F is for Flattop Chalcedony; S is For Shadows on the Trail!

Figure One. 1.8-inch-long Midland dart point I found on September 2, 1997, near Flattop Butte 
on private land in Logan County, Colorado. It was made from a pale red
Flattop chalcedony. The age is around 12,000 years plus, give or take.
John Bradford Branney Collection.  

 

Welcome to my series of articles on High Plains raw materials. In this article, I explore the raw material called Flattop chalcedony, aka Flat Top Chalcedony, Flat Top Chert, Flattop Chert, or simply FTC. Flattop chalcedony is the most abundant prehistoric tool stone found by collectors in northeastern Colorado. Anyone who hunts artifacts in northeastern Colorado, the panhandle of Nebraska, or southeastern Wyoming finds artifacts and/or chipping debris made from Flattop chalcedony. It is nearly impossible to avoid the material when artifact hunting in those areas, especially in northeastern Colorado. What is Flattop chalcedony and where is its geological source? I will explore that and much more in my article, but first I want to take you on a little journey back in time around 12,600 years in what we now call northeastern Colorado.    

 

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I took the passage in blue from my prehistoric adventure book titled WINDS of EDEN, the third book in my prehistoric saga called the SHADOWS on the TRAIL Pentalogy. This particular book passage illustrates a Paleoindian tradition called flintknapping or the making of projectile points and stone tools from specific types of rock. In that particular scene, an elderly grandfather is teaching his grandchildren how to make stone spear tips, in that case, they were making what we now call Folsom points. Since there is no archaeological evidence that North American Paleoindians used any kind of written language, we must assume that they passed along their traditions and practices from generation to generation through "word of mouth" and/or "an apprenticeship for children".  

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 they 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.

WINDS of EDEN and the rest of my books in the SHADOWS on the TRAIL Pentalogy mix in evidence from high plains archaeology while chronicling the lives and challenges of my fictional protagonists, the Folsom People. In the books, my heroes and heroines journey across what we now call Texas, Colorado, and Wyoming and encounter many challenges that test both grit and survival. 

Figure Two - 1.36-inch long Folsom dart point made from a typical, semi-translucent Flattop chalcedony. I surface found this 12,600-year-old artifact on private land in Weld County,
Colorado on August 30, 2007. The source of the material at Flattop Butte is 
approximately twenty miles from where I found this Folsom point. 
John Bradford Branney Collection.  

The highest quality stone for making projectile points and stone tools comes from different forms of quartz. Quartz is composed of silica and oxygen, the two most common elements on the planet. Quartz has many flavors and crystal structures and can differ in color, texture, and minor chemical elements. In this article, I explore one variety of quartz favored by prehistoric people for thousands of years called Flattop chalcedony. Chalcedony is a general term describing a fine-grained or cryptocrystalline variety of quartz with a texture varying between waxy and grainy. Chalcedony ranges from nearly opaque to translucent and is found in a variety of colors including white, gray, blue, brown, red, and every shade in between. Some other rock types that fall under the chalcedony family include agate, moss agate, onyx, sardonyx, prase, and chrysoprase. 

Figure Three - Prehistoric rock quarry at Flattop Butte in northern Colorado. The butte lies on
private land and is now closed to visitors. The new owners prosecute trespassers.
Photographed by the author in August 2001 when the land was still accessible.

For thousands and thousands of years, Paleoindians and later prehistoric people visited what we now call Flattop Butte in Logan County, Colorado (figure three). There, those prehistoric people mined chalcedony from veins within the butte. Flattop Butte is composed of tuffaceous siltstone, sandstone, and thin limestone stringers in what is called the White River Group of geological formations. The rocks that comprise Flattop Butte were originally deposited as sediments sometime between thirty-four and twenty-three million years ago in the Oligocene Epoch.    

So, what were the high plains of northeastern Colorado like during the Oligocene Epoch? The landscape was a whole lot different than it looks today (figure four)! For one thing, the climate was a whole lot hotter, and prior to the Oligocene Epoch in the Paleocene and Eocene Epochs, the landscape went through a long period of exposure and erosion. Then, at the beginning of the Oligocene, volcanic activity in the Absaroka-Yellowstone area spewed vast amounts of silica-rich volcanic ash into the air. Massive amounts of sedimentation filled in the previous highs and lows of the earlier topography and created a terrain of very low relief with meandering streams and wide floodplains. Geological evidence indicates that during the Oligocene there was massive flooding which laid down thick layers of mud and sand and volcanic ash which later consolidated into tuffaceous sandstones, siltstones, shales, and limestones.

