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.

Folsom v. Clovis Technology - SHADOWS ON THE TRAIL



Figure One - Wide range of High Plains Folsom Points from Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, and South Dakota. The longest point is 1.9 inches long. John Bradford Branney Collection.  

Did you identify the above projectile points as Folsom?  

My five-book adventure series about North America and Paleoindians titled the SHADOWS on the TRAIL Pentalogy began in what is called Texas and Colorado today. Ultimately, the latest book in the series, BEYOND the CAMPFIRE, ended up in the Black Hill of South Dakota and Wyoming. 

The books were written about a mysterious group of people we now call Folsom who lived on the Great Plains around twelve thousand six hundred or so years ago. There is no archaeological evidence that the Folsom Paleoindians used any kind of written language. Hence, they probably handed down their customs, processes, rituals, and folklore from generation to generation through word of mouth. One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Folsom Paleoindian culture was a beautifully-crafted fluted projectile point that is arguably the finest projectile point type ever made in North America. One of the processes that the Folsom People passed on from generation to generation was the making of these fabulous fluted projectile points. Figure one is a photo of a few examples of Folsom points from my personal collection. Even with the variation in shape, size, material, and quality, most people familiar with artifacts would identify them as Folsom projectile points. 



Figure Two - The third book in the SHADOWS on the TRAIL Pentalogy.
CLICK for JOHN BRADFORD BRANNEY BOOKS 

In the third book of the SHADOWS on the TRAIL Pentalogy titled WINDS of EDEN, I wrote about how I thought the Folsom People passed along their flint knapping processes  In the passage below, a tribal elder teaches children how to make these wonderful fluted projectile points. School is now in session!

The old man picked up a square of tatanka – bison hide. He placed it on top of his left thigh. He then picked up the flat rock and placed it on top of the bison hide. He then placed another square of bison hide over the top of the flat rock. The old man picked up an unfinished spear point and the antler punch. The three boys watched, never taking their eyes off the old man’s skilled hands. The old man then adjusted the flat rock so it was on the inside of his left thigh. He pushed the tip of the unfinished spear point against the flat rock and lined up the antler punch against the tiny knob on the base of the spear point. When the old man was satisfied with the positioning of the spear point, he placed the other end of the antler punch against his right thigh.

Since the elder was teaching the children a relatively complex process (rarely duplicated with success even today), we would expect to find errors and variations in the children's final product. Twelve thousand years later, you or I might find one of the children's Folsom points and wonder why all Folsom points weren't created equal. In general, Folsom projectile points exhibit three critical characteristics; 1). fluting, 2). thinness, and 3). micro pressure retouch along the edges. You can see these characteristics in all of the Folsom points in figure one. 

Figure Three - More Folsom points from my collection. 

I am switching gears now, to an earlier group of Paleoindians before Folsom. These Paleoindians were associated with what we call the Clovis Complex.

Ever since the discovery of the famous Folsom, Clovis, and Plainview sites in the early part of the twentieth century, there has been an ongoing effort to identify and categorize all Paleoindian projectile points into specific projectile point type buckets. Before the discovery of the above sites, archaeologists and collectors lumped most finely-made western Paleoindian projectile points into a broad category called Yuma, named after the town in Colorado where collectors were finding these artifacts in sand blowouts during the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s. 

One Paleoindian projectile point type with a broad geographical range in North America was named Clovis after the insitu discovery near the town by the same name in New Mexico. Today, collectors and archaeologists find Clovis-styled points in forty-eight states, Canada, and Mexico. Clovis projectile points are normally fluted, just like Folsom, but the flutes on Clovis are shorter and angled outward from the base (see figure four which demonstrates typical fluting angle differences - "a" in the diagram is Folsom and "b" is Clovis). In addition, Clovis projectile points exhibit less intricate pressure flaking and retouch than the average Folsom projectile point. Just like Folsom, Clovis projectile points show a broad range in dimensions, form, and material.

Figure Four - One way to differentiate 

between Folsom and Clovis. Folsom fluting 

is parallel to the biface plane (flat) while 

Clovis is diagonal to the biface plan (angled). 

Credit unknown.    

There are several plausible explanations for the variation in Clovis projectile points. First of all, Clovis flint knappers did not work from blueprints like modern-day manufacturing workers do. Clovis projectile points did not have written specifications, and all Clovis flint knappers were not created equal. For that matter, no Paleoindian flint knapper had exactly the same skills and experience as their peers! People with different levels of skill, experience, and creativity created Clovis projectile points! Last but not least, Clovis and other Paleoindian flint knappers dealt with a wide range of raw materials with different mechanical properties and quality. For example, chalcedony knaps differently than silicified sandstone which knaps differently than obsidian. Some raw material was just better for flint knapping than other materials, resulting in a wide range of quality and form between different projectile points. 

We can and should expect variation in quality, dimensions, and sizes for Clovis and Folsom projectile points!

