Atlatl Weapon System - Part IV – A High Plains Atlatl Weight

Figure One - the 3.2-inch long atlatl weight surface found on February 27, 2023.   

Atlatl weights are a rare artifact to find along the high plains. Most of the suspected atlatl weights that I have found or what others claim are atlatl weights are actually quite crude and indistinguishable. In fact, if I hadn’t picked up my alleged atlatl weights on known prehistoric campsites, I probably wouldn’t have given them a second glance. The gap in the workmanship between most high plains atlatl weights and the beautiful bannerstones and boatstones of the eastern United States is Mississippi-wide. Whether or not bannerstones and boatstones were used as atlatl weights might still be up for debate but that usage seems likely to me. Figure two is a drawing of the various components of an atlatl weapon system, showing in red the atlatl weight itself.

Figure Two - The various components within a typical atlatl weapon system
with atlatl weight circled in red. Courtesy of donsmap.com.  

One theory for prehistoric people's use of atlatl weights was as charms and totemic pieces for their atlatl handles, but if you look at some of the so-called atlatl weights from the high plains, they are little more than polished river pebbles and they aren’t too “charming” at all. Figure three is a photograph of three alleged high plains atlatl weights surface found on prehistoric campsites. Those alleged atlatl weights are not pretty although they do exhibit wear and polish. I am pretty sure they were prehistoric stone tools used in some capacity, but I will never be completely convinced prehistoric people used them as atlatl weights. To be completely convinced, I would need to find them attached to the original atlatl handle.

Figure Three - Three alleged atlatl weights
from my collection. 

My luck with finding a true atlatl weight changed on February 27, 2023. I no longer needed to insert the adjectives alleged or so-called on that one. I recovered an undeniable atlatl weight from a dry stream bed while hunting artifacts and fossils on a private ranch in northeastern Colorado. The first artifact I found that day was an Alberta dart point made from Knife River Chalcedony from the ten-thousand-plus-year-old Cody Complex. I would have been more than happy to find just that artifact, but I kept meandering up that dry stream bed. About a hundred yards upstream from the Alberta dart point I spotted what appeared to be an old ballpoint pen lying in the sand. Over the decades that dry stream bed accumulated a lot of farm and ranch refuse. I have seen empty feed sacks, plastic water bottles, used cow ear tags, tractor parts, old oil filters, beat-up cattle feed buckets, and used tires. I picked up that old ballpoint pen and it was like 110 volts A.C. ran through me. That ballpoint pen was made of stone! A shock wave coursed through my old bones. Instead of a modern-day writing utensil, I held in my hand a beautiful, well-made atlatl weight (figures one, four, and eight).

I have been hunting artifacts for a heck of a long time. Over the course of my life, I have found some amazing and outstanding artifacts, but I have never found anything quite like that beautiful atlatl weight. It is a high plains rarity. I think my exact words were “HOLY CR_P!” when I realized it wasn’t an old ballpoint pen in my hand.       

I stood there in the middle of the sandy stream bed glaring at the artifact reconciling with my mind what I just found. It appeared the material was either a gabbro or a diorite. It was an atlatl weight in the shape of a small boatstone. The artifact was meticulously made, shaped, and polished by human hands that obviously took pride in what they were making. I hunt artifacts at least fifty times a year and I find a lot of prehistoric artifacts on an annual basis. If I am lucky I might find a really exceptional artifact once or twice a year. I found that really exceptional atlatl weight early in the year. That gave me hope for the rest of the year! 

Figure Four - 3.2-inch long atlatl weight showing slightly concave planar surface.   

Using Neuman’s (1967:48) atlatl weight classification I determined my atlatl weight was a Class I atlatl weight. Of sixty atlatl weights from thirty-nine locations in North America, Neuman classified thirty-seven of them as Class I. Neuman described Class I atlatl weights:

“This is the most popular class under consideration. All are of stone. In side view these appear loaf shaped with blunt to rounded to vaguely point ends. They are plano-convex in cross section usually with slight concavity to the planar surface. They may have one or more grooves on their convex surface, or they may be plain.”