Figure Four  - Mural of the Early Oligocene on the high plains 
by Jay Matternes for National Geographic Magazine.
Note the volcanic activity in the background.   

The high plains and mountains went through a long period of aggradation over several million years where sediments spilled out of the mountains onto the plains. Aggradation occurs when the supply of sediment is greater than the amount of material that the depositional system is capable of transporting. Large amounts of sediment clogged the river systems and increased the elevation of the high plains during the Oligocene. Even today, some mountains in Wyoming and Colorado have a partial blanket of Oligocene sediments. 

The depiction of life and landscape in figure four shows that strange and extinct animals were abundant during the Oligocene Epoch and bits and pieces of fossilized bone are commonly found in eroded geological formations. Many of the fossilized bones are separated from the original skeletons and show evidence of rodent gnawing, providing further evidence of a terrestrial depositional environment. 

   

Figure Five - 1.6-inch-long James Allen dart point surface found on private land near 

Flattop Butte in northeastern Colorado. The material is a semi-translucent, pale red

Flattop chalcedony. The age of the artifact is north of 9000 years.  

John Bradford Branney Collection.   

How did the chalcedony form at Flattop Butte? Sand, silt, volcanic ash, and limestone were deposited and consolidated into bedrock at the site. Saturated with silica, groundwater seeped into the fractures and voids within the geological formation. Where did that silica come from? Most likely from the volcanic ash that spewed from volcanoes to the northwest and covered the countryside for hundreds of miles with thick blankets of ash. Then, when the groundwater in the nooks and crannies of the bedrock evaporated, it left behind a silica precipitate. Over thousands or millions of years, silicate minerals filled the voids within the bedrock, leaving veins of chalcedony.  

Around thirteen or fourteen or maybe fifteen thousand years ago, humans showed up at Flattop Butte. How they discovered the tool stone at the summit is anyone's guess. Perhaps, those First Americans noticed chalcedony on the surface of the ground and when they needed more, they mined the top of the butte creating pits everywhere. Greiser (1983) documented over two hundred mine pits on top of Flattop Butte where it appears prehistoric people dug through the caprock in pursuit of the treasured tool stone. 

Figure Six- Piles of Flattop chalcedony chipping debris at a prehistoric campsite 

on private land in the vicinity of Flattop Butte. The author took this 

photograph on April 2, 2014. 

Hoard et al (1993) described a typical piece of Flattop chalcedony as lavender gray with a dull luster and small white inclusions. Lavender and gray are the two most prominent colors and can range from opaque to semi-translucent with the semi-translucent pieces having the smoothest texture. Flattop chalcedony colors range from white, gray, brown, lavender, pink (what I call pale red), and reddish purple. Figure six is a photograph I took at a prehistoric campsite near Flattop Butte. The photograph exhibits the wide range of colors and textures found in Flattop chalcedony chipping debris.  

The Paleoindians in my book series were nomadic hunters and gatherers. Archaeological evidence points out that Paleoindians led simple but dangerous lifestyles. The Paleoindian characters in my books were always on the move chasing the biggest meal ticket around, roaming bison herds. Since Paleoindians were traveling about and exploring new territories, they did not know what to expect so they carried some of their favorite raw materials with them. If a need for a new projectile point or tool popped up, they would have enough material from their last stop to meet an emergency. And even if they did not use the raw material themselves, they could trade it along the trail to other humans for something of equal value. 

As a lifelong artifact hunter, it is not uncommon for me to find stone tools or projectile points, or chipping debris originating at rock quarries from other geographical locations. There are tons of archaeological evidence that indicates that Paleoindians and even later prehistoric cultures utilized hoarding and a "have material, will travel" strategy. 

Figure Six - Clovis spear/knife form surface found on private land in Keith County, Nebraska 

by Kevin Hammond. Was the material sourced from Flattop Butte or another 

White River chalcedony source in Nebraska or South Dakota? Chemical 

analysis of the material could determine that.    

John Bradford Branney Collection.  

