DOG DAY AFTERNOON

Dog Day Afternoon

by John Bradford Branney

Figure One - In the valley on March 8, 2017. 

In the summer of 1986, I was at the Denver Public Library researching potential hunting spots for artifacts. I happened to discover an old doctoral dissertation from a candidate who investigated approximately forty archaeological sites in northeastern Colorado. Since northeastern Colorado was pretty much a new playing field for me, I decided to check out the author's sites in the autumn of 1986. I had very little success finding anything at most of those sites. I learned that local collectors had known about those sites for decades. The doctoral candidate probably found those sites by speaking to local people or by following the work of an earlier archaeologist. E.B. Renaud (1931) conducted the first official archaeological reconnaissance of eastern Colorado in the late 1920s. Finding any artifacts on those hunted-out sites proved to be like finding a needle in a haystack.

I had mostly given up on the 674-page doctoral dissertation when I noticed a small site that the author briefly mentioned. The doctoral candidate dedicated less than a page to the site. I asked myself how important that site could be. Was it worth my time and effort to investigate? My answer was why not. I studied the topological map of the target area and triangulated the site's location based on the author's vague description.

Five days before Christmas in 1986, I arrived at the bowl-shaped valley. The ranch house was located two to three miles from the main county road and was located at the base of the valley. I remember that long, winding road leading to the ranch house as if it were yesterday. It was not much better than a two-track trail. Before I reached the ranch house, my low-clearance car crossed a dry creek bed filled with well-sorted, sugar-like sand. I gunned the car so that its frame glided across the sand like a sled in wintertime to the other side of the creek bed without becoming stuck. I made it! Why did the rancher leave the road that way?

Figure two is a photograph of a Late Prehistoric corner-notched arrowpoint that I found in the valley on August 11, 1987. Artifacts don’t get any better than that one. I was shocked that something so delicate had survived that long on an active cattle ranch. The material was a semi-translucent Hartville Uplift chalcedony.

Figure Two - Corner-notched arrowpoint made
from a semi-translucent petrified wood.    

When I reached the ranch house, two dogs ran out to greet my vehicle. One dog was a small cattle dog with a loud bark, while the other dog was a massive Saint Bernard with an intimidating look. In 1986, the book and movie Cujo had already made their rounds. The storyline left everyone who read the book or watched the movie horrified. The book and movie did not help the Saint Bernard breed's reputation. I was a bit apprehensive about getting out of the car as the massive beast slimed my car windows with muddy drool. The lady of the house called out to the dog, and he ceased and desisted. After a brief conversation with the rancher's wife, she granted me permission to hunt. I set my eyes on the bone-dry creek bottom that wound its way up the valley toward a natural spring and a long line of bluffs.

After trudging through the soft sand for a couple of hundred yards, I heard a loud noise behind me. It was the Saint Bernard loping toward me. Fortunately, the dog’s intention was good, and he licked my face. I wondered where the Saint Bernard's mouth had been that morning.  

On August 6, 1996, nearly ten years after my first visit, I found the Shoshonean knife form in figure three in the dry creek bed. The material the flintknapper used was a pale red-and-white Flattop Chalcedony, sourced from a prehistoric rock quarry in eastern Colorado. Archaeologists Kornfeld, Larson, and Frison (2010) suggested that Shoshonean knife forms, or Snake Head knives, as some people call them, were a reliable marker of late Shoshone Tribe occupations on the High Plains and were sometimes associated with a mixture of Crow and Shoshone pottery.

Figure Three - Shoshonean knife form made
from Flattop Chalcedony.  

Shoshonean knife forms started out as leaf-shaped bifaces, but both blade edges were resharpened bilaterally. Hence, the knife forms remained mostly symmetrical in outline, and the working end retained its lenticular-transverse cross-section. The knife forms were resharpened until they became thin and broke. Jeb Taylor (2006) noted that Shoshonean knife forms were more common on the northern plains, while Harahay knife forms were more common on the southern plains. 