                       Length mm             Height mm              Width mm                 Weight gm

Range               41-94                       12-27                      14-33                      11.3-79.2

My atlatl weight is 81 millimeters long, 14 millimeters high, 11 millimeters wide, and weighs 12.6 grams. It is in the upper range of Neuman’s Class I for length and in the lower range for height and weight. It falls outside the range for width.

Figure Five - Examples of Class 1 atlatl 
weights from Stevenson and Meyer (2020). 

I always assumed that prehistoric hunters used atlatl weights to add mass to their atlatl handles to increase the momentum of the throwing motion. The higher momentum then translated into faster velocity and farther distance for the projectile or atlatl dart. I thought my assumption was pretty cut and dry until I researched the topic.  

Numerous atlatl weight theories and experimentation sprouted after the discovery of atlatl handles with small stones attached to them in the southwest United States. Stevenson and Meyer (2020:4) reported that based on archaeological evidence, atlatl weighting, and fletching were probably North American innovations. However, I am not so sure about that. I reviewed Usacheva’s (2013:59) article on Eurasian artifacts with transverse grooves (ATG) and concluded that a few of the artifacts bore an uncanny resemblance to the grooved, loaf-shaped atlatl weights found on the Great Plains of North America (figure six). In my opinion, there was a possibility that a few of the Eurasian artifacts with transverse grooves were used as atlatl weights, and not shaft straighteners as prescribed in her article. I reached out to the author to pass along my thoughts, but as of today, I have received no feedback.  

What purpose did those small weights play in the performance of the atlatl weapon system? When evaluating a prehistoric weapon system, there are several parameters that define a system’s performance. Those parameters include ease of use, killing power, velocity, projectile distance, and accuracy to the target. I have discussed ease of use and killing power associated with the atlatl weapon system in previous articles (Branney 2018; 2018a; 2013). In this article, I will explore the effects of an atlatl weight on velocity, distance, and accuracy.       

Webb (1957) theorized that the atlatl weight transferred momentum from the atlatl handle to the projectile or dart and that resulted in increased force and distance. In physics, force is defined as the push or pull on an object (the atlatl dart) with a mass (the atlatl handle) causing a change in velocity. Hill (1948) experimented with different combinations of atlatl handles, weights, and spears and concluded that adding weight to the atlatl handle did not increase velocity or distance (Whittaker 2010:207). Hill’s experiment highlighted that the best-performing combination came from a weighted atlatl handle with a lightweight dart. Mau (1963) experienced a fifteen to twenty-five percent improvement in distance using a moderately weighted atlatl handle while Howard (1974) experienced an eighteen percent drop in the distance with a weighted atlatl handle. In his testing with different sizes of atlatl handles, Van Buren (1974) saw no improvement in the distance by adding more weight to the atlatl handle.

Figure Six - Look familiar?
Examples of Eurasian artifacts
with transverse grooves. 
Usacheva (2016).    

Palter (1976) approached the atlatl weight theory from a slightly different angle, noting that adding a moderate weight produced flexing in the atlatl handle. The flexing was supposed to add springlike energy to the existing lever action of the atlatl weapon system. However, Palter concluded that adding weight to the atlatl handle was not always good for the performance of the system and that the heavier the atlatl weight, the less distance the dart flew. Perkins (1993) agreed that atlatl weights increased the flexure and stored energy within the atlatl handle, but that the flexing did not significantly influence the velocity of the dart. Whittaker, Maginniss, and Hilton (2005) agreed that flexure within the atlatl handle did not significantly improve dart velocity. Whittaker (2010) stated that adding weight slowed the atlatl handle down during the throwing motion. The velocity was particularly impacted toward the distal end of the atlatl handle where maximum velocity was most critical for throwing performance.