As an example of that strategy, Hoard et al (1993) determined through chemical analysis that several artifacts from the Eckles Clovis site in north central Kansas were chalcedony sourced from Flattop Butte in Logan County, Colorado, some two hundred eighty miles to the northwest. In my lifelong pursuit of artifacts, I have found artifacts and chipping debris made of Flattop chalcedony in Wyoming, at least two hundred miles away from the source at Flattop Butte. However, as Hoard cautions, the White River Group of geological formations produced similar-looking chalcedonies in southeastern Wyoming, western Nebraska, and southwestern South Dakota (see figure six).    

By the end of the SHADOWS on the TRAIL Pentalogy,  my main characters arrived at a campsite near the rock quarry at Flattop Butte, and today I am still finding artifacts that they made from Flattop chalcedony.   

Figure Seven - 2.3 inch long, Pelican Lake knife form made from what I 
call a very pale orange, semi-translucent Flattop chalcedony. I surface 
found this artifact on 9/27/1986 in Weld County, Colorado.
The age is Late Archaic at around 2000 and 3000 years old.
John Bradford Branney Collection.  

Greiser, S. 

1983    A Preliminary Statement About Quarrying at Flattop Mesa. Southwestern Lore 49-(4): 6-14.  

Hoard, Robert J., John R. Bozell, Steven R. Holen, Michael D. Glascock, Hector Neff, and J. Michael Elam

1993    Source Determination of White River Group Silicates from Two Archaeological Sites in the Great Plains. American Antiquity. Vol. 58, No. 4 (Oct. 1993), pp. 698-710 (13 pages). Cambridge University Press. 

Recollections...

In my early years of high school, I began contemplating what I would do for the rest of my life. Since rock star was out because I did not even play a musical instrument, I looked at other options. My parents and I conversed on this subject several times. I mentioned to them that I really wanted to be an archaeologist. After all, my passion for hunting arrowheads started about the same time I learned to walk. A family friend in Casper, Wyoming was a consulting geologist in the oil and gas industry. My parents knew that their geologist friend did pretty well for himself and his family, so they suggested to me that while I might find a bit of fame digging up bison bones as an archaeologist, I would never find fortune doing that. My parents convinced me that people would always need oil and gas and coal, and with the money I made in those industries, I could retire early and hunt for prehistoric artifacts to my heart's content. I took their advice and they were right. 

My prehistoric adventures from the SHADOWS on the TRAIL PENTALOGY are available at John Bradford Branney Books.        

 



Angostura V. Agate Basin along the SHADOWS ON THE TRAIL

Figure One - 3-inch-long Angostura spear/knife form surface recovered on private
land in Goshen County, Wyoming. Note the oblique parallel flaking. 
John Bradford Branney Collection.

For those of you who have read my prehistoric book series, the SHADOWS ON THE TRAIL Hexalogy, you already know that the books are about the Folsom prehistoric culture, populated by those mystical Paleoindians who lived on the Great Plains around twelve thousand seven hundred years ago. I have written several blog and magazine articles about the Folsom prehistoric culture and its artifacts, and the Paleoindians who came before and after the Folsom prehistoric culture. The style of the projectile points may have changed through prehistory, but the lifestyle and subsistence patterns did not change much for several thousand years.

Figure Two - the first book in the SHADOWS on the TRAIL Hexalogy
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This article is about one of the prehistoric cultures that came after the Folsom culture and the time period I chose for my book series, the SHADOWS ON THE TRAIL Hexalogy. Archaeologists call the projectile points from this prehistoric culture Angostura.

Figure Three - 2.1-inch-long Angostura made from moss agate 
and surface found in southern Colorado by R.D. Mutz 
in the 20th century. John Bradford Branney Collection.   

One of the non-perishable items that archaeologists use to identify a specific prehistoric culture is the style and technology of stone projectile points. In many cases, some bone, fossilized or otherwise, stone tools, and projectile points are the only items surviving in a Paleoindian archaeological site to help identify the prehistoric culture. Archaeologists lean heavily on projectile point types as cultural identifiers. Surface artifact hunters like me use defined projectile point types to determine the projectile point types we find on the surface of the ground. We use projectile point types to identify the presence or absence of specific prehistoric cultures where we hunt for artifacts. 