The Saint Bernard and I wandered up that sandy creek bottom, but we were on different missions. I was in pursuit of prehistoric artifacts while the Saint Bernard was searching for rabbits and varmints. To my left, a sand-colored butte towered over the land, while to my right was rolling prairie, carved up by random arroyos. A quarter of a half mile ahead of us loomed a sandstone bluff that wrapped around the valley on the north, west, and south. 

The dog and I reached an artesian spring that gushed water through a three-inch pipe into a cement cistern. It did not take Sherlock Holmes to conclude that the dry creek bed was not always dry. The ranch had diverted fresh water from the spring via a pipeline to the ranch house and a fishing pond. The cold water from that spring was some of the best that I have ever tasted. The dog and I ate a peaceful lunch near the spring. I shared my sandwich with the Saint Bernard, and he returned the gesture with a few wet doggie kisses. 

The dog and I hunted that site into the late afternoon. I was thoroughly impressed. The land offered everything prehistoric people required to survive a harsh, primitive environment. There was abundant fresh water that attracted prey animals, which attracted predators, including humans. The surrounding bluffs offered a break from winter winds while offering a commanding view of the land for miles around. I returned to my vehicle while the dog took off to the ranch house for dinnertime. That first day, I found a Besant dart point and the broken base from an Early Archaic knife form. I vowed to the valley, “I shall return.”

Figure Four - cutbank where I found
the Folsom point. Red circled the spot.    

On an overcast and chilly August 30, 2007, I began my hunt at the site by meandering up the dry creek bed. Fog initially blocked out the morning sun, but as the day wore on, the fog dissipated. About one hundred or so yards east of the spring, I caught a glimpse of a sliver of chert in a four-foot-high cutbank (figure four). With my fingertips, I gently pried the needle-thin piece of chert from its tomb. Once free, I rubbed thousands of years of old dirt from the rock. As the dirt disappeared, an artifact appeared. 

My heart stopped. It was not any old, commonly found artifact; it was one of the rarest of rare. In my opinion, I held the Holy Grail of High Plains artifacts: a Folsom point (figure five). My goal on every artifact hunt since childhood was to find a Folsom point. They were incredibly cool. That artifact left me speechless.  

Figure Five - 1.4-inch-long Folsom dart point
made from Flattop Chalcedony. 

Since that first visit in 1986, the ranch has changed ownership five times. Each time the landowners changed, I held my breath, hoping that it would not impact my artifact hunting on the property. Fortunately, my artifact hunting has survived. Each of the new landowners owned different dogs, and some were friendlier than others. I am referring to both the dogs and the landowners. I now want to introduce you to the dog in figure six. 

Figure Six - Molly. Rest in peace, girl! 

That little sweetie’s name was Molly. She followed me around the land every time I went on a hunt. I remember showing up one spring, and Molly was gone. I was rightly concerned about what happened to her. The lady of the ranch told me that they gave Molly away. I was both disturbed and disappointed. Why would they do that? The reason was that a little girl's dog on a nearby ranch died of old age, and in an act of kindness, the ranchers gave sweet Molly to the grieving little girl. It was a beautiful gesture, but I sure missed my walks with Molly. 

Figure Seven - 2.8-inch-long Scottsbluff point made 
from a dendritic jasper, most likely sourced from the 
Hartville Uplift in Wyoming.   

Figure seven was an in situ photograph I took of a Scottsbluff point from the Cody Complex, found on August 23, 2008. Its orientation in the sand reminded me of the Titanic listing in the North Atlantic. When I pulled the Scottsbluff from the sand, I was initially disappointed at what I found (figure seven). It appeared that the Scottsbluff point was only partially there and that the tip had suffered an impact fracture. But after studying the point later at home, I noticed something peculiar. The rock material at the tip of the point was a lighter shade and showed heavy polishing from use. I believe that the prehistoric owner refurbished a damaged projectile point by knapping three burins onto the broken tip, one along each edge and one smack down the middle. The Scottsbluff projectile point then served its owner as a multi-purpose tool: a burin, knife, scraper, and/or chisel for use on meat, bone, wood, and hides. For more information about burins and their use, please check out the following reference (Branney 2016). 

Figure Eight - Scottsbluff points with three 
burins at the tip. Note the color and texture
change at the burinated tip.  