The above citations and results are only a partial list of experiments done to determine the performance and purpose of atlatl weights. The inconsistencies between experiments and conclusions are clear. After my research, I concluded that no one really knew what the purpose of atlatl weights was. Raymond (1986) blamed the contradictory results on too many variables within and between the various experiments. Some of the variations he noted were the types of wood used, the dimension of the atlatl handles and darts, and the ability to reproduce and measure each atlatl toss with minimal variation between each toss. After reviewing the work of others, Raymond did his own testing and determined that with a weighted atlatl handle, he could throw two to seven meters farther (5-11%) and increase the dart’s velocity up to 8.2%.

Raymond downplayed the importance of his results. He made the profound observation that incremental improvements in velocity and distance with an atlatl weight were irrelevant within the world of hunting. The goal of hunting was to bring down prey as quickly and efficiently as possible. To achieve that goal, atlatl hunters needed to be relatively close to their prey. Raymond believed that close-range accuracy was more critical to successful hunting than incremental improvements in velocity and distance. That was especially relevant to the atlatl weapon system which was not known for its accuracy over long distances.  

Stevenson and Meyer (2020) summarized the possible benefits of atlatl weights such as charms or totemic symbols, improving the velocity and distance of the dart, acting as an “at rest” balance between the atlatl handle and the dart, adding spring energy through the handle and dart flexing, and steadying the inertia to improve accuracy. After their summary of past experiments, the authors agreed that the real purpose for atlatl weights was still undetermined. The authors agreed with Raymond that when hunting, the atlatl weapon system required the hunter to be as close to the target as possible. That notion negated any benefit to small improvements in velocity and distance. It appeared that close-range accuracy might be the name of the game and might be the prehistoric reason for atlatl weights. 

Figure Seven - CLICK for SHADOWS on the TRAIL Pentalogy 

Brown (1967) applied mechanical physics in his argument that atlatl weights stabilized the throwing motion. When launching an atlatl dart, the atlatl handle rotates around a fulcrum. A fulcrum is a point on which the lever rests. The inertia for that throw can be expressed as:

I = ⅓ML²

Where I = moment of inertia

M = mass

L = length of the atlatl handle from the distal to the proximal end

 

The moment of inertia is the quantity expressing a body's tendency to resist angular or rotational acceleration. The greater the inertia, the more resistance there is to the body achieving maximum velocity. For anyone who has played baseball or softball, a baseball bat is a good example of the inertia concept. A person swings a lighter baseball bat with more velocity than a heavier bat because it is more difficult to accelerate a heavier bat. Heavy bats and atlatl handles have higher inertia than light bats and light atlatl handles!

When adding weight to an atlatl handle, the inertia increased, but so did angular or rotational momentum, which is expressed as:

 L = MVR

L = angular momentum

M = mass

V = velocity

R = radius

 

By adding an atlatl weight, the combination of higher inertia and higher angular momentum stabilized the throwing arc of the atlatl handle resulting in an improvement in close-range accuracy. 

Figure Eight - Photograph taken on February 27th, 2023, just moments
after picking up what I believed was an old ballpoint pen.  

I end this article with the same opinion that I started out with; the reason(s) behind why prehistoric people added weight to atlatl handles is still undetermined. We remain in the theory and experimental stage. Prehistoric people might have used atlatl weights as charms or totemic symbols, to improve velocity and distance, to enhance close-range accuracy, or all of the above. I doubt we ever find a conclusive answer. 

I must give credit where credit is due. Kudos to the prehistoric people who came up with the innovation of the atlatl weight. Prehistoric people were pretty savvy and smart individuals. Those people knew why they used atlatl weights several millennia before Sir Isaac Newton or books on physics. If close-range accuracy was prehistoric people’s primary goal (which is what I personally believe), they came to that conclusion from the good ole scientific method called trial and error. If we could take a time machine back in time, I think we would be amazed at the innovations that prehistoric people came up with while surviving in a very tough and unforgiving world.    

See you next time!

 

References Cited.

Branney, John Bradford. 2018. The Atlatl Weapon System and the SHADOWS on the TRAIL – Part Three. Academia.

 

2018a. The Atlatl Weapon System and the SHADOWS on the TRAIL – Part Two. Academia.