In 1946, archaeological investigators working on the Missouri Basin Project were inventorying archaeological sites along the upper Cheyenne River on the southern flank of the Black Hills in South Dakota. Plans for a future reservoir were threatening several archaeological sites, and the investigators were doing salvage work before the reservoir water engulfed the sites. 

By 1948, archaeological investigators were focused on the Ray Long Site, an early human site in a small arroyo along Horsehead Creek. The archaeologists discovered several fire hearths and camp-related stone tools between five and seven feet deep in the soil. Associated with that prehistoric campsite, investigators discovered what seemed to be a new projectile point type. At the time, the Ray Long Site was important for another reason; the investigators found evidence of plant gathering and processing in a 9,000-year-old site. 

Figure Four - 5.6-inch-long Angostura spear point made from obsidian
and surface recovered on private land in Hyde County, South Dakota.
Note the similarities to an Agate Basin point type. 
John Bradford Branney Collection.  

Archaeologist J.T. Hughes proposed the name "Long points" for the newly discovered lanceolate-shaped projectile points found at the Ray Long site in honor of the landowner. Hughes' intentions were good, but can you imagine how confusing it would be for a projectile point type to have a descriptive name such as long, short, fat, wide, red, green, or narrow? By 1954, archaeologist Richard P. Wheeler eliminated the confusion by renaming Long points to Angostura points, after the nearby reservoir. It was somewhat ironic that the word angostura in Spanish means "narrowness". To add more confusion, it took Wheeler almost forty years to publish the formal description for the Angostura projectile point type!   

 

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Angostura points were described as medium to large lanceolate-shaped points with random to parallel-oblique flaking. The blade edges were straight to slightly convex. The stem on the points contracted, sometimes quite dramatically. Basal thinning was accomplished by short pressure flakes, creating slightly concave bases. Oftentimes, Angostura points exhibited oblique parallel flaking and continued the Paleoindian/Early Archaic tradition of polishing or grinding the basal edges where the projectile point was hafted. 

Figure Six - Angostura points from private land in Colorado, Wyoming, 
and Nebraska. Note the oblique flaking on most. The longest
point is 4 inches long. John Bradford Branney Collection.

The Angostura point type chronologically and morphologically overlaps with three other projectile point types on the High Plains: Frederick, Lusk, and Jimmy Allen. Some scholars have proposed lumping all four of these types into a single category called oblique-flaked Plano points, foregoing the use of specific point type names (Cassells 1986). Other scientists have proposed lumping these four projectile point types in what they called the Frontier Complex (Kornfeld et.al. 2010). A few scholars believe that the Angostura point type was not necessary at all because it fitted neatly within the Agate Basin projectile point type (Wood 1998). I am in the latter camp. 

Figure Seven - Agate Basin projectile points and knife forms as a comparison with the
Angostura points in figure six. The longest point is 4.6 inches long.
John Bradford Branney Collection. 

After studying many projectile points, especially those found at the Agate Basin type site in eastern Wyoming, it is my opinion that Angostura technology is a variation of Agate Basin technology with geographical and temporal overlap. More than a few of the Agate Basin points found at the Agate Basin type site have an uncanny resemblance to Angostura points.

Figure Seven - Central Texas Angostura points, 

2.5-inch-long dart/knife forms. 

John Bradford Branney Collection.  

When it comes to projectile point typology, there are two "camps". There are those people who are "lumpers", and there are those people who are "splitters". "Lumpers" try to fit as many projectile points as possible into existing projectile point types, using a philosophy that there are variations within each projectile point type. You might say that "lumpers" slice their bread a little thicker. In contrast, "splitters", see variation in a projectile point's characteristic and form as a possible reason for defining a new projectile point type. You might say that "splitters" slice their bread a little thinner.

I happen to be a member of the "lumper" camp, and I do not believe that Agate Basin and Angostura require separate projectile point type designations. I see both types as a variation around a common theme, and that they are pretty much the same projectile point type, with Agate Basin being the first expression of that theme. 

What do you think?  

References Cited

Cassells, E. Steve
1986  Prehistoric Hunters of the Black Hills. Pages 38-39.     

Kornfeld, Marcel, George C. Frison, and Mary Lou Larson
2010  Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers of the High Plains and Rockies. Page 495.     

