until the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets began melting and growing apart. The melting allowed the Clovis people access between the ice sheets to migrate south across Canada into the United States and Mexico. Since archaeologists contended that the Clovis people were the First Americans, they proposed that those people brought their flintknapping technology with them from Beringia, or they invented it once they arrived in the interior of  North America.  

The Clovis First Theory held water for decades and there are still a few scientists who hold onto that premise even though we have not seen any evidence, or smoking gun, proving that Clovis Paleoindians crossed the Bering Strait and brought their technology with them. In other words, if Clovis people and their technology came to North America through Siberia, why can't we trace Clovis technology back to Beringia or Siberia?

Figure Three - A painting called Cautious Killers depicting Clovis hunters trapping a
mammoth at what would one day be called the Colby Mammoth Site in northern
Wyoming. Courtesy National Geographic. Artist Roy Anderson.   

When I reference a smoking gun with Clovis technology, what exactly am I writing about? Clovis technology is represented in the archaeological record by stone projectile points, prismatic blades, blade cores, and unifacial tools made from blades. Clovis technology was heavy into blade technology. Clovis technology also included projectile points and foreshafts made from bone and ivory. Red ocher was also tied to the Clovis people. They covered the hematite-rich powder indiscriminately over artifacts and their burials. Unfortunately, other Paleoindian cultures besides Clovis dabbled in some of the above technologies and practices so we cannot attribute the technologies and practices exclusively to Clovis. The one technological innovation or smoking gun that distinguished Clovis from other Paleoindian cultures was a fluted projectile point! Clovis or Clovis-like projectile points are one of the most recognizable projectile point types in North America.  

Clovis projectile points are quite distinctive. They are one of a kind. Beyond their general outline and preferred biface reduction method, Clovis projectile points possessed a recognizable feature; Clovis flintknappers fluted most of their projectile points. The flutes or grooves started at the middle of the proximal end or base of the projectile point and terminated midway or less from the tip (see examples in figures one and four). Artifact hunters and scientists have discovered fluted Clovis or Clovis-like projectile points across the lower 48 states from coast to coast and from Canada to northern Mexico. That was an amazing dispersion of technology over a relatively short period of time. Some scientists estimate that the Clovis culture was only around for approximately three hundred years. Adaptation of Clovis technology by the populace must have been quick and decisive. But, where did the process for fluting originate, and by whom?

Figure Four - 3.85 inch long Clovis spear/knife form surface
found on private land in Colfax County, New Mexico. Note the
extraordinary flute. John Bradford Branney Collection. 

A master flintknapper named Bob Patten once wrote in his book Peoples of the Flute, "If, as it appears, the Clovis tradition [fluting] was invented here [North America], someone must have already been here to invent it."

An old saying stated that hindsight is 20-20, meaning that it is always easier to second guess the past than to forecast the future. To believe that there were no humans in North America prior to Clovis has always seemed naïve and unrealistic to me. Most other continents on the planets have evidence of humans dating back thousands and thousands of years before Clovis, even going back millions of years in Africa. Why would North America be the exception and remain human free right up until 13,500 years ago? What prevented humans from finding North America prior to Clovis? How did North America remain isolated while the cradle of humanity was happening all over the world? That makes no sense to me. 

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Ninety years after scientists first documented Clovis in New Mexico, there is now undeniable archaeological evidence that the Clovis people were not the First Americans. Sites with names such as Cooper's Ferry, Cactus Hill, Friedkin, Gault, Meadowcroft, and Topper have exposed the weakness in the Clovis First Theory. But why did it take so long? Perhaps, scientists were initially so locked onto the Clovis First Theory that egos got in the way and they poo-pooed anyone who disputed Clovis First. I have read that on some earlier archaeological sites digging stopped once Clovis was discovered because the investigators assumed there was nothing older than Clovis. 

In the past two decades, the Clovis First Theory has taken some hefty body shots and as far as I am concerned it is down for the eight count. The Clovis First Theory has been dead in my mind for some time. Archaeological discoveries older than Clovis are now aplenty, pushing human entrance into North America to 14,500, 15,000, 16,000 years ago, and beyond. It would not surprise me one bit if someday archaeological evidence discovers humans in North America as early as 25,000 years ago or maybe earlier. That just makes sense!