 

2013. The Atlatl Weapon System and the SHADOWS on the TRAIL – Part One. Academia.    

Brown, Jeffrey L. 1967. The Use of Atlatl Weights: a Suggestion. Southwestern Lore. 32(4): 84-85.     

Hill, Malcolm. 1948. The Atlatl, or Throwing Stick, A Recent Study of Atlatls in Use with Darts of Various Sizes. Tennessee Archaeologist. 4:37-44. 

Howard, Calvin D. The Atlatl: Function and Performance. American Antiquity. 39(1): 102-104.   

Mau, Clayton. 1963. Experiments with the Spear Thrower. The New York State Archaeological Association Bulletin 29:1-13.

Neuman, Robert W. 1967. Atlatl Weights from Certain Sites on the Northern and Central Great Plains. American Antiquity. Vol. 32, No. 1 (Jan. 1967).    

Palter, John L. 1976. A New Approach to the Significance of the "Weighted" Spear Thrower. American Antiquity. 41(4): 500-510.

Perkins, W.R. 1993. Atlatl Weights: Function and Classification. Bulletin of Primitive Technology, 1(5): 58-61.     

Raymond, Anan. 1986. Experiments in the Function and Performance of the Weighed Atlatl in World Archaeology. Volume 18, No. 2, October 1986.  

Stevenson, Thomas W., and David Meyer. 2020. The Atlatl Weights of Saskatchewan in Archaeological Survey of Alberta Occasional Paper No. 40.

Usacheva, I.V. 2013. On the Function of “Grooved Stones” in Archaeology, Ethnology, and Anthropology of Eurasia, 41 (4). 

Usacheva, I.V. 2016. Transverse Grooved Artefacts from Southwestern Asia and Northern Eurasia: Common Traits and Reconstruction of Function. Journal of Lithic Study.    

Van Buren, G.E. 1974. Arrowheads and Projectile Points. Garden Grove. Arrowhead Publishing Co.

Webb, William S. 1957. The Development of the Spearthrower. University of Kentucky Occasional Papers in Anthropology No. 2.  

Whittaker, John C. 2010. Weapon Trials: The Atlatl and Experiments in Hunting Technology. Experimental Archaeology, edited by Jeff Ferguson.

Whittaker, John C., Andrew Maginniss, and Charles Hilton. 2005. Physical Principles and the Atlatl: Throwing Motion and Atlatl Flex. Manuscript on file, Department of Anthropology, Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa.      

 

About the Author.  

John Bradford Branney is an author, geologist, and prehistorian. Since retiring from a thirty-four-year career in the oil and gas industry, Branney has written eleven books and over ninety articles and papers, mostly focused on geology, paleoclimatology, and archaeology. Branney received a BS degree in geology from the University of Wyoming and an MBA in finance from the University of Colorado. He currently lives in the Colorado Mountains with his family.         

 

The Saga of Dr. Evil and Mini-Me

 The Saga of Dr. Evil and Mini-Me

by John Bradford Branney

Figure One – The dorsal side of the first “mystery stone” that  I found at the prehistoric
rock quarry on 12/20/2020. Definitely faceted and polished. The scale is 6.5 inches long.  

Anyone who has hunted artifacts for any length of time has picked up a rock or two that they did not know whether ole Mother Nature or a prehistoric human modified it. Every time I go artifact hunting, I bring back a couple of mystery stones to study under better light and magnification. More often than not, I toss those mystery stones out with the other rocks and chipping debris alongside the road in our pasture. Those tossed pieces are a story unto themselves. Someday when I am long dead and gone, some curious lad or lass will be walking along that road and see all the chipping debris and think they discovered the motherlode, maybe the next Lindenmeier archaeological site.

Five days before Christmas in 2020, I hunted a new spot in northern Colorado along the hills and floodplains of an intermittent creek. I did not have much hope in finding any artifacts because I knew that locals were hunting the area for several decades. But as the old saying goes, “you never know what you are going to find until you look”. Besides, I needed to get away from the house for a nice winter stroll.   

