Platter Chatter Along the Shadows on the Trail

 

Platter Chatter

By John Bradford Branney

Figure 1 – a trio of Clovis platters cached in southeastern Wyoming and discovered by a highway department employee in the late 1950s or early 1960s. For scale, the middle artifact is 7.9 inches long. John Bradford Branney photograph and collection.

Figure 1 is a photograph of a cache of three Clovis platters surface found in the late 1950s or early 1960s by a gentleman who worked for the Wyoming Highway Department. The exact location of the find is unknown, but according to his niece, he found the cache while working on a highway in southeastern Wyoming. Based on that information, I assume he was in either Goshen or Laramie County. When the finder passed away, much of the information about the Clovis platter cache died with him.

The finder’s niece ended up with the collection. She knew little about artifacts and placed the cache into storage, where it lay for approximately twenty-five years. Approximately seventeen years ago, Frank Parrish, a collector and hunter of Paleoindian artifacts, met the niece at a rock and gem show in Tucson, Arizona. Long story short, Mr. Parrish made an offer for the cache, and she accepted. Mr. Parrish saved this cache from a lifetime stuck in a storage locker and/or eternal obscurity. Mr. Parrish sold the cache to me in 2021.

In the literature, authors refer to this type of artifact as platters (Patten 1999; 2005), or ovate bifaces (Waters and Jennings 2015), or discoidal cores (Bradley, Collins, and Hemmings 2010). I will refer to them as Clovis platters because that best physically describes them. These platters have features that are distinctive to Clovis biface thinning, such as wide flakes and spacing, overshot and over-the-face flake scars, alternate flake sequencing, end thinning, and, on at least one of the platters, Clovis biface striking platforms as shown in Figure 2 (Bradley, Collins, and Hemming 2010: p 67).

Figure 2 – Clovis biface platform characteristics from page 67 in 

Clovis Technology by Bradley, Collins, and Hemming.

In Clovis Technology, Bradley pointed out that overshot flaking was not a common feature and that in most cases it resulted from knapping errors. The same authors noted that overshot flaking was one marker for defining Clovis biface technology. The authors proclaimed that investigators have yet to find discoidal cores (platters) in Clovis camp or kill site settings, prehistoric quarries, or near the sources of the same raw material.

What did the Clovis people use platters for? I like to think of them as portable rock supplies. They either cached them as a backup plan or used them on their wandering to make tools and projectile points. Tankersley (2002: p. 115) described how eight of the nine pieces in the Crook County Clovis Cache were a rock type called Tiger Chert, and the source for Tiger Chert was more than three hundred miles southwest of where Harold Erickson discovered the Clovis cache in Crook County, Wyoming. A Clovis individual, or perhaps a beast of burden such as a dog, hauled these Clovis platters and stone tools from southwestern Wyoming for three hundred miles before caching them within a thin lens of red ochre in the Fox Hills Formation in northeastern Wyoming. Obviously, the Clovis individual never returned to retrieve the cache.

The maker of the Clovis platters in Figure 1 used what appears to be orthoquartzite material from the Spanish Diggings prehistoric rock quarry in southwestern Niobrara County, Wyoming. For thousands of years, prehistoric people mined orthoquartzite and chert from the Mesozoic Cloverly Formation at Spanish Diggings. The orthoquartzite from the quarry ranges in color from bright yellow to gold, tan, brown, gray, pink, lavender, and purplish hues. 

Figure 3 – Looking in a westerly direction at the prehistoric rock quarry called 

Spanish Diggings in Niobrara County, Wyoming. On the horizon is Laramie Peak.

Photograph by Neil A. Waring.

Based on what we know about the provenance of the cache, the highway worker who found them was working on some road in southeastern Wyoming. If that were the case, the finder could have been anywhere from ten to one hundred or so miles from Spanish Diggings when he discovered the cache.

Figure 4 – Side A of Clovis platter A 321 made from Spanish Diggings orthoquartzite. This platter
is 6.9 inches long (176 mm). John Bradford Branney photograph and collection.