Over the decades, I have found almost every conceivable High Plains projectile point type on that ranch, from Paleoindian Clovis at around 13,000 years old to Late Prehistoric Washita arrowpoints at around 600 years old. I have even found iron arrowpoints and rifle cartridges from the historic western expansion of the United States. I have found fire hearths eroding from cutbanks, potsherds (Upper Republican and Woodland), various knife forms, manos, metates, a pestle or two, limaces, spurred and non-spurred plano convex end scrapers, side scrapers, thumb scrapers, a bison skull, fossilized mammoth bones, a tang knife or two, drills, gravers, beads, flake knives, and lots of many burned animal bones. Other interesting finds from the land were fossilized bones of extinct mammals from the Miocene and Oligocene geological epochs, including horses, camels, pronghorn antelope, and deer. When artifact hunting was not going so well, I could always count on finding a fossil or two.    

Figure Nine - 4.1-inch-long discoidal biface made from 
Alibates agatized dolomite out of Texas. 

On May 30, 2010, I found the discoidal biface in figure nine. Discoidal biface is a technical term for a large and flat disc-shaped tool made by prehistoric humans for a specific purpose. The Paleoindian who made this discoidal biface hammered out a sharp edge around the circumference of the rock. The prehistoric human probably used this artifact as an all-purpose tool for scraping hides, chopping wood, and cutting through animal bones and tendons. The material is Alibates agatized dolomite from the Panhandle of Texas. Besides being an all-purpose tool, the discoidal biface served another purpose. Since these nomadic prehistoric hunters were not always near raw material to make tools, they used discoidal bifaces as portable rock supplies. This artifact, and how it originated on the Panhandle of Texas and ended up in northeastern Colorado twelve thousand years ago, was the inspiration for my book series on Paleoindians titled SHADOWS on the TRAIL Hexalogy.      

My only other “dog experience” on the ranch occurred on December 3, 2016. My faithful German Shepherd, Madd Maxx, and I were artifact hunting on the ranch when a herd of wild Corriente cattle decided they did not like the dog. I came to the dog's defense, and when I did, an ill-tempered cow named Sheila punished me tenfold. I ended up on Flight for Life to a trauma center, and Madd Maxx ended up at a veterinarian.  I documented our near-death experiences in Branney (2016a).

Figure Ten - Madd Maxx, the greatest dog of all time, 
hunting artifacts with me on February 19, 2016.
He loved the outdoors. Rest in peace, my dear friend.   

Since 1986, I have visited the ranch more than one hundred times and collected and documented over one thousand artifacts. I have discovered at least eight prehistoric campsites on 160 sixty acres of the ranch, including three separate rock shelters. I have found other prehistoric rock shelters on the High Plains. Most of them faced south so that they could benefit from passive solar and be protected from frigid northerly winds in the winter. But on that ranch, two of the rock shelters face north. My only conclusion was that prehistoric people used those shelters during the warm months of the year when shade was a welcome relief from the hot, dry climate.

I found that site by researching an old doctoral dissertation in a public library. I look back at that moment of discovery as a combination of luck and destiny. Eventually, I would have found that ranch without that document, but it led me there sooner rather than later. Since that first visit in 1986, my artifact finds at the ranch have dwindled dramatically. I have been completely skunked more than once. The days of wine and roses are over. Any artifacts that remain are buried under soil, and erosion is an incredibly slow process that won't keep up with my hunting pressure. But even with a decline in the valley's artifact production, some of the best days of my life were spent artifact hunting there. It is one of my favorite places on Planet Earth.

I didn’t mean to sound disheartening in the last paragraph. I am anything but discouraged. I have had a glorious forty-year run with the site. I am leaving you with one final photograph of a twelve-thousand-year-old plus Midland dart point I found at the site on May 27, 2023 (figure eleven). Some people might call that point a Goshen. And it wasn’t that long ago that the ranchers’ guest found a beautiful Jimmy Allen point in the creek bottom. My regret was not beating him to it. The ranch still produces the occasional artifact, and when it does, they are usually dandies. I just need to be patient and wait for Brother Erosion and Cousin Time to unbury those dandies, and then I need to be there when that happens.