I was pleasantly surprised to discover what appeared to be a prehistoric rock quarry on a hill overlooking the creek (figure two). There were digging pits and a couple of really nice stone circles. In my opinion, the rocks used in the stone circles were much too large just to hold down the bases of the tipis. Some of the rocks would have taken two strong people to haul them to the circle. My gut told me that the previous occupants used the stone circles for some unknown ritual. Quartzite chipping debris littered the ground over several acres along the ridge but worked pieces and artifacts were few and far between. That was exactly what I expected; the locals hunted it out. Mixed amongst the quartzite, I did find the occasional jasper or chalcedony flake that the prehistoric occupants hauled to the site.   

I spotted an interesting piece of diorite that looked completely out of place on the ridge. I picked it up for a closer examination (figure one). The ventral side of the rock was flat and wore its original dull and craggy rock surface while the rounded dorsal side of the rock was faceted and appeared modified by some process, either natural or by human hands. The distal end of the rock featured a worn and polished tip. The rock exhibited a beveled, polished edge around its perimeter, except for the proximal end which remained sharp. I studied the proximal end of the rock, and it

Figure Two – Foggy, cold, and windy morning in November 2022 on the ridge at the prehistoric rock quarry, November 2022. In the middle ground is a well-made stone circle made from massive quartzite cobbles, the same rock type the prehistoric people were mining.

was a little banged up as if someone used it as a pick or hammer. I did not think much of the rock, but I threw it in my backpack anyway. I left the site with a few worked artifact pieces, so the trip was not a complete bust. And it isn’t every day that I crossed paths with a legitimate prehistoric rock quarry.

When I arrived home that evening, I evaluated the worked pieces and threw most of them alongside our road. Then, I remembered the backpack and the mystery stone. I retrieved and studied that rock from every angle under good light and magnification. For some reason, that rock intrigued me. The ventral side was rough, dull, and natural while the dorsal side looked pecked and formed. The facets on the dorsal side were distinct and fairly sharp. Most of the polished beveled perimeter along the ventral part of the rock looked modified by a human, in my opinion. What kind of selective weathering would leave the bottom of the rock original and rough while polishing the top of the rock, and the edges and tip? It was time to crack open some books. 

Now, don’t get me wrong. I knew I wasn’t on the verge of discovering the “Holy Grail of All Prehistoric Artifacts” or “King Tutankhamun’s Mask”. I was under no delusions. At that stage in my evaluation, it was just another rock. I have seen the majestic hardstone artifacts people find east of the High Plains; the pipes and bannerstones and holy cow, some of those axes! Wow! I have hunted the High Plains most of my long life and the best hardstone artifacts I have found are metates, lots of manos, and an occasional axe, pony tie, or roller pestle. That is about it. Hardstone artifacts on the High Plains are as rare as moose feathers.  

It took me a few days for my curiosity about that puzzling chunk of diorite to wear off. I cataloged the rock in my artifact database as an adze or a hide-burnishing tool. Then, I went about my business. I did not know what that mystery stone was, and so I chalked it up to another one-off mystery. Life went on and I hunted artifacts at least once per week throughout 2021.

I returned to that prehistoric rock quarry thirteen months later on January 17, 2022. I discovered another mystery stone, just like the first one, only smaller. The second mystery stone was almost like the first one: same material, design, polished edges, worn tip, and unifacial profile (figure three). I named the smaller one Mini-Me after the little guy in the Austin Powers movie. If the smaller mystery stone on the left in figure three is Mini-Me, then the larger mystery stone on the right must be Dr. Evil. That makes sense to me.

For those of you who have not seen the Austin Powers movies, you are probably asking yourself, “What in the world is he talking about?” I request some latitude when dealing with my bizarre sense of humor and in my odd comparison of rocks to movie characters.

I posted a couple of photographs of Dr. Evil and Mini-Me on an artifact social media site just to see if anyone recognized what they were. I know, I must have been either brave or stupid to ask for serious feedback on an internet artifact site. The feedback did not disappoint me. I received a barrage of incoming missiles. It was open season on poor ole Dr. Evil and Mini-Me. The reactions and responses ranged from cynical to consolatory. I received advice ranging from “leave it where you found it” and “better luck next time” to 

Figure Three - The second mystery stone on the left (Mini-Me), and the 
first mystery stone on the right (Dr. Evil). Dr. Evil is 6.5 inches long. 

