Who Dun It? - Part V - The Rocking Chair Knife

 

Figure One - 2.7-inches-long "Rocking Chair" knife form, surface found in
Carbon County, Wyoming, and made from root-beer-colored chalcedony. 

Many of the articles I have written focus on prehistoric projectile point typology along the High Plains of North America. I have previously written about the differences between Folsom and Clovis points, how to distinguish between Goshen and Midland points, the evolution of projectile points from Clovis to Scottsbluff, Middle Archaic projectile point types, and dozens of other articles. I also wrote a series called Who Dun It where I evaluate enigmatic and unusual prehistoric artifacts from my collection. Those "odd-looking ducks" do not fall within any known category or type of stone tools or projectile points. What I try to do is unravel some of the unknowns around those artifacts. 

Click GHOSTS of the HEART 

This specific article is my fifth installment of the Who Dun It series and the beautiful knife form I will be evaluating is photographed in Figure One. This side-notched knife form is 2.7 inches long and was surface recovered on private land in Carbon County, Wyoming. I call it the Rocking Chair knife form. I refer to this artifact as a knife form even though I cannot be sure what function it served in prehistoric America. I am guessing it was not used as a spear point and it was much too large for a projectile point. The only thing sure about the functionality of that artifact is that I am not sure.   

The artifact material is a nice piece of root-beer-colored chalcedony. I am guessing the source of the material was southwestern Wyoming where finding root-beer-colored chalcedony artifacts is not unusual.  

When I first saw the Rocking Chair knife form, I thought it was an odd-looking duck. 

And you know what? I was right; that artifact is an odd-looking duck in more ways than one. Of the thousands of artifacts I have found or seen, I cannot ever recall seeing one made quite like this one. I call it the "Rocking Chair" knife form because of its rounded base which reminds me of a rocker rail on a rocking chair. I am sure there are other Rocking Chair knife forms out there, I just have not seen one. As far as categorizing it into knife form or projectile point typology for the High Plains, the Rocking Chair knife form is a legitimate headscratcher. 

Figure Two - Side A of 2.7-inch-long "Rocking Chair" knife form.
The alleged flute is circled in red and labeled "F".  Striking
platform for removing the alleged fluting flake
is marked "P".       

Is it Fluted or is it Basally Thinned? 

Let me step right into the more controversial and debatable issue about this knife form and that is whether or not it is fluted. Yes, I just wrote fluting in regards to this side-notched knife form. You might respond to my comment with something like, "On the High Plains, we only know fluting on Clovis and Folsom points," and I could not agree with you more. But, let's take our blinders off for a moment and objectively look at both sides of the knife form in figures two and three. Go ahead. I will wait until you have enough time to study the photographs before giving you my opinion.  

Figure Two is Side A of the knife form and I have circled in red the extent of the flute and labeled it with an "F". Tell me that does not look like a flute. Based on a single striking point or platform labeled "P", it appears that the prehistoric flintknapper removed that one large flake with one striking blow in the center of the artifact's base. You can tell by the artifact's translucency where the thinnest part of the body is and it is at that striking platform. 

Some of you might argue, and rightly so, that it is not a flute, it is a thinning flake. In my experience, thinning flakes were usually removed with multiple strikes and seldom extended into the body of the artifact as much as this one. I have seen Clovis points with smaller flutes than the point in Figure Two. 

Figure Three - Side B of 2.7-inch-long "Rocking Chair" knife form.
The "alleged flute" is circled in red and labeled "F".  Striking
platform for removing the alleged fluting flake
is marked "P".      

You might have convinced me that the "alleged flute" in Figure Two happened as an accident or knapping error if the same thing did not happen on Side B (Figure Three). The Side B "alleged flute" is definitely not as grandiose as the Side A "alleged flute", but it is still quite visible. Whether both were created as a flute or a thinning flake we will never know for sure, but I am calling them flutes. 

The first thing I thought of when I saw the "alleged flutes" on this knife form was that maybe a later prehistoric culture picked up an earlier culture's fluted projectile point or knife form and reworked it into its current form as the Rocking Chair. Logically, I just could not make sense of that theory. For one thing, evidence of a striking platform is quite evident on the base of the Rocking Chair. That indicates to me that the flintknapper who made the Rocking Chair was the same person who struck off the flutes or thinning flakes. I have seen older projectile points salvaged and reworked by younger prehistoric cultures. We will never know for sure how much salvaging and reworking of older artifacts actually occurred. I imagine most of the distinguishing characteristics of the older projectile point were wiped out with the new flintknapping. I once found a Middle Archaic dart point with what appeared to be Folsom flutes running down the middle of the point on both sides. That particular Middle Archaic flintknapper refurbished a broken Folsom point into the type of projectile point that his culture used. 

Figure Four - The possible process that led to the 
Rocking Chair knife form. Blue marks the
notching on the original biface.  

So, how did the Rocking Chair knife form come about? 

After thoroughly studying the Rocking Chair knife form, I propose that it started out as a large biface, much like the caramel-colored one on the left in Figure Four. The proximal end or base of that biface was rounded and the Rocking Chair flintknapper only needed to add two side notches (blue outlines) to attach the biface/knife form to a handle. When the knife blade dulled, the owner resharpened it several times until the blade edges were skinnier than the knife form's hafted base and notching areas, much like the Rocking Chair looks.    

Figure Five shows where I laid the Rocking Chair knife form on top of the caramel-colored biface. My purpose in doing this "before and after view" was to theorize what the Rocking Chair knife form looked like when it was originally made (caramel-colored biface). Then, as resharpening occurred on the knife form, the blade edges of the original biface were reduced in width, and we ended up with the Rocking Chair.   

    

Figure Five - The caramel-colored biface underneath
is how I envision the Rocking Chair started out. 

As far as the age and prehistoric culture of the Rocking Chair knife form, that is a tough one to say. As far as I know, the characteristics of the Rocking Chair knife form do not fit within any known projectile point type or archaeological complex on the High Plains. I am fairly confident that the Rocking Chair knife form was not made by Paleoindians even though it possesses those "alleged flutes", and I am reasonably confident it was not made by Early Archaic people, although side notching did show up on the High Plains during the Early Archaic in the form of the Lookingbill projectile point type. The Rocking Chair knife form does not resemble the typical Middle Archaic artifact, either. 

If I were a betting man, I would place my money on the Rocking Chair knife form coming from either the Late Archaic or the Late Prehistoric cultures, sometime between 3,000 years ago and before the Europeans showed up on the High Plains. I could easily lose that bet but then again, we will never know for sure.  

 What is your opinion?

    

About the Author 

The historical fiction novels written by John Bradford Branney are well-known for their impeccable research and biting realism. In his latest blockbuster saga titled Beyond the Campfire, Branney catapults readers back into Prehistoric America where they reunite with a few familiar characters 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. Branney lives in the northern Colorado mountains with his family. Beyond the Campfire is his eleventh published book.