Wood, W. Raymond
1998  Archaeology of the Great Plains. Page 114.

The historical fiction novels written by John Bradford Branney are known for their impeccable research and biting realism. In his latest blockbuster historical fiction novel titled CROWN of LIGHT, Branney catapults his readers back into Prehistoric America, where they reunite with some familiar faces from Branney’s best-selling prehistoric adventure series, the SHADOWS on the TRAIL Hexalogy.

John Bradford Branney holds a geology degree from the University of Wyoming and an MBA from the University of Colorado. John lives in the Colorado mountains with his wife, Theresa. CROWN of LIGHT is the twelfth book published by Branney.

The Lovell Constricted (Fishtail) Projectile Point.



Figure One - What I suspect are Lovell Constricted or "Fishtail" projectile points surface 
found on the High Plains of Wyoming and Colorado. John Bradford Branney Collection.  

At some point in the past, the Lovell Constricted projectile point type acquired the nickname of "Fishtail points" because its outline resembled that of a fish with its tail. For this article, I will refer to that point type as Lovell Constricted or just plain Lovell, even though I 
oftentimes call them "Fishtail points" myself.  

In 1957, a man named Gene Smith was hiking in the Absaroka Mountains of Wyoming when he stumbled upon a large rockshelter along the North Fork of the Shoshone River. From 1963 to 1965, National Park Service archaeologist Robert Edgar investigated the rockshelter and added it to the existing knowledge known about prehistoric life in the area. The rockshelter yielded stratified human occupations from approximately 9000 years ago in the Late Paleoindian period to Late Prehistoric artifacts such as basketry and pottery of Shoshonean descent.  

The most interesting and magnificent discovery at the rockshelter was a well-preserved 1,400-year-old mummified man buried under a rock cairn. "Mummy Joe" was wrapped ceremoniously in a sheepskin garment ornamented with fur and feathers. For years, Mummy Joe was publicly displayed until Congress passed the Native Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Mummy Joe was returned to the Shoshone tribe for burial in 1990.  

Figure Two - Mummy Cave, Park
County, Wyoming. 

Edgar and his researchers noticed that the Late Paleoindian projectile point types at Mummy Cave did not resemble the projectile point types found downriver at a site of similar age called the Horner Site. The Horner Site was a large Cody Complex site on the open plains of the Big Horn Basin. The two sites reflected different subsistence patterns; while the dominant animal remains at Mummy Cave belonged to mountain sheep, bison dominated the animal remains at the Horner Site. Since Mummy Cave was dry and for the most part weather-resistant, the investigators found perishable items and bones from smaller animals. The Horner Site was not as lucky as far as the preservation of small bones and perishable items. Based on the respective artifact assemblages at both sites, Frison and Grey (1980) suggested that the inhabitants at Mummy Cave lived a more Archaic lifestyle than the Paleoindians at the Horner Site by being less dependent on large mammals and more dependent on smaller animals and plant gathering. 

Husted and Edgar (2002) concluded that two distinct Paleoindian cultures coexisted in northwestern Wyoming in different environmental settings. While the Paleoindians who inhabited Horner and similar sites preferred the open plains, the Paleoindians who inhabited Mummy Cave and similar sites chose rockshelters and caves in the foothills and mountains. Archaeologists named the Paleoindian cultural sequence found at Mummy Cave, and other similar sites in the mountains and foothills, the Foothill-Mountain Paleoindian Complex (Kornfeld 2013:51). The Foothill-Mountain Paleoindian Complex was a different adaptation model than the Plains Paleoindian Complex with each having its own distinct diagnostic artifacts.    

From 1962 to 1964, archaeologist Wilfred M. Husted (1969) excavated rockshelter sites east of Mummy Cave in the Bighorn Canyon of Wyoming and Montana. The sites were in jeopardy of flooding due to the pending construction of the Yellowtail Dam. In three closely spaced rockshelter sites named Sorenson, Mangus, and Bottleneck Cave, Husted discovered two new projectile point types which he christened the Lovell Constricted and the Pryor Stemmed. He named the former after the nearby town of Lovell, Wyoming, and the latter after the Pryor Mountains in Montana. I recently wrote an article on Pryor Stemmed, so I refer to that article for information on that interesting projectile point type (Branney 2023).  