 

Figure Eleven - 1.4-inch-long Midland dart point found on May 27, 2023. 

  

References Cited

Branney, John Bradford

2016  Prehistoric Burins Along the Shadows on the Trail. Academia.com.

2016a Dog and Devil Cows Along the Shadows on the Trail. Academia.com.

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

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

Renaud, E.B.

1931 Archaeological Survey of Eastern Colorado. University of Denver, Department of Anthropology.      

Taylor, Jeb

2006  Projectile Points of the High Plains. Sheridan Books. Chelsea.

 

About the Author

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

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

 

 

 

First Light, First Blood - A Pelican Lake Story

First Light, First Blood

A Pelican Lake Story

by John Bradford Branney

Figure One. Where my fictional story took place. 

First Light, First Blood

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Pelican Lake Culture

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

References Cited

Branney, John Bradford

2019  Radiocarbon Dating 101 – The Process. Academia.  

 

Cooper, Steven R., and Matt Rowe

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

 

Dyck, Ian

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

Foor, Thomas Allyn

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

Frison, George C.

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

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

 

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

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

 

Peck, Trevor R.

2011  Light from Ancient Campfires. AU Press. Edmonton.  

 

Reeves, Brian O.K. 

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

Reimer, Paula J. et al.

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

 

Schlesier, Karl H.

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

 

Steege, Louis C., and Warren W. Welsh

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

 

Wettlaufer, Boyd

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

 

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

 

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

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

About the Author

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

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

Rattlesnake Shake - A Shadows on the Trail Adventure

RATTLESNAKE SHAKE  

A Shadows on the Trail Adventure

by John Bradford Branney

Figure One – Lots of land for me to explore.

                                         

The sun popped up over the hills to the east, the start of another August scorcher. With my back to the sun, I walked up the dry streambed, my eyes searching the sand for prehistoric artifacts. That dry streambed was not always dry. At one time that stream flowed a good amount of water with an underground spring as its source. The ranch owner now diverts the spring water for domestic and agricultural use. Over the years, I found enough diagnostic artifacts along that streambed to prove that prehistoric man occupied the valley from north of 13,000 years ago right up until historical Indian tribes. That particular day I was deliberately walking past my previously discovered prehistoric campsites to check out a gully upstream from the underground spring. Yes, I did have a tough time walking past my prime artifact-hunting spots to check out a new location.    

When you hunt a prehistoric site long enough you notice when something is out of whack. It was apparent that the site had gone through some heavy rainstorms where the downpours cut a couple new channels into the pasture. Also, massive blocks of soil had broken free from the cutbanks and tumbled into the streambed. There is nothing like erosion to put a smile on an artifact hunter’s face.        

A buzzing sound yanked me from my daydream. About fifteen feet in front of me there was a rattlesnake and about ten feet behind that one, there was a second rattlesnake. When they sensed my approach, they took off and slithered up the rock-filled gully in the opposite direction. The larger of the two vipers suddenly reversed course and headed right toward me (figure two). I don’t know, it must have been something I said.    

Figure Two - Say "hello" to
my little friends.

Rattlesnakes can be quite dangerous if a person is careless. After a hundred or more close encounters with the slithering kind, I conclude that rattlesnakes are quite benign if you don’t surprise, threaten, or antagonize them. Give them respect, don’t box them into a dead-end corner, and always give them a wide berth. I tapped my walking stick on the rocks to remind Mr. Rattler that I was there. The big rattlesnake reared up into a tight coil, shook its tail, and reminded me that it was still there. After a minute or so standoff, I realized that the gully wasn’t big enough for the three of us, so I retreated. I stepped back hoping that I did not step on a third rattlesnake and then I took a detour around that section of the gully.   

         I walked the rest of the gully until I reached its head at the base of a sandstone cliff. My only reward for that hike was a few chert chips. The only highlight was my close encounter with the rattling kind. Don’t get me wrong, a hike on an artifact hunt is never a waste of time. I never know what I am going to find until I walk the land. I have found prehistoric artifacts in some pretty strange places.    