  

We see variations in Clovis-styled fluted projectile points across the different regions in North America. The variation in size, shape, manufacturing process and material has led to many debates about whether or not these regional variants of Clovis-styled fluted projectile are actually Clovis points and fit under the umbrella of the Clovis Paleoindian culture that swept across North America. Some analysts argue that these regional Clovis-styled fluted projectile points prove by their chronological and morphological differences that they did not come from a single Clovis culture while others argue that these Clovis-styled fluted projectile points are just regional variations of a common Clovis theme at a slightly different time and place.

If these Clovis-styled fluted projectile points did come from one common Clovis culture, the variation might be explained by a process called 'drift". Drift occurs when we see the changing of a standard through time within groups of people who share the same cultural ancestry. Drift can occur in any given culture and can happen for a variety of reasons such as isolation of a population or innovation within a specific population or the evolving needs in a changing environment. As an example of the last item; when mammoths and mastodons became scarce or were absent, Clovis people might have adapted their weaponry to hunt different animals. We should expect a change in their projectile point style going from hunting mammoths as a mainstay to hunting bison or smaller mammals. In figure five below I show three different Clovis-styled variants from the eastern United States. Did these precede or follow Clovis? These three eastern types carry a bunch of Clovis characteristics. 

Figure Five - Clovis-style regional variants from eastern U.S. (Haynes 2002) Were these made by the same Clovis culture discovered in the west or different cultures that copied the fluting technology?   

Figure six represents a few Clovis projectile points from my high plains Clovis collection. You can see by the photo that even though these Clovis points were surface finds from the same region, they have quite a bit of variation. Even with the differences in form, fluting length, and flaking patterns, they are still Clovis points. In the caption below figure six, I identified the variants from other regions of North America that my high plains points resemble. As an example, the first point in my photograph is a Clovis projectile point that was surface found in northern New Mexico. It resembles the Gainey projectile point from the Great Lakes region in figure five. 

The photo in figure seven shows Clovis-styled fluted projectile points from the east coast of the United States and Canada. These Clovis-styled fluted projectile points are not typed as Clovis, even though they have similar characteristics to my Colorado Clovis point in figure six, second from the right.   

Figure Six - High Plains Clovis points demonstrate the wide range of variability. From left to right; New Mexico Clovis, Gainey variety; Nebraska Clovis, Colby variety, Montana Clovis, western variety; Colorado Clovis, Hazel Variety, Colorado Clovis, eastern variety; Colorado Clovis, Barnes Variety. The longest point is 3.8 inches long.
John Bradford Branney Collection.       

The bottom line is that there are a variety of reasons that a single point type such as Clovis shows variation between different projectile points within the type. That does not mean that these regional variants were not part of the Clovis Paleoindian culture that overtook North America for a few hundred years around 13,000 years ago.  

Figure Seven - Clovis-style points from Nova Scotia, New York, and Main.
(Haynes 2002) Boy, they sure look like my Colorado Clovis
above (fifth point).   

I am going to say goodbye for now and return to WINDS OF EDEN to see what happened between the elder and the children. School is back in session.      

The old man motioned for his two young grandchildren to sit down in front of him, close enough to see, but far enough away to avoid flying pieces of sharp rock. The old man readjusted the flat rock with the tip of the spear point. He then carefully positioned the groove in the antler punch with the tiny knob at the base of the spear point. When everything was to his liking, the old man picked up the heavy antler hammer and took a couple of practice swings in the air. The old man then held the antler hammer above the antler punch and swung down with enough force to transfer energy from the antler punch through the rock. The rock popped loudly and when the old man lifted up the spear point for the children to see, a flute or groove ran longitudinally up the entire length of the spear point. The children laughed as if it they had just witnessed great magic. Their eyes were as big as the moon as they looked around at each other. The old man gazed around at the children, smiling. The old man was proud of the flute in the spear point and relieved that he could still do it. However, what made him the happiest was passing down the fluting tradition to the next generation of the tribe.

2002    Haynes, Gary. The Early Settlement of North America - The Clovis Era. University             Press. Cambridge.  

The historical fiction novels written by John Bradford Branney are known for their impeccable research and biting realism. In his latest blockbuster novel BEYOND the CAMPFIRE  Branney places his readers smack dab into the middle of the late Pleistocene along the high plains of North America. BEYOND the CAMPFIRE is Branney's eleventh book.  

John Bradford Branney holds a geology degree from the University of Wyoming and an MBA from the University of Colorado.

 

Colorado Folsom Point in the Shadows on the Trail Pentalogy

Figure One - Side B of 1.3 inch long Colorado Folsom projectile point. Do you notice
anything odd about the flute? John Bradford Branney Collection. 

Folsom artifacts have fascinated me for most of my life. I remember getting the iconic book Indian Artifacts by Virgil Russell for Christmas in the 1960s and seeing some of the magnificent Folsom points in Russell's collection. Ever since that time, I have been hooked on everything about the mysterious Folsom Paleoindian culture. What I discovered was that they don't call it the mysterious Folsom Paleoindian culture for nothing. Beyond the artifacts we rarely find and a few archaeological writeups on Folsom campsites and kill sites, there is very little known about the people who made Folsom projectile points. That was one reason why I wrote my historical fiction book series about the Folsom Paleoindian culture titled the Shadows on the Trail Pentalogy. Feeling deprived after reading the scant information on Folsom, I let my imagination run wild. I wanted the Folsom Paleoindian culture to come alive on the pages of my books!   