As far as the origin of Clovis technology, the mystery remains unsolved. In 2011, scientists excavated Clovis-like fluted projectile points at a site called Serpentine Hot Springs in northwestern Alaska (figure five). Could that be the smoking gun everyone was looking for?  Unfortunately, charcoal from that site dated to around 12,000 years, a thousand years younger than Clovis technology in the lower 48 states. If the people who made and used Clovis technology originated in Siberia and Beringia as the Clovis First Theory contended, and Serpentine Hot Springs was the smoking gun, wouldn't Serpentine Hot Springs fluted projectile points be older than Clovis fluted projectile points in the lower 48 states?  Serpentine Hot Springs indicates that perhaps Clovis technology migrated northward from the lower 48 states to Alaska, and not vice versa. 

The mystery remains as to the origins of Clovis technology.    

 

Figure Five -  Fluted points found buried in 
northwest Alaska. Charcoal dated the site
younger than Clovis in the lower 48 states. 

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 his readers back into Prehistoric 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.  

Limaces, the Garden Slugs of the Artifact World

Figure One - 3.5-inch long surface recovered limace Yuma County, Colorado.
John Branney Collection. 

To get you in the mood for the world of Paleoindians, I am taking you on a brief trip back to 10,600 B.C. from the fourth book in my prehistoric adventure series titled CROW and the CAVE. In that particular scene, a young Folsom hunter called Cansha was attempting to keep a short-faced bear trapped in its winter den for a specific reason revealed in the book.  If the short-faced bear escaped, Cansha and his compadres would be in a world of hurt and would probably be on the menu for the beast's dinner! 

See you on the other side of the blue. Boy, I sure hope Cansha survives!      

“WHACK!”

A massive paw exploded out of the blackness of the cave. The paw’s curved claw ripped the tip of Cansha’s nose wide open. His eyes saw red as painful agony knocked him backwards. He fell to the ground onto a pile of broken bones and frozen beast feces. Cansha grabbed his severed nose with both hands and tried to stop the bleeding. The sensation from the pain was horrendous. Tears flooded his eyes. His hands filled with blood as he laid there in the muck. His nose stung with the fury of a rattlesnake bite.  Blood escaped through his fingers. The maneater shoved its front leg through the gap, its claws outstretched, searching for flesh. The boulder wobbled back and forth as the huge beast pressed its weight against it. Cansha writhed as he fought to escape the pain. He saw nothing through the blood and the tears. He stood up and staggered on unsteady legs. Cansha feared the beast would escape. A roar erupted from the cave. The boulder rocked further. The maneater’s leg squeezed out through the widening gap...

What?!?! What happened to Cansha?!?! Well, you don't expect me to give away the plot, do you? I am leaving you hanging with Cansha's life in the balance. You will have to read CROW and the CAVE to find out if the young lad survives, and if he did, how he did it.  

Now, it is time to get to the main topic of the article. I think you are going to like it...    

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Now that you experienced a very brief taste of what it was like in Paleoindian times, I now want to bring you up to speed on garden slugs. "Garden slugs?" you might ask, "I do not want to read an article on gardening!" Whoa! Don't leave yet! In France, the common 

Figure Two - an ordinary garden slug, 

or in France, a limace.  

garden slug is known as a limace. Most of us have experienced the bad fortune of spotting a limace or two on our lawns or gardens or crawling across the sidewalk (figure two). I have to admit that they are pretty nasty-looking creatures.   

So, what does that squirmy, ugly thing have in common with Paleoindians or archaeology? French archaeologists took the French word for a common garden slug, limace, and applied it to unifacial, humpbacked prehistoric stone tools that resembled the garden nuisance. Voila! Just like a sticky garden slug, the name limace stuck. 

Don't worry if you don't recognize the artifact type called limace. Most people don't. I didn't know about them until someone mentioned them to me and I then did some research. In my research on limaces, I noticed that people called them by other names like hump-backed scrapers, humpies, flakeshavers, awls, perforators, unifacial drills, slug-like scrapers, narrow side scrapers, unifacial flaked drills, groovers, slugs, bars, boats, Hendrix scrapers, bipointed bars, and I am probably missing a few. Whew! Since French archaeologists were the first ones to name that artifact type, I will call them limaces for this article. But if you see these other names in the literature, they are probably referring to limaces. 

Figure Three - Cross-sectional view of the limace from figure one. Note the plano-convex
or unifacial profile and retouch along the edges. John Bradford Branney Collection.

A limace is a type of blade that was flaked by a prehistoric knapper along both edges, forming what appears to be a slug-looking artifact (figures one and three). I am using Francois Bordes (1961) definition of a blade which he defined as a detached piece or flake of stone that is twice as long as it is wide. Limaces are plano-convex or unifacial in cross-section. A plano-convex artifact has a flat, mostly unworked underbelly (ventral side) and a humped back (dorsal side). Unifacial means a piece of knapped stone with flake scars on one face only. Limaces range in form from oblong to teardrop-shaped. 