Not wanting to waste any more daylight, I headed back down the gully at a pretty fast pace, but still cautious about having a reunion with my slithering friends. I was anxious to get back to the prehistoric campsites and start finding artifacts. As I approached the underground spring, I knew I was back in artifact country. The layers of soil in the cutbanks alternated between light and dark shades of gray. The dark gray in the soil came from the soot, charcoal, and organic matter from thousands of years of prehistoric camping.   

Figure Three – The cutbank with
my walking staff. 

It was not long before I found my first prehistoric artifact. I found it at the base of the cutbank in figure three where the tip of my red walking stick marked the spot. Figure four shows the exposed base of a complete Pelican Lake dart point in situ. I have found many Pelican Lake points at that site, so that was not an unusual find. Pelican Lake people inhabited that site sometime around the time of Christ, give or take a few centuries.

Figure Four - in situ
Pelican Lake.  

That 1.6-inch-long Pelican Lake dart point was made from a grayish-orange quartzite, perhaps from the Spanish Diggings quarry in Wyoming or maybe from a local quarry. The author wrote about the Pelican Lake prehistoric culture in a previous article so will not cover it here. (Branney 2002).

In the afternoon, I was exploring a two-foot-high cutbank when I noticed a piece of chert stuck in a layer of soil. It appeared to be an artifact. My initial reaction was surprise which quickly evolved into anticipation as I pulled the suspected artifact from the soil. My next reaction wasn’t elation, it was a disappointment. I only found half of a projectile point. I wet the broken end of the projectile point with spittle to determine if it was a new or old fracture. I was disappointed to see the cloudy white patina return to the fractured end when the projectile point dried. That meant it was an old break which lowered my chances of finding the projectile point tip close by. The tip of the projectile point could be anywhere. The prehistoric hunter might have broken the projectile point while hunting and then discarded the projectile point base from its foreshaft when he returned to camp. I find projectile point bases in prehistoric campsites all the time. Nevertheless, I dug into that cutbank like a gopher on caffeine. After several minutes of poking and prodding, I gave up. If the other half of the projectile point was in that cutbank, finding it would have to wait. With my best Terminator impersonation, I peered down at the cutbank and said, “I’ll be back!”    

Figure Five - concave base, edge grinding, and basal thinning. 1.4” long
Goshen projectile point broken back found on Rattlesnake Shake Day.

When I cleaned the dirt off the projectile point base, I was impressed by the beautiful material. It appeared to be petrified wood with very cool banding (figure five). I could tell by the flaking scars that the projectile point was probably made by a Paleoindian.    

My brain kicked into second gear trying to identify the projectile point type. The base of the projectile point consisted of a concave base with pronounced ears. Based on those characteristics it could be a Midland or a Goshen or even a McKean Lanceolate point from the Middle Archaic. I was hoping that it was not a McKean. There is nothing wrong with McKean points, but Paleoindian points are a better prize.     

With my thumb and forefinger, I ran my fingers up and down the basal edges and found them to be polished and smooth. That characteristic gave me a clue that the projectile point might be of Paleoindian or Early Archaic origin.       

I ran my thumb across the bottom of the base, and it was quite sharp. I noticed the four or five pressure flakes running vertically up from the base of the projectile point. The flaking on the projectile point was done very well with one face exhibiting horizontal transverse flaking while the reverse side was comprised of collateral flaking. Based on those clues, and the fact that I previously found several examples of the same projectile point type on that site, I concluded the projectile point came from the Paleoindian Goshen Complex.

Figure Six – 2.1-inch-long Goshen point (bottom) and broken Goshen point (top).

Figure six shows two more probable Goshen points found at the same site. Orthoquartzite was used to make both of those points. The author found the lower Goshen point on June 1, 1999, near the underground spring while the ranch foreman recently found the upper Goshen point near the ranch’s barn.     

What are Goshen points? To answer that question, let’s take a brief tour to an archaeological site in Wyoming.  

The Hell Gap Site

It was 1958 and The Bridge on the River Kwai won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Nikita Khrushchev became Premier of the Soviet Union. Unemployment in Detroit reached twenty percent, marking the height of the 1958 Recession. Have Gun Will Travel debuted on American radio.  