Clovis platter A 321 (Figure 4) is an oval-shaped biface that is 176 millimeters long, 102 millimeters wide, and approximately 19 millimeters thick near the center of the biface. It has a width-to-thickness ratio of 5.4. The rock type is a moderate orange-pink orthoquartzite with hues of gray throughout the matrix and scattered manganese dendrites. Clovis knappers’ special skill was percussion flaking, and this platter reflects that expertise. The flaking scars are classic Clovis technology: thin, straight, wide, and long. The marginal edges have a minor amount of secondary sharpening. There is no visual evidence of red ochre on the surface or within the cracks or hinges of the platter.

Figure 5 - Hillside made of red ochre.   

Oftentimes, Clovis people covered or buried their caches in a mineral called red ochre. Ochre is an earthy pigment consisting of ferric oxide and clay minerals. It varies from shades of light yellow to brown to red. There is archaeological evidence that prehistoric people in both the Old and New Worlds used red ochre as a pigment for painting, a preservative, an abrasive, and a packing material. Neanderthals in Europe used ochre as early as 250,000 years ago, and investigators have found ochre in Upper Paleolithic graves in Europe and in one Clovis grave in North America.

Investigators have found red ochre in a variety of contexts within North America, such as occupation floors, burials, stone tool caches, and at least one prehistoric mine. Investigators have found red ochre on a Paleoindian grinding slab and on stone artifacts, foreshafts, main shafts, atlatl fragments, and cave walls. Although it appears red ochre had ritualistic uses, it also served several practical applications.

Figure 6 – Clovis platter A 321 A made from a moderate brown Spanish Diggings 

orthoquartzite. This platter is 7.9 inches long (201 mm). 

John Bradford Branney photograph and collection.

Clovis platter A 321 A (Figure 6) is a leaf-shaped biface that is 201 millimeters long, 119 millimeters wide, and approximately 30 millimeters thick near the center of the biface. It has a width-to-thickness ratio of 4. The rock type is a moderate brown orthoquartzite with scattered blotches of pale yellowish-brown. The flaking scars are typical of Clovis; wide, long, and traveling a good distance across both faces of the biface. The marginal edges show little secondary sharpening. There is evidence of battering and crushing along the edges.

Master flintknapper Bob Patten (1999:93-94) wrote that although platters were many times larger and heavier than ultrathin knife forms, the production process was similar. As a master flintknapper, Patten opined that Clovis platter technology was as sophisticated as any knapping technology used by later cultures. Patten proposed that the Clovis people might have carried these platters in a leather sling or pouch, and when the timing was right, they would cache them or convert them into projectile point preforms or tools. Tankersley (2002: 116) found a diagonal pattern of red ochre on two of the Crook County bifaces, suggesting that the owner of the bifaces might have wrapped them in sinew or leather.

To replicate Clovis platters via flintknapping, Patten described how he beveled, battered, and abraded the edges to make it easier to remove large flakes via percussion. Then, he spaced each blow with his hammer wide enough so that the flake scars overlapped ever so slightly.

Figure 7 – Side A of Clovis platter A 321 B. This platter is 8 inches long (203 mm). 

On one edge, the knapper intentionally notched the platter 

and on the other edge, the knapper had prepared to notch it with 

Clovis biface platforms (see figures 2 and 8). 

John Bradford Branney photograph and collection.

Clovis platter A 321 B (Figures 7 and 8). This is the most interesting platter of the trio. The platter shape lies somewhere between oval and leaf-shaped. It is 203 millimeters long, 130 millimeters wide, and approximately 26 millimeters thick for a width-to-thickness ratio of 5. The knapper used a grayish orange pink orthoquartzite to make the artifact.

The knapper intentionally notched one side of Platter A 321 B in the middle of the edge. He or she was preparing to notch the other edge when the knapper cached it with the other two platters. The opposite edge (Figure 8) shows at least two Clovis biface platforms, which the knapper would have used to strike and detach flakes with the intention of notching into the body of the biface. Notches weaken the biface body enough to split the platter into sections, which the knapper would use for Clovis projectile points or other stone tools.