Husted uncovered Lovell Constricted projectile points stratigraphically below Pryor Stemmed projectile points indicating that Lovell Constricted points were older than Pryor Stemmed points. The strata that contained Lovell projectile points yielded a radiocarbon date of 8,000 years or slightly older, or approximately 8,800 to 8,900 years old in corrected calendar years  (Kornfeld et al. 2010:36). 

The Foothill-Mountain Paleoindian projectile point sequence discovered at Mummy Cave and the Bighorn Canyon was later verified at the Medicine Lodge Creek and Lookingbill sites in northwestern Wyoming (Kornfeld 2010:101).   

Figure Three. 1.3-inch long Lovell Constricted dart point
found in central Colorado in the early 1900s by the late 
Louis Brunke. Note the convex and concave curvature
lines of the edge. John Bradford Branney Collection.   

Husted (1969:12) described the Lovell Constricted point as "medium to large in size with a concave base and a definite constriction of the lateral edges slightly distal to the base. The lateral edges above the constriction usually are smoothly convex. Basal edges vary from shallowly to moderately concave. Flaking is crudely parallel-oblique with the flake scars extending downward to the right. Lateral edges are ground smooth from the base forward for up to one-half of the length of the points. Cross sections are lenticular."   

Figure Four - 1.8-inch long Lovell Constricted or McKean Shouldered knife form. The knife has
light basal edge grinding in the hafting area and an oh-so-slight "waist".  I surface
recovered the knife form on November 8, 2021, in northeastern Colorado.

For those of you familiar with High Plains projectile point typology, you will immediately notice the similarities between Lovell Constricted points and Middle Archaic McKean Shouldered points. Those point types are difficult to differentiate, especially when recovered outside of archaeological and stratigraphic contexts. Figure four is the perfect example of what I wrote in the previous sentences. Is that knife form a Lovell or a McKean? I cataloged it as a Lovell. 

I use several attributes to help identify whether a projectile point or knife form is a Lovell Constricted or a McKean Shouldered. The first attribute is whether or not the projectile point or knife form has shoulders above the hafting area. McKean Shouldered points were named for that reason; they have shoulders while Lovell Constricted points do not. The rounded curvature of the edge on a typical Lovell Constricted point goes from convex along the blade to concave in the hafting area. Notice the curvature of the projectile point indicated by the red line in figure three. 

Figure Five - In the top row are three Middle Archaic McKean Shouldered points
and in the bottom row are three Late Paleoindian Lovell Constricted points. 
Note the difference in the edge curvature between the two types.
John Bradford Branney Collection.      

The second attribute I use on a suspected Lovell Constricted point is the concavity of the edges in the hafting area of the point. That concavity is called a "waist" because it supposedly resembles the hourglass shape of a person or at least a person in reasonably good physical shape. If a projectile point or knife form doesn't possess that "waist", then the artifact probably isn't a Lovell Constricted. However, that does not fly both ways since McKean Shouldered points oftentimes have their own "waists" (see figure five). 

The third attribute is whether or not a point has edge grinding or polishing along the edges in the hafting area. Edge grinding was customary on most Paleoindian and Early Archaic points. That custom pretty much disappeared from artifact assemblages post-Early Archaic. I wrote "pretty much disappeared" because I occasionally find projectile points from later cultures that ground the edges along the projectile point bases. The Late Archaic Pelican Lake people were notorious for grinding and polishing the bases on their corner-notched points. I have also found a few Paleoindian and Early Archaic point types that did not exhibit any or much edge grinding at all. It is my opinion, based on experience, that the Middle Archaic McKean Complex people abandoned edge grinding for the most part. Therefore, if the point has edge grinding and the other three attributes, it is probably a Lovell Constricted point. Edge grinding shouldn't be used as the sole criterion for differentiating between Lovell and McKean.   

Figure Six - I always thought this knife form resembled a Goldfish. I surface found this on 
a multicultural site on August 9, 1993, in northeastern Colorado. Is it a Lovell 
Constricted knife form or a McKean Shouldered knife form? 