It was May 23 of that same year when two Wyoming teenagers named James Duguid and Mel McKnight discovered Paleoindian projectile points in an arroyo near Hell Gap in Goshen County, Wyoming. Understanding its archaeological significance, Duguid showed the potential site to George Agogino of the University of Wyoming, and in the spring of 1960, excavations began at what is now called the Hell Gap site. In 1961, Agogino turned the site over to Harvard University to excavate under the direction of Henry and Cynthia Irwin-Williams.    

Figure Seven – Hell Gap Site in Goshen County.

By 1966, the investigators were excavating four different localities at the same time at Hell Gap. On August 15th, only days before a planned shutdown of excavations, the investigators encountered a deeper productive zone at Locality 1. The investigators thought they might still be in the Folsom strata until they discovered a different style of projectile point. After studying the newly discovered projectile points, the archaeologists ruled them out as Clovis points. Eight days later on August 26, 1966, the Hell Gap site was cemented and sealed off and Henry and Cynthia Irwin-Williams never returned to the site.     

Henry Irwin recognized the similarities between Plainview points documented in Texas and the newly discovered projectile points from the deepest level at Locality 1 at Hell Gap. However, Irwin ran into a challenge in assigning the newly discovered Hell Gap projectile points to the Plainview projectile point type. The stratigraphy and radiocarbon dates from the Plainview site in Texas indicated a younger age than Folsom while the newly discovered projectile points at Hell Gap were older than Folsom. Irwin proposed a new projectile point type and named it and its associated artifacts the Goshen Complex after the county where the Hell Gap site exists.

Cynthia Irwin–Williams et al. (1973:46) described the Goshen projectile points as follows:

Typical Goshen projectile points were lanceolate-shaped with parallel to slightly convex sides and concave bases. The overall shape of Goshen points resembled the Clovis form but the flaking technology for Goshen was more refined. Flaking patterns for Goshen points were excellent and executed with a combination of percussion and pressure flaking. Most flake scars were uniformly directed at right angles to the long axis of the point. Most points were basally thinned with the removal of multiple flakes. Specimens were uniformly thin and the basal edges were ground or polished along the lower third of the point.

Henry Irwin died in 1978, and with him died his thoughts and conclusions about the Goshen Complex. After Irwin’s death, Frison (1996:205) examined Irwin’s field notes from Hell Gap and confirmed that Irwin opined that the Goshen projectile point type was typologically the same as the Plainview projectile point type.

The 1960s excavation at the Hell Gap site was never thoroughly documented and after the death of Cynthia Irwin–Williams on June 15, 1990, the chances of the site ever being properly documented went down significantly. But the 1980s brought about a resurgence of interest in the Hell Gap site. The original field notes were reexamined, the collections were located and studied, lab analysis was done, and a new round of excavations began. All of those actions led to a better understanding of the Hell Gap site and Paleoindians on the High Plains (Larson, Kornfeld, and Frison 2009).    

Figure Eight – Probable 3.4-inch-long Goshen knife form. 

   

Stanford et al (2005:335) reported a study by Frederic Sellet involving the Goshen Complex at Hell Gap. The objective of Sellet’s study was to refine the microstratigraphy at the Hell Gap site. Sellet confirmed that the deepest productive zone at Locality 1 was Goshen-only. On top of the Goshen-only zone was Folsom strata, and above the Folsom strata was a zone with an indeterminate projectile point type. The level above that contained a mixture of Folsom and Agate Basin projectile points. And Sellet reported that the zone above that contained a mixture of Folsom- and Goshen-styled projectile points. If Sellet’s analysis was correct, it supports the notion that there were multiple projectile point styles used during the same period at Hell Gap and most likely across the rest of the High Plains.   