Figure 8 – "A" marks the beaten and the battered edge of side B of A 321 B. 

"P" marks typical Clovis biface platforms. The Clovis knapper was starting to notch this edge. 

Compare the characteristics of the platform with Figure 2 above. 

John Bradford Branney photograph and collection. 

So, why did the Clovis people cache these platters and other tools? Archaeologists and collectors have discovered Clovis-type artifacts in forty-eight states, Mexico, and Canada. The Clovis people traveled long distances in a relatively short time period. Based on thirty-two radiocarbon ages, Waters, Stafford, and Carlson (2020) proposed that Clovis technology lasted from around 13,050 to 12,750 calendar years ago. Clovis people were explorers, and when they reached areas where they were unsure of the raw material supply, they left a cache of stone tools and rock material to retrieve later. 

Time for me to get a little “preachy.” One big lesson I learned from this cache is to fully document the details and location of every artifact I find or acquire as accurately and completely as possible to ensure relevant information about the artifacts is available after I am no longer above ground. We should all do this. Artifacts are history, just not pretty rocks or works of art.

It is unfortunate that when the finder of this important discovery passed on, the provenance details went with him. I have a dozen or so questions about this cache, but those answers will never be known. We will never know where he found the cache, or under what circumstances. Was the cache found on the surface or buried? Did the road-building equipment unearth it? Did the finder investigate whether there were other pieces in the cache? My list of questions is practically endless. Unfortunately, I can ask all the questions I want until I am blue in the face, but I will never know the answers.

References Cited

Bradley, Bruce A., Michael B. Collins, and Andrew Hemmings
2010     Clovis Technology. International Monographs in Prehistory. Archaeological Series                 17. Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Patten, Bob
1999     Old Tools – New Eyes. Stone Dagger Publications. Denver.

2005     People of the Flute. Stone Dagger Publications. Denver.

Tankersley, Kenneth
2002     In Search of Ice Age Americans. Gibbs Smith, Publisher. Layton, Utah.

Waters, Michael R. and Thomas A. Jennings
2015     The Hogeye Clovis Cache. Texas A & M University. College Station.

Waters, Michael R., Thomas W. Stafford Jr., and David L. Carlson
2020     The Age of Clovis – 13,050 to 12,750 cal yr B.P. in Science Advances, Vol. 6, No.                 43.

About the Author

John Bradford Branney is a Wyoming native, an author, a geologist, a prehistorian, and an associate editor of Prehistoric AMERICAN. He has written thirteen books and over one hundred articles on Prehistoric America and life in general. Branney is currently writing the second edition of WINDS of EDEN, the third book in the prehistoric adventure series SHADOWS on the TRAIL Hexalogy. He lives in the northern Colorado mountains with his family.

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Jimmy Allen or Frederick Point? Too Close for Comfort

 

Jimmy Allen or Frederick? Too Close for Comfort

by John Bradford Branney

Figure 1 -  High Plains Jimmy Allen and/or Frederick projectile points. Which is which?

The longest point is 3.25 inches long. John Bradford Branney Collection.   

After the projectile points of the Cody Complex came and went in the archaeological record, an abrupt change took place in projectile point technology on the High Plains. The stemmed projectile points with transverse pressure flaking of the Cody Complex disappeared from the archaeological record and a series of lanceolate-shaped projectile points with parallel-oblique flaking appeared. Instead of stemmed Alberta, Scottsbluff, and Eden points from the Cody Complex, the new projectile point style was indented with concave bases and parallel oblique flaking on many. Why the change from stems to indented bases? It might have been that indented bases worked better with the hafting method at the time, or it might be as simple as human preferences shifted. The indented base probably fit as "snug as a bug in a rug" in the hafting elements of the spear or dart weaponry. Paleoindians used what worked. After all, this was not the first time that indented base technology showed up in archaeological records with Clovis, Goshen, Folsom, and Midland as examples. 

Within this Late Paleoindian timeframe, archaeologists have identified and named a plethora of different indented base projectile point types on the High Plains such as Jimmy Allen, Frederick, Andersen, Angostura, Lusk, and others. 