“are you kidding me?” I received little encouragement and zero serious answers. The feedback was pretty harsh, but I gave it a try. 

Next, I e-mailed a couple of photographs to an artifact hunter who knows his High Plains stuff inside and out, and he pretty much indulged me in my fantasy. I saw through his kind comments, but I could tell Dr. Evil and Mini-Me did not impress him. I am sure he thought I was sniffing too much glue or something. After thoroughly studying the two mystery stones, I was convinced more than ever that someone from the prehistoric past modified them. But who did it and for what purpose? I tucked the ‘artifacts’ away and my puzzle remained unsolved.

I returned to the quarry site on an intensely cold and windy day in February 2022. My hands and feet practically froze off! My eyes never stopped watering from the blast of arctic wind! While shivering my pea-sized brain out of its cranial cavity, my weeping eyes focused on the ground. Doesn’t an old saying go, “the third times the charm?” Sure enough, I discovered number three.  It was not as classy and polished as the first two mystery stones, but it was the right shape and form, and in my humble opinion, it was not natural. Finding that third mystery stone reenergized my interest in solving the mystery!

  

Figure Four – Rounded and polished bottom edge of Dr. Evil, mystery stone

number one. The scale is 6.5 inches long.

 

I went searching through my archaeological library for lookalikes, but no tuve suerte. I was disappointed in my research results, but not entirely discouraged. By now, I was convinced more than ever I was finding something unusual and cool.  

In November 2022, I returned to the rock quarry site and found two more of the mystery stones. Figure five is the new lineup. So far, I have found eight mystery stones at the rock quarry site, and one mystery stone on another multicultural site about four miles north-northeast of the rock quarry. A buddy of mine also found one on a site about thirty miles southwest of the rock quarry. I now believe that I am on to something! My big question is what is it that my something is onto? I often wonder why I have not found any of these mystery stones before 2020. Is that because I was not looking for them? And why have I not seen these in archaeological site reports from the High Plains? Were these unique to that one area? Was one person making them and I just happened to find his calling cards?

While I can only speculate what the prehistoric human(s) used them for, I wasn’t looking for them on other sited before I found Dr. Evil and Mini-Me. It makes me wonder how many other Dr. Evils I walked over in my lifetime of artifact hunting.

Figure Five – Nine mystery stones from December 2020 to November 2022,

all from the same rock quarry site except for one.

In November 2022, I sent a couple of photographs to a High Plains archaeologist I happen to know at a nearby university. My thinking was perhaps he saw these before at some site. The archaeologist promptly e-mailed me an internet link of photographs of ventifacts; stones or pebbles shaped, worn, faceted, cut, and/or polished by the abrasive or sandblasting action of windblown sand, generally in desert environments. Without ever checking out Dr. Evil and Mini-Me in person, the archaeologist rejected my premise.      

Well…what can I say. Nevertheless, I am pursuing my research until I find answers. My collecting at the rock quarry will continue, full steam ahead. There is a remote chance that the mystery stones are not prehistoric artifacts, but naturally formed ventifacts or geofacts. The wear, polishing, and/or could be purely coincidental. If that is the case, which I do not believe, Mother Nature is really, really good.

I question why I haven’t discovered these mystery stones at other sites in the area? The simple answer might be that I was not looking for pieces of diorite or other igneous rocks on those sites. Ordinarily, I won’t pick up a chunk of diorite or granite, or other igneous rock unless it has the right shape for a metate, mano, pestle, pony tie, or axe.

Why haven’t I seen these mystery stone types in archaeological site reports from the High Plains? If archaeologists found them in situ, wouldn’t they publish them in archaeological reports? Perhaps, the answer is that one prehistoric or historic Indian tribe made and used the mystery stones on a localized basis for processing animal hides. Maybe, one person or a small group of people made them in that specific area for a specific purpose. Who knows? I don’t. Maybe someday I will know the answers.                