Figure eight is a 3.4-inch-long knife form made from a semi-translucent Flat Top Chalcedony that the author found on August 30, 2006, at the same site as the Goshen points in figures five and six. The flaking technology used by the Paleoindian was oblique transverse with a relatively flat cross-section and no medial ridge. A small portion of the base was missing from the knife form when the author found it. That made it impossible to determine the point type with one hundred percent certainty. Based on the location of the basal thinning scars and the cross-section of the broken base, the author estimated that one-quarter to one-half inch of the projectile point base was gone. If more of the base was missing than the author’s estimate, the thinning scars could actually be fluting scars. The projectile point could be Clovis, but it is the author’s opinion that the knife form was from the site’s Goshen Complex.   

Conclusions

1.  There has been considerable progress made in understanding point-type chronology and stratigraphic relationships between Clovis, Folsom, and Goshen, but we still lack evidence of the cultural or social relationships between those three groups. There are many examples of archaeological sites where a single projectile point type was used, providing evidence that projectile point type was one basis for defining a specific social group. When two or three point types are found at the same site with similar or overlapping radiocarbon dates, it creates many questions. Was the same social group using different point types or were there different social groups using the same site? If they were different social groups, did they share the site with other groups at the same time?  

2.  Many investigators believe that Goshen and Plainview projectile points are typologically and technologically the same point type. However, the time gap between the use of Goshen points on the northern plains and the later use of Plainview points on the southern plains has not been adequately explained. If the time gap was due to the north to south dispersion of Goshen point technology, why did it take approximately one thousand years to travel several hundred miles from the northern plains to the southern plains? Why have we not seen a similar time gap from north to south with Clovis and Folsom?

3.  Surface artifact hunters are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to identifying Goshen and Plainview points. Without knowing the archaeological or stratigraphic context of the artifact, it is very possible to misidentify the projectile point type. Numerous projectile point types were lanceolate-shaped with concave bases, edge grinding, and basal thinning or fluting. Those point types spanned a time frame of over 3000 years on the High Plains (Frison 1991:24f). Clovis and Folsom points are easily differentiated from Goshen points, but other projectile point types such as Allen and Midland are not easily differentiated from Goshen points (Branney 2022).

 

Selected References  

Bradley, B. A. and G. C. Frison

1996  Flaked-Stone and Worked-Stone at the Mill Iron Site. In The Mill Iron Site. Edited by George C. Frison. University of New Mexico Press. Albuquerque.

Branney, John Bradford   

 2002   First Light, First Blood. In Prehistoric American, Volume XXXVI, Number 3: Pp. 55-57.

2022   Unwinding a Twister, Goshen-Plainview/Midland. Academia.     

Frison, George C.

1991   Prehistoric Hunters of the High Plains. Second Edition. Academic Press. San Diego.

1996   The Mill Iron Site. University of New Mexico Press. Albuquerque.

1999  The Late Pleistocene Prehistory of the Northwestern Plains. In Ice Age Peoples of North America, edited by R. Bonnichsen, pp. 274-275. Oregon State University Press. Corvallis, Oregon.

Irwin-Williams, C., C. H. T. Irwin, G. A. Agogino, and C. V. Haynes Jr.

1973  Hell Gap: Paleo-Indian Occupation on the High Plains. In Plains Anthropologist 18(59):40-53.

Knudson, Ruth

2005   On Plainview. In Prehistoric American, Volume XXXIX, Number 2.

Larson, M. L., M. Kornfeld, and G. C.  Frison

2009  Hell Gap: a stratified Paleoindian campsite at the edge of the Rockies. The University of Utah Press.

Sellards, E. H., G. L. Evans, and G. E. Meade

1947 Fossil Bison and Associated Artifacts from Plainview, Texas. In Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, Vol. 58, PP. 927–954.

Stanford, D., R. Bonnichsen, B. Meggers, and D. G. Steele

2005  Paleoamerican Origins: Models, Evidence, and Future Directions. In Paleoamerican Origins: Beyond Clovis, edited by Robson Bonnichsen et al. Center for the Study of the First Americans. Texas A & M. College Station.

 

About the Author

John Bradford Branney is a geologist, prehistorian, and author with eleven books and numerous journal and magazine articles on archaeology and paleontology published. Branney grew up in Wyoming and began hunting artifacts practically from the time he could walk. He has cataloged and classified several thousand prehistoric artifacts and fossils in his collection. Branney and his family reside in the Colorado mountains.