The fourth attribute is the flaking pattern and thinness of the point. I rarely see the diagnostic parallel oblique flaking patterns on what I am calling Lovell Constricted points. However, in general, the workmanship of Lovell Constricted points was moderately better than the workmanship of McKean Shouldered points. You might be able to see the differences in the workmanship in the examples from figure five. In my opinion, McKean Complex points took a step backward in quality and workmanship from their Paleoindian and Early Archaic predecessors. I often wonder what happened to cause that. My opinion is that Middle Archaic people did not see the value in the extra time and effort needed to improve the aesthetics of their projectile points. If the projectile point served its purposes in functionality and performance, why dilly-dally around making it look prettier?   

In summary, unless a projectile point is a "no-brainer" as far as projectile point type, the four attributes can be used to determine whether a point is a Lovell or a McKean. The point may not have all four attributes, but it sure helps in the decision process. And last but not least, you may have your own criteria that you use to determine those point types.

Based on what they discovered at Mummy Cave and Bighorn Canyon, Husted and Edgar (2002:119) proposed that Lovell Constricted projectile point technology could have evolved from older Angostura projectile point technology. So, once Lovell Constricted projectile point technology existed, where did it end up? I wrote about the similarities and differences between Lovell Constricted and McKean Shouldered points, so the logical answer is Lovell ultimately ended up as McKean. Unfortunately, there is a problem with that hypothesis. There is a two to three-thousand-year time gap between when Lovell Constricted technology disappeared and McKean Shouldered technology showed up in the archaeological record. The technologies existed on either side of the two to three-thousand-year-long drought conditions of the Altithermal climate event. Lovell Constricted points preceded the Altithermal while McKean Shouldered points came after the Altithermal. What happened to Lovell Constricted projectile points during that long pause? That is still an archaeological mystery. Perhaps, the clues are out there in some unexcavated archaeological sites. Until then, we will just have to wait for archaeology to catch up and solve that mystery.      

References Cited 

Branney, John Bradford. 2023. Pryor Stemmed Points – Just Like Rolling the Dice! Academia. 

Frison, George C., and Donald C. Grey. 1980. Pryor Stemmed, a Specialized Paleo-Indian Ecological Adaptation. Plains Anthropologist. 25(87):27-46.    

Husted, Wilfred M. 1969. Bighorn Canyon Archeology. Reprints in Anthropology, Volume 43.  

Husted, Wilfred M, and Robert Edgar. 2002. The Archaeology of Mummy Cave, Wyoming: An Introduction to Shoshonean Prehistory. U.S. National Park Service Publications and Papers. 

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.    

Kornfeld, Marcel. 2013. The First Rocky Mountaineers - Coloradans Before Colorado. The University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.   

About the Author

The seed for John Bradford Branney's historical fiction book series titled SHADOWS on the TRAIL Hexalogy sprouted on an early summer morning in 2010 on a northern Colorado ranch where the author found a twelve thousand-year-old stone tool made from a red and gray striped rock from a prehistoric rock quarry in Texas. Several questions raced through the author's mind. How did that stone tool end up on a prehistoric campsite in northern Colorado? Who made it? What were they like? What happened on its journey from Texas? Since the author could not ask those questions to the Paleoindian who made the stone tool, he wrote his own version of that journey. SHADOWS on the TRAIL Hexalogy is available at Amazon.com or wherever fine books are sold. 

       

The HekIfINoWatItIs Projectile Point Type



Figure One. Side A of a 2.8 inch long Hekifinowatitis prehistoric knife form found in 1905 
in Natrona County, Wyoming by George Cobban. John Bradford Branney Collection.  

I wonder what Paleoindians would think about us 'modern-day folk' expending so much time and effort discussing, describing, identifying, naming, and classifying their prehistoric tools, especially stone projectile points? Would they say, "Hey man, I was just making something to help get something to eat!" 

In my opinion, we have gone way overboard classifying every projectile point into a cubby hole filled with projectile point lookalikes. And when we can not place a particular projectile point into a cubby hole with other cubby holed projectile points, some cubby holer comes up with a new projectile point type. But, what if that prehistoric flintknapper who created that new oddball projectile point was just having a bad flint day? Or maybe he or she wanted to create something different on that day or week or year. Or maybe, just maybe, he or she was just not as skilled as their fellow flintknappers. I am sure prehistoric people were less interested in meeting some conformance criteria than using the projectile point to kill game they could eat.   