                 

 

John Bradford Branney is an author, geologist, and prehistorian. He has written eleven books and numerous magazine articles mostly focused on geology and archaeology. He received a B.S. in geology from the University of Wyoming and an MBA in finance from the University of Colorado. He spent thirty-four years in the energy business. Branney lives with his family in the Colorado mountains

Spanish Diggings Orthoquartzite

Figure One - Colby-variety Clovis point on the left and Hell Gap point on the right, both 
surface-recovered approximately thirty miles west-northwest of Spanish Diggings. I 
believe the raw material for both points is Spanish Diggings orthoquartzite. 
John Bradford Branney Collection.      

The Spanish Diggings prehistoric rock quarries lie on the northwest flank of the Hartville Uplift in eastern Wyoming. The Hartville Uplift is an elongated, north-northeast trending structural arch that is twenty-five miles wide and forty miles long and ranges in elevation from 4,700 to 6,100 feet above sea level (figure two). The Hartville Uplift was created during the Laramide Orogeny in the late Cretaceous around fifty to seventy million years ago. The Laramide Orogeny was a geological event of grand importance and involved intense mountain building and structural basin creation in western North America from Canada through the United States and into east-central Mexico.  

Figure Two - Google map of eastern Wyoming looking to the northwest. The Hartville Uplift 
is marked and the location of Spanish Diggings is circled in orange. PRB and DB in black 
are Powder River Basin and Denver Basin, respectively. Photo courtesy of geowyo.com.   

For archaeologists and artifact collectors, the Hartville Uplift is known for its quality cherts and orthoquartzites coming from the Paleozoic and Mesozoic Era rocks. Prehistoric miners at Spanish Diggings found the prized orthoquartzite in outcrops of the Morrison-Cloverly formations of the Mesozoic Era. Mottled gray quartzites and chert were found in the Morrison formation while colorful and exceptionally fine-grained orthoquartzites were found in the Cloverly formation. The orthoquartzites in the Cloverly came in various shades of gray, yellow, brown, lavender, purple, and red. Not all of the sandstone in the Cloverly formation was silicified enough to produce high-quality orthoquartzites which makes the rock quarries at Spanish Diggings even more exceptional. Outcrops of Morrison-Cloverly cover an area of approximately 1.5 square miles in the vicinity of Spanish Diggings. Those outcrops are bordered by Miocene and Oligocene rocks.  

The Spanish Diggings were some of the largest prehistoric rock quarries in the world. For over thirteen millennia, prehistoric people came to Spanish Diggings and mined orthoquartzite and chert from the hills and valleys. When the prehistoric people left the rock quarries, they carried the raw material with them and spread their finished artifacts and chipping debris across the countryside for hundreds of miles in every direction.

Figure Three – Looking west and slightly south at the hills and valleys of Spanish Diggings.
In the distance is beautiful Laramie Peak. Photograph by Neil A. Waring.

Reher (1991:272) reported a mapping project that calculated the size of Spanish Diggings at approximately 30,000 square meters using the three primary quarry complexes: Barbour, Dorsey, and Spanish Creek. Another 18,000 square meters and approximately 170 stone circles could be included if the campsite and workshop areas near the Barbour quarries were counted. If eleven other clusters of quarries with less debitage were added to the three primary quarries, an additional 120,000 square meters and 500 stone circles could be counted in the Spanish Diggings complex. Reher added that investigators were still discovering additional mining activity and quarry sites at Spanish Diggings. 

Author’s Story Part One: My first memory of Spanish Diggings came from the mid-1960s. I was attending grade school in eastern Wyoming, and if memory serves me, I was in the fourth or fifth grade. The school scheduled an assembly when Jerry and Mae Urbanek were to show us prehistoric artifacts that they found at a place called Spanish Diggings. That was the first time I ever heard of Spanish Diggings, and I was pretty excited about the exhibition. When the school scheduled assemblies I was usually excited for a couple of reasons; assemblies got me out of the dreaded classroom and most assemblies were somewhat entertaining. Secondly, that specific lecