Who Dun It? Paleoindian Projectile Point Typology - Part I

Figure One - Three thousand years plus of High Plains projectile point evolution. From left to right:

Clovis, Goshen, Folsom, Agate Basin, Hell Gap, and Scottsbluff (3.95 inches long). 

Evolution went from fluted and indented bases to stemmed bases. John Bradford Branney Collection.   

Welcome to Part One of my Who Dun It? articles. In this article, I will approach the topic of Paleoindian projectile point typology from a philosophical slant versus a technical slant.  I hope you enjoy the article.  

Amateur and professional archaeologists spend a lot of time studying and categorizing High Plains Paleoindian projectile points by technology and morphology. These projectile point types are then tied back to the presence of specific Paleoindian cultures or complexes, such as Clovis or Folsom or Agate Basin or Cody, etc. But was there an actual cultural change between, let's say Clovis and Folsom, or was the projectile point style the only major change? In that particular example, Clovis people were hunting mammoths as an important food supply which might have required a thicker, more robust projectile point like a Clovis whereby Folsom people were focused on smaller beasts like bison (not that a bison was small).  

The typical human seeks order and simplicity from disorder and complexity. We identify and classify items that are important to us. When I find a Paleoindian projectile point out on the prairie, the first question I ask myself is 'who dun it?'. I want to know how my newly found projectile point fits into the bigger picture of Paleoindian projectile point typology, so I can add another piece of the puzzle to the site I am surface hunting. The story of an orderly Paleoindian projectile point transition or evolution fits well with our organizational needs as humans, but was Paleoindian projectile point evolution as orderly as we want it to be?  

Figure Two - Wyoming surface found Hell Gap on the left and
a Colorado surface found Alberta on the right. By that time,
stemmed replaced indented base in Paleoindian point
typology. Easy to see how Hell Gap transitioned into Alberta. 
John Bradford Branney Collection.   

In some cases, Paleoindian life seemed quite simple; surviving was the main game in town. The details of what life was really like eleven or twelve thousand years ago are impossible to unravel from a spotty archaeological record. The prehistory of Paleoindians on the High Plains is like a thousand and one-piece jigsaw puzzle. On the cover of any modern-day jigsaw puzzle is a picture of what the completed puzzle should look like. Each piece of the puzzle only gives us a tiny inkling of the overall picture. A jigsaw puzzle is a lot like the Paleoindian archaeological record. In archaeology, we never get a complete picture of what happened at any given archaeological site. Archaeologists' knowledge is limited by the pieces of archaeological data they find. With any archaeological site, there are many knowledge gaps and a lot of conjecture. To compare archaeological data to pieces of a jigsaw puzzle seems to be a good analogy. An archaeologist might have three puzzle pieces from one corner of the site and four pieces from another corner, but they never have a complete picture. Surface artifact hunters like myself are even more limited since the artifacts we find are out of archaeological context. By using various scientific disciplines and the best "Sherlock Holmes" imitations, archaeologists and artifact hunters piece together clues from the incomplete story called Paleoindian prehistory.

My latest book. Search BEYOND the CAMPFIRE by 
John Bradford Branney on Amazon.   

While bone, fabric, and flesh deteriorate in the elements, stone projectile points hold their own, somewhat. We are guilty of using projectile point type as the be-all-to-end-all for identifying and differentiating between Paleoindian cultures or complexes. But what if Paleoindians used more than one projectile point type at the same time and at the same place? That throws a wrench in the orderly sequence of projectile points we all know and love.            

Ruthanne Knudson (2017) wrote it best with her explanation of Paleoindian projectile point typology;  

"Perhaps, the typological labeling of points has resulted in

artificial confusion of “different” complexes when indeed

people living together made differently designed

points at the same time.”        

Bravo! That is worth reading several times. It is amazing how a single sentence can explain and reinforce my belief on the subject of Paleoindian projectile points. Based on current evidence, who can say that there weren’t a few innovative Paleoindians who made Clovis and Goshen-like projectile points at the same time, or that Paleoindians were not experimenting with Folsom fluting at the same time they were making Goshen points. In fact, I have a few Paleoindian points that could be called Midland or Goshen because of the shared attributes. Projectile points are an excellent 'broad brush' technique for identifying Paleoindian cultures or complexes, but we must be wary not to let the 'tail wag the dog'. Based on our current understanding, we know that from the Clovis Complex to the Cody Complex, large mammal procurement was the main survival economy of Paleoindians, only the style of projectile points and some of the prey changed over time. As more pieces of the Paleoindian puzzle are found, we will fill in more of the cover on the Paleoindian puzzle box.  

 

Figure Three - Paleoindians probably spent most of their time trying to survive.

They would probably wonder why 'we' spend so much time and effort 

studying their stone projectile points.  

Knudson, Ruthann

2017    “The Plainview Assemblage in Context” in Plainview: The Enigmatic Paleoindian Artifact Style of the Great Plains. The University of Utah Press. Salt Lake City. 

  

CHECK OUT my WESTERN THRILLER SAND and SAGE