Most investigators believe that prehistoric people utilized limaces as stone chisels for shaving and gouging hard materials such as bone, wood, ivory, and antler. A typical limace might have started out bi-pointed as in figure one but after hard use as a chisel, its working end most likely ended up beat up and blunted. Some limaces ended up with steeply angled faces due to unifacial resharpening much the same way as the "bit" or working end of a plano-convex end scraper. 

Based on their analyses, Grimes and Grimes (1986:40) stated that there was a high probability that prehistoric toolmakers hafted most limaces into the rigid socketed handles of bone or wood. That makes sense from a leverage perspective. The investigators cited evidence for hafting as edge rounding; deliberate abrasions, or grinding of basal edges; consistent lengths, widths, and thicknesses in their investigated sample; ‘trim to fit’ dimensions on the proximal ends; and lateral inflection points on some specimens. The investigators also believe that there were instances when they thought limaces were handheld.  

Figure Four - Two limaces that I  surface found
in northern Colorado on the same site. Dorsal and
ventral views. The longest limace is 3.3 inches long.  
John Bradford Branney Collection.   

Michael Sampson (2004) studied limaces found in the Tulare Lake Basin between Bakersfield and Fresno, California. In his paper, he proposed that true limaces, or “humpies” as he called them, were diagnostic artifacts of Paleoindians at least in the Tulare Lake Basin. He noted that investigators found humpie-like artifacts in both Siberia and Japan dating back to pre-Clovis times. Sampson also noted at least five other well-documented Paleoindian sites where investigators found limaces or humpies; the Shoop Site in eastern Pennsylvania, the Debert Site in Nova Scotia, the Bull Brook Site in Massachusetts, the Vail Site in Maine, and the Lehner Mammoth Kill Site in southern Arizona. Grimes and Grimes (1985) reported that investigators found small, elongated unifacially flaked tools resembling flakeshavers (what they called limaces) at several fluted point sites including Bull Brook, Debert, Plenge, Lindenmeier, Whipple, Shawnee-Minisink, and Krmpotich. Gramly (2000:37) reported that although limaces were a rare form, they were present in most large-sized Folsom, Clovis, and other fluted point Paleoindian assemblages. 

Figure Five - Four suspected unifacial limaces surface 
recovered in northern Colorado.  
John Bradford Branney Collection. 

 

Just like the shell-less garden slug, limaces don't get much respect. There does not seem to be much interest in limaces based on the lack of articles and research done on them. In my world, true limaces are a rare find and the destructive nature of their usage may be responsible for some of that rarity. It is difficult to find a limace in excellent condition like the ones in the figures. Those examples are still in good enough condition to be recognized as possible limaces. The difficulties lie with identifying limaces with damage and telling the difference between a limace and a scraper or blade tool. Not all limaces look the same or have the same dimensions or possess distinguishable or diagnostic characteristics like a Clovis or Folsom point. One person's limace can be another person's scraper or blade and vice versa.

There are assumptions we have to make about an artifact's past usage when we identify an artifact as a limace. When studying an artifact for the possibility of being a limace, I ask myself whether there is enough physical damage or wear on the proximal end of the artifact to determine its use as a chisel. I am sure that I have picked up many beat up, broken, or used up limaces that I did not recognize for what they were. I also have reasonable confidence that prehistoric people repurposed many broken and used-up limaces into other stone tools. Refurbishing worn-out, blunt-ended limace chisels into plano-convex end scrapers seem like it would be a worthwhile effort back in prehistoric times.   

SHADOWS on the TRAIL 
The first book in the series. 

References Cited. 

Bordes, Francois. 1961. Typologie du Paleolithique ancient et moyen. Delmas. Bordeaux. 

Gramly, R. M. 2000. Guide to the Palaeo-American Artifacts in North America. Persimmon Press. Buffalo. 

Grimes, J.R. and B.G. Grimes. 1986. Flakeshavers: Morphometric, Functional, and Life-Cycle Analyses of a Paleoindian Unifacial Tool Class in Archaeology of Eastern North America, Vol. 13 (Fall 1985).         

Sampson, Michael. 2004. Humpies, an Unusual Flaked-Stone Tool Type from the Tulare Lake Basin. Tulare Lake Archaeological Research Group. San Diego.  

About the Author.

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 his readers back into Prehistoric 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.

          

     

Part III -- An Atlatl Spur and the SHADOWS on the TRAIL

Figure One - 2.2-inch-long granite atlatl spur surface found on private land
in Kings County, California, by Connie Hudson before 1970.
John Bradford Branney Collection.  

The purpose of the atlatl weapon system is to extend the arm of the thrower, much like a lever. When thrown properly, the atlatl handle increases the velocity of the spear. 

The finger bone's connected to the hand bone,
The hand bone's connected to the arm bone,
The arm bone's connected to the shoulder bone,
Now shake dem skeleton bones!

Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk around
Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk around
Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk around
Now shake dem skeleton bones!

When I think about the process of flinging a spear with an atlatl weapon system, the above tune comes to mind. Many of us remember this song from our childhoods. The various muscles and bones in the human body work together in unison and harmony to make us move. To make a successful atlatl throw, various components in the atlatl weapon system and the human body must work together in unison and harmony. One difference between the atlatl weapon system and the human body is that, in the throwing process, one of the components detaches from the rest of the components: the atlatl spear or dart. We'd better hope that we don't have any detaching components from the human body!

Figure Two - Atlatl mechanics. 

Most experts believe that prehistoric humans had access to the atlatl weapons system in North America as far back as the Clovis Paleoindians. Archaeological evidence for this is circumstantial. However, we do have clear evidence that the atlatl was in play in North America as early as the Middle Archaic. One of the reasons that atlatls might not be found in older Paleoindian sites is that atlatls or throwing handles were mostly made of perishable material. 

Based on archaeological evidence, bow and arrow technology replaced most atlatl technology in North America sometime around A.D. 200 to A.D. 500. There were some atlatl holdouts. When Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés landed in Mexico around A.D. 1519, he found the atlatl weapon system in use within the Aztec population. Cortés also discovered that Spanish chain mail armor wasn't always effective against the penetration of an atlatl-thrown spear. 

Figure Three - Close-up of the tail end of a spear, which connects to a spur
on the atlatl or throwing handle. 

An atlatl or throwing handle is a piece of wood, bone, or antler, two feet or so long. One end of the atlatl was for the thrower's hand, while the other end connected to the spear via a peg, hook, or spur (figure three). A cup or indentation at the tail end of the spear fits onto the spur of the atlatl handle. 

Figure Four - Rounded and
polished tip of the hummingbird atlatl spur. 

I will refer to the peg, hook, or spur at the tail end of the atlatl or throwing handle as simply the spur. The spur's purpose is to connect the tail end of the spear to the atlatl. The spur and the tail end of the spear work on the same principle as a ball and socket. A ball and socket is a mechanical device where the ball (in that case, the spur) rotates in a socket (in that case, the indented end of the spear) and allows rotating motion within the limits of the design. In other words, the cupped or indented end of the spear rotates on the spur until the spear is on its way, and disengages from the spur and the throwing handle. The spear remains engaged at the spur during the throw because the atlatl is traveling at a faster velocity than the spear. When the spear's velocity exceeds the velocity of the atlatl, the spear disengages from the spur on its way to the target.  

Written another way, when the thrower starts the spear toss, his or her arm pulls the atlatl forward and upward, and the cupped end of the spear rotates on the tip of the spur until the spear disengages from the atlatl and heads towards the target. 

Users of prehistoric atlatl weapon systems made spurs out of bone, rock, antler, and wood. There is one case in prehistoric Colorado where investigators proposed that a bison tooth was used as an atlatl spur. I already mentioned that we suspect that prehistoric humans made their atlatls out of perishable materials, so spurs might be the only things that survived time in the atlatl weapon system. 

Investigators and collectors have found evidence for the use of the atlatl in prehistoric California in almost every region of the state in the form of atlatl spurs. In fact, California has enough prehistoric atlatl spur examples to classify them into categories. (Ralston and Fitzgerald 2014).

Figures one and four show an example of a prehistoric atlatl spur surface found in Kings County, California, by Connie Hudson before 1970. Most of the people I have spoken to about this prehistoric artifact believe this atlatl spur represented a bird's head, specifically a hummingbird's head. 

A bird's head would be an ideal symbol for an atlatl. If we think about a spear launched from an atlatl, flying effortlessly through the sky, what better symbol for a flight than a bird or hummingbird? 

Figure Five - A mock-up of how I believe the birdhead's spur  
was used within the atlatl weapon system.   

Figure five is a drawing showing how I believe the prehistoric human had the hummingbird spur set up. The maker of this atlatl weapon system gouged out a hole in the back end of the wooden handle and attached the spur there. The butt end of the spear or dart was then placed on the rounded knob of the spear. When the prehistoric human flung the wooden handle forward, the spear led the way until it flew on its own.         

Check out my books and links on atlatls at the end of this article!  

ATLATL PART ONE and SHADOWS ON THE TRAIL

ATLATL PART TWO and SHADOWS ON THE TRAIL     

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