Figure 4 - 1.7 inch long surface found Jimmy Allen point from eastern Colorado. I already hear some of you screaming 

Dalton! Dalton! Dalton! 

John Bradford Branney Collection. 

The variations in Late Paleoindian indented projectile point types added even more confusion to projectile point typology. If anyone tries to convince you that they have Late Paleoindian projectile point typology down pat, they are either a point-type genius (which is a blessed few) or they are pulling your leg. We find similarities in the different projectile point types such as Jimmy Allen, Frederick, Andersen, Angostura, and Lusk, and we find differences (some so subtle they hardly deserve mention). Were the differences seen by different points driven by other factors such as workmanship, quality, style, knapping skill, and/or raw material?    

Figure Four - A surface found knife form from Wyoming.
It is 2.6 inches long with indented base, polished lower
edges and base, and parallel oblique flaking.
Jeb Taylor identified this as a Frederick point.
John Bradford Branney Collection. 

Archaeologist and flintknapping expert Bruce Bradley (Larson et al 2009:271) explained Late Paleoindian projectile point typology this way; After the Cody Complex, there was a technological horizon on the High Plains incorporating the same basic flintknapping technology, but with slightly different styles of projectile points and knife forms. He included the following projectile point types in his analysis; Jimmy Allen, Frederick, Lusk, Brown's Valley, and Angostura. He noted that each type used the same flintknapping process from bifacial percussion reduction through pressure thinning through a final product of projectile points and knife forms. He also noted that oftentimes these different projectile point types exhibited similarity with their parallel oblique flaking.  

The two projectile points in figures three and four are both Late Paleoindian from the High Plains. Other collectors who have seen them have called them Jimmy Allen or Frederick, or even a mid-continent projectile point type called Dalton. What do I call them? Wait and see.         

Figure 5 - University of 
Wyoming anthropologist
William Mulloy. 

In the late 1940s, an adept amateur archaeologist by the name of Jimmy Allen discovered a Paleoindian bison kill site in the Laramie Basin of Wyoming. In 1959, University of Wyoming anthropologist William Mulloy (Figure 5) and associates excavated what he later named the James Allen site. Investigators recovered thirty fragmentary projectile points, all of which had similar characteristics. The projectile points were unnotched and lanceolate-shaped with indented (concave) bases and rounded corners. Dr. Mulloy named the new projectile point Jimmy Allen after the discoverer of the site.   

In Jeb Taylor's Projectile Points of the High Plains (2006), the author described Jimmy Allen points as lanceolate-shaped with carefully executed diagonal flaking and a pronounced basal concavity. In Greg Perino's Selected Preforms, Points, and Knives of the North American Indians (1985), he described Jimmy Allen points by their side and basal edge grinding, diagonal flaking, basal thinning, and rounded basal corners. Both authors appear to be singing from the same sheet of music when it comes to the description of Jimmy Allen points.    

One important point that I want to make before proceeding is that NOT all Jimmy Allen points have diagonal or parallel oblique flaking and NOT all diagonal or parallel oblique flaked projectile points are Jimmy Allen points! 

Figure 6 - Cynthia Irwin-
Williams. 

Cynthia Irwin–Williams (Figure 6) and her brother Henry Irwin discovered what they thought was a new projectile point type at the Harvard University excavations of the Hell Gap site in east-central Wyoming in the 1960s. They named the new point type, Frederick, after the site's landowner. Investigators unearthed twenty-four examples of the so-called Frederick points. Both Cynthia Irwin-Williams (1973) and Henry Irwin recognized the similarities between their newly named Frederick points and Mulloy's Jimmy Allen points. According to Henry Irwin, he believed that Frederick points had a greater degree of basal concavity and a different width to length ratio than Jimmy Allen points (Byrnes 2009:218). Therefore, the label Frederick stuck for the points found at the Hell Gap site.      

In his book, Jeb Taylor described Frederick points with the same diagonal flaking as Jimmy Allen points but stated that Frederick points were thicker with straighter bases. Taylor's 'straighter base' comment appears to contradict Henry Irwin's comment in the previous paragraph. Irwin stated that Frederick points had a greater degree of basal concavity while Taylor wrote Frederick points had straighter bases than Jimmy Allen points. It cannot be both ways. 