Figure Two - The Shadows on the Trail Pentalogy book series where 
the Folsom Paleoindian culture comes alive!      

Figure one is a photograph of one of the Folsom projectile points in my extensive Folsom collection. Barbara Johnson surface found this Folsom projectile point on private land in the San Luis Valley of Colorado in 1958. Mrs. Johnson came from a long line of Colorado artifact hunters. Her parents were avid artifact collectors and her grandparents were Rosco Dennis Mutz and Norma Starr Mutz. The artifact community knew Rosco Dennis as Dennis or R.D. Mutz. Mr. Mutz and his family collected one of Colorado’s premier artifact collections at the time. R.D. Mutz died in 1966 at Fowler, Colorado where he had been postmaster for several decades.

Figure Three - Cross-section of the Folsom projectile point 
in figure one, looking up from the proximal end.
Note how thin and flat this projectile point is.
Thinness was an all-important attribute
to Folsom flintknappers.  

The photograph in figure one is the Side B of the 1.3 inch-long Folsom projectile point made from what appears to be Black Forest silicified wood from the Colorado Front Range. When the Paleoindian flint knapper made this particular fluted projectile point, he or she did not follow the usual Folsom flintknapping process. Before I spill the beans on what the flintknapper did, I ask if you see anything unusual about the fluting on Side B of this projectile point? Look real close, now. 

Based on the morphology of this Folsom projectile point, I believe it began life as a thin, rectangular-shaped flake, not much longer than its current length. I am sure by now that a few of you noticed that the Folsom flintknapper fluted Side B from the distal end (tip) down toward the base and not from the proximal end (base) up as normally done. The fluting scar originates at the tip of the projectile point and stops prior to reaching the base. Another way to tell the direction of the fluting is to note the direction of the percussion ripple scars. They ripple like waves in the direction that the flintknapper drove the flute. In this case, the flute direction was from the distal end to the proximal end of the projectile point. This indicates that the flute striking platform was on the distal end of the flake. 

The Folsom flintknapper then created the point or tip by pressure flaking. He or she indented and thinned the proximal end with vertical pressure flakes and finished the marginal edges of the point with an extra-fine pressure retouch. Voila! The perfect Folsom projectile point.   

Figure Four  - Side A of the 1.3 inch long Colorado Folsom projectile point, showing
the original flake surface. John Bradford Branney Collection.  

Figure four is Side A of the same Colorado Folsom projectile point. In my opinion, Side A is the original surface from the flake. In other words, the Folsom flintknapper did not need to flute this side because it was already acceptably flat. Without fluting, this projectile point met the Folsom criteria for thinness. Next, the Folsom flintknapper used fine pressure flaking around the perimeter and called the projectile point good. This Folsom projectile point is < 2 millimeters thick within the flute channel. Folsom projectile points did not get much thinner than this.

An ethical artifact collector always documents his or her finds so the detailed provenance information can be passed down from generation to generation. One of the high points of this Folsom projectile point is the documentation done by the artifact finder, Barbara D. Johnson. This was one of the main reasons I acquired this projectile point for my collection. She wrote and notarized a legal affidavit explaining her family background and where she found the Folsom projectile point, ensuring me that it came from private property. 

This Folsom projectile point also has two legitimate Certificates of Authenticity (COA). Note that I wrote legitimate Certificates of Authenticity. There are a lot of illegitimate artifact authenticators and bogus Certificates of Authenticity in our hobby, and only a few legitimate ones. In my opinion, most authenticators don't know their thumbs from their big toes when it comes to artifacts, especially in the High Plains region. A word to the wise; just because an artifact has a Certificate of Authenticity does not make the artifact authentic! There are lots of fake artifacts out there with illegitimate Certificates of Authenticity (COA)!   

This Folsom projectile point came with two fine and legitimate Certificates of Authenticity;  the first COA came from Jeb Taylor and the second COA came from Bob Knowlton. Both men know their artifacts in the High Plains region. In his COA, Jeb stated that the Folsom point was “made on a flake where the original dorsal and ventral surfaces were utilized as flutes. This point was probably not much large than it is now.” On the second COA, authenticator Bob Knowlton wrote, “An interesting Folsom as it was made on a flake and must have been too thin to flute from the bottom, so it was fluted from the tip on Side B – then cleaned and basally thinned from the bottom. It has had one resharpening."

What are my conclusions? First, not all Folsom projectile points were created equally or using the same method. This particular Folsom projectile point was crafted on a flake and fluted from a direction not expected. Second, sometimes we think we know what is going on with a particular artifact until different eyes have a look and see things we never even imagined. 

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.