Figure Two. WINDS OF EDEN, the third book in the SHADOWS
ON THE TRAIL Quadrilogy. CLICK TO ORDER BOOK SERIES  

As an artifact hunter, I have to admit that I get caught up in the cubby holing as much as the next guy or gal. I am guilty of wanting every projectile point classified and cataloged. After finding and collecting thousands of projectile points, it is not easy to categorize every projectile point into an existing projectile point type. There are lots of what I call "tweeners" (between projectile point types) out there.   

I took the book passage in blue from my prehistoric adventure titled WINDS of EDEN. In this passage, an elder in the tribe is teaching young children the art of flintknapping on one of the most difficult projectile point types to knap, the Folsom point. We wonder why there is so much latitude and variation in a specific projectile point type, inexperienced knappers might be one reason why.            

The old man woke up from his nap when the sun was starting its descent in the sky. He reached over and picked up his satchel. He pulled out a large red and gray striped rock and sat staring at it. He rubbed the rock between his thumb and forefinger while thinking about everything that had happened to him since he had carried the rock from the canyon. Much had happened in his life since then, some of it good and some of it bad. When the old man finished reminiscing, he gently placed the red and gray striped rock back into the satchel. Then, with satchel in hand, the old man stood up and left his tipi. When he was outside the tipi, he had to shield his aged eyes from the bright sun. He slowly edged his way to a flat boulder next to his campfire where he sat down. Then, he pulled five unfinished spear points from the satchel. He laid the unfinished spear points down on the boulder next to him and then dug through the satchel, pulling out a cylinder–shaped punch made from an antler, a large antler hammer, small squares of bison hide, and a sharp deer antler tine. He placed these items next to the five unfinished spear points. He leaned over and picked up a flat rock at the base of the boulder. He set the flat rock down next to his other supplies. When the old man looked up, a young boy was running like the wind towards him.

“Haw! – Hello!” the old man said to the young boy when he arrived at the campfire.

“Haw!” the boy replied, somewhat out of breath. “I want to watch you.”

“Waste! – Good!” the old man declared with a grin.

The young boy sat down as close to the old man as possible without actually sitting on the old man’s lap. The old man picked up the first spear point and handed it to the young boy.

“He táku hwo? – What is it?” the old man asked.

The boy studied the piece of chert, his face frozen in a frown as he concentrated on the old man’s question. The young boy flipped the rock over in his hands, studying every surface. His eyes narrowed as he scrutinized the base of the spear point. Between the two sharp ears at the corners of the base of the spear point, the young boy spotted a tiny knob of chert, jutting out at the middle of the base.

What would we expect from young children making complicated projectile points? We sure would not expect perfection, and we would expect variation! A few of the points might resemble a Folsom point while others might not. If you or I found the children's efforts some twelve thousand years later, we might call them Folsom points or we might call them something entirely different.   

In my prehistoric artifact collection, I have many artifacts that I cannot classify into a specific projectile point types. So I made my own projectile point type up. I call it Hekifinowatitis. Figures one and three are photographs of a Hekifinowatitis knife form found in 1905 south of Casper, Wyoming by a man named George Cobban. This is not the first artifact I have run across from Mr. Cobban's late 19th / early 20th Century collection. George Cobban appeared to get around on the high plains. I cannot even imagine how good artifact hunting was in 1905. Sigh! 

This Hekifinowatitis knife form measures 71 mm long (2.8 inches long), 37.5 mm wide, and 6 mm thick for a width to thickness ratio of 6.3, falling below the arbitrary ratio of 7 or greater for ultrathin knife forms. This artifact’s flintknapper used uncommon Hartville Uplift pretty-in-pink dendritic jasper. 

Figure Three. Side B of the Hekifinowatitis knife form found in 1905
in Natrona County, Wyoming. John Bradford Branney Collection.  

Some people believe that this knife form came from the Jimmy Allen Paleoindian Complex after the artifacts found at the Jimmy Allen site south of Laramie, Wyoming. However, I am sticking with the Hek-if-i-no-wat-it-is projectile point type. The knife form exhibits phenomenal workmanship and fine marginal retouch. The flaking patterns exhibit Paleoindian influences. If I had to guess, which I am doing, I would guess that a Paleoindian made this Hekifinowatitis sometime between eleven and eight thousand years ago. 

What do you think? 

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