Based on Jeb Taylor's study of the original projectile points from both the James Allen and Hell Gap sites, he believed that there were enough differences between Jimmy Allen and Frederick to warrant two separate projectile point types. Taylor also mentioned in his book that he had a personal conversation with George Frison who told him that before Cynthia Irwin-Williams died, she admitted to Frison that Frederick was most likely the same point type as Jimmy Allen. 

I have not studied 'in hand' the original points from the James Allen and Hell Gap sites, but I have handled enough parallel oblique flaked, indented base Late Paleoindian points to believe that Jimmy Allen and Frederick points are the same point type.  

It appears that Jimmy Allen at the James Allen site and Frederick at Hell Gap overlapped in time, providing a little more evidence for their possible relationship. Irwin-Williams et al (1973) determined that the duration of Frederick at Hell Gap lasted from approximately 8,400 to 8,000 years BP while recent dating techniques at the James Allen bison kill site placed the event sometime around 8,405 years BP (Knudson and Kornfeld 2007).  

To summarize, it is my opinion that Jimmy Allen and Frederick points are the same point type, and as my father used to put it, "That's close enough for government work!"  

REFERENCES CITED  

Byrnes, Allison

2009    Frederick Component at Locality I in  Hell Gap: A Stratified Paleoindian Campsite at the Edge of the Rockies by Mary Lou Larson, Marcel Kornfeld, and George C. Frison.  University of Utah. 

Irwin-Williams, Cynthia, Henry T. Irwin, George Agogino, and C Vance Haynes
1973    Hell Gap: Paleo-Indian occupation on the High Plains. Plains Anthropologist  18(59):40-53.     

Knudson, Ruth Ann, and Marcel Kornfeld  
2007    A New Date for the James Allen Site, Laramie Basin, Wyoming. Current Research in the Pleistocene 24:112-114.  

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

2009    Hell Gap: A Stratified Paleoindian Campsite at the Edge of the Rockies. University of Utah.        

Perino, Gregory
1985    Selected Preforms, Points, and Knives of the North American Indians, Volume I.  Points and Barbs Press, Idabel, Okla.  

Taylor, Jeb
2006   Projectile points of the High Plains. Sheridan Books, Chelsea, MI.     

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The Middle Archaic - The Mallory Projectile Point Type

 

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

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

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

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

referring to both Lanceolate and Shouldered varieties.   

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The historical fiction novels written by John Bradford Branney are known for their impeccable research and biting realism. In the Shadows on the Trail Pentalogy, Branney catapults his readers back into Prehistoric America where they struggle to survive against challenges such as predators, climate, and hostile humans. 

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

On the Trail in the Middle Plains Archaic

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

 

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

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

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

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

My latest book-- CLICK to Own BEYOND the CAMPFIRE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  

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

These were previously broken down into two-point types;

Duncan and Hanna.  John Bradford Branney Collection, 

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

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

  

What was the typical lifestyle in the Middle Plains Archaic? 

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

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

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

Call It Glendo or Pelican Lake, It Doesn't Matter a Hill of Beans

By John Bradford Branney

Figure 1 – One of the finest Glendo, a.k.a. Pelican Lake spear points ever found in Wyoming. It is 4.2 inches long and made from Big Horn Chert. The author did not find this point, but he is more than happy to curate it for the rest of his life. This point was surface recovered on a private ranch in the early 1950s in Johnson County, Wyoming along the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains. 

John Bradford Branney Collection.

I took an interest in prehistoric artifacts at a very young age sometime around five years old. I remember that moment of inspiration vividly because of the memory of our home in Casper, Wyoming where we lived in the early 1960s. Based on the timing, I was just about ready to start kindergarten at the local Catholic school. For the first time, my mother showed me my grandfather’s prehistoric artifact collection in the unfinished basement of that home. I remember a feeling of joy and wonder as my mother unwrapped each spear point, arrow point, and knife form from its cotton shroud. At the age of five, I already had a hankering for cowboys and Indians as most boys did, so the artifacts were right up my alley. 

Of course, I did not know what any of them were at the time, but it was still the most interesting thing I had run across in my five years on the planet. I had never met my grandfather, but my mother told me he found most of the artifacts around our homestead north of Moneta, Wyoming in the 1930s. She said that when she was a girl, her family would head out to the homestead on weekends and one of the things my grandfather did was hunt artifacts with my mom’s brothers. There was little else to do at a ranch without electricity or running water. Back in those days, that area of Wyoming was prime artifact hunting, as was most of Wyoming. 

It wasn’t too much longer after seeing the artifacts for the first time that I convinced my older sister (she was pushing eleven years old) to show me the artifacts again. Unbeknownst to our parents, we went to the basement and she maneuvered a chair under the shelf. The shoebox with the artifacts was on the very top shelf (to keep us, kids, out of them). I remember my sister standing on that chair, reaching for the shoebox. She held that heavy shoebox out in front of her, but she hadn’t thought through how she was going to get off the chair. The chair wobbled and she let go of the shoebox. The shoebox plummeted like the safe in a Roadrunner cartoon. Down it fell from about six feet off the ground and smashed into the concrete floor, breaking many of the priceless artifacts. My sister received most of my parents' wrath. I got off easy since I was a tiny tyke.   

Our family moved to eastern Wyoming when I was in the second grade. I found my first prehistoric

Figure 2 - 1.35-inch-long arrow or dart point found near 

third base in my youth. As far as a projectile 

point type, this one is a strange duck.

 arrow point when I was around nine years old. I was playing third base for my little league team and I happened to look down at the ground and there was an arrow point made from a caramel-colored jasper (figure 2). Nine years old and my parents had already drilled into me ‘what is right’ and ‘what is wrong’. An angel on one shoulder told me I had to ask my fellow players if they had lost an arrowhead while the devil on my other shoulder told me to “stuff the arrowhead into my pocket and don't say a word.” The angel won that battle. I held my breath and asked (slightly above a mumble) if anyone had lost an arrowhead and my teammates were honest and said no. Fantastic! To this day, I am still not sure what projectile point type that artifact is. After finding that first artifact in such a peculiar place, it became 'Katy bar the door' as far as hunting artifacts. Everywhere I went, my eyes were glued to the ground. Over the years, I have found some artifacts in some pretty strange places. Artifact hunting became a family hobby since there was not a lot to do in the outback of Wyoming.

Growing up, I owned three books on artifacts, all gifts from my mother. Back then, there were no Amazon or Barnes and Noble or internet or anywhere else to find out what kind of books existed on

Figure 3 - My childhood artifact library. 

the planet, especially living in the outback of Wyoming. In my neck of the woods, anyone who owned three books on any one subject was most likely a ‘local expert'. The first book my mother bought me was Virgil Russell’s book Indian Artifacts. My mom and dad grew up in Casper and Virgil taught school there. Virgil was well known around small-town Casper as “that guy who was crazy about arrowheads”. Over the years, I have read different parts of that book hundreds of times. The book has photos of some of the most beautiful artifacts and collections ever found or assembled. It also has good information for the beginning collector. If you have a chance to ever pick up a used copy of this book, it might be well worth it just for nostalgia sake.

Another book I had in my library was H. M. Wormington’s classic book titled Ancient Man in North America. That was more of a scholarly book and it covered much of North America. When I read it, I was mostly interested in my region, so I read about Lindenmeier, Finley, Horner, Agate Basin, and other high plains archaeological sites. Marie Wormington was one of the first archaeologists to push the effort to break the catchall projectile point type called Yuma into specific projectile point types such as Plainview, Allen, Agate Basin, Angostura, Cody Complex, etc. She also did an excellent job describing these different Paleoindian projectile point types. Several books have replaced her Ancient Man in North America since 1957, but even today Wormington’s book might be outdated but is still a relevant classic.

My third book was Stone Artifacts of the Northwestern Plains by amateur archaeologists Louis C. Steege and Warren W. Welsh. In my early years, I wore out three of these books. Luckily, they were only $3.95 each. The book taught me high plains projectile point typology and how to catalog my finds. This book is still a classic. This is where my story begins.

Figure 4 - “Glendo” point surface finds from my youth. All found in Niobrara and 

Goshen Counties, Wyoming. John Bradford Branney Collection.  

Growing up, I found quite a few barbed corner-notched points like the ones in figure 4. In their book, Steege and Welsh called these barbed corner-notched points Glendo points after examples found by archaeologist William Mulloy around Glendo, Wyoming in the mid-1950s when he and others were doing archaeological work prior to the construction of Glendo Reservoir. It wasn’t until 1983 when I read George Frison’s influential work titled Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains that I discovered archaeologists were not calling these barbed corner notched points Glendo. They were referring to them as Pelican Lake after examples originally identified by B. Wettlaufer in 1955 at the lower level of the Mortlach site in southern Saskatchewan, Canada. I am not sure whether Mulloy and Wettlaufer were communicating at the time since their discoveries probably represent the same projectile point type. Communication in the 1950s was a lot more primitive than it is today, need I say more.  

Back in 1961 when Steege and Welsh published their book, they described Glendo; “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.” That description describes Pelican Lake just as well. Even today, some of us ‘old timers’ might refer to a Pelican Lake point as a Glendo point, especially if the point was found along the Hartville Uplift of Wyoming. Old habits are hard to break. Call ‘em Glendo, call ‘em Pelican Lake, it really doesn’t matter a hill of beans! 

Figure 5 - Need a fun diversion from the troubles of the world? 

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Provenance and a Wyoming Ultrathin Knife Form

Figure One - Side A of four-inch-long ultrathin knife form surface found on private land in 

Fremont County, Wyoming in 1904. John Bradford Branney Collection. 

The provenance of a prehistoric artifact is just as important as the artifact itself, maybe more so. A prehistoric artifact without the detailed information about its discovery is just a pretty rock. A pretty rock might bring good money at a collectors’ auction, but without the who, what, when, where, and how; it means very little from a historical perspective. I believe that as a collector, I am responsible for documenting my prehistoric artifacts and fossils to the best of my ability. Every artifact in my collection is cataloged with as much detail as I have, such as material type, artifact type, county, state, my site description, section, township, range, finder, length, width, and in many cases, GPS coordinates.

Figure Two – Profile view of a four-inch-long ultrathin knife form surface found on private land in Fremont County, Wyoming in 1904. John Bradford Branney Collection.

I started cataloging my finds on index cards when I was a very young pup in Wyoming and I have done so for the thousands of artifacts I have found or acquired in the past sixty years. I learned at an early age that memory was never a good substitute for ink. When I became a middle-aged dog, I transferred all the information from the hundreds of index cards I had accumulated to a database file where I the entire collection is now documented. Wherever my complete collection ends up, the database and my journals go with it. The next curator of my collection will have every known detail for every artifact in my collection. Documentation is the only true scientific and historical value to any prehistoric artifact collection.

Figure Three - Side B of a four-inch-long ultrathin knife form surface found on private land 

in Fremont County, Wyoming in 1904. John Bradford Branney Collection.   

As an example, I acquired this four-inch-long paleo ultrathin knife form for my collection (figures one through three). I was interested in this artifact because its provenance was more than complete and the artifact was found in an area of interest. The ultrathin knife form came with a specific and precise handwritten provenance and it is up to me to ensure the artifact and its history remain intact beyond my mortal life. Many times I have seen beautiful artifacts without accurate and complete provenances.  

The finder of this ultrathin knife form surface found this artifact in 1904 in Fremont County, Wyoming. It impressed me that after a hundred or so years this artifact had its original provenance documented. The knife form's provenance is so clear and concise that today I could walk right up to the discovery location 121 years later. Someday, I just might do that.

The artifact is aesthetically beautiful, don’t you think? But its true value is within its provenance. It is up to me to pass along the information to the artifact's next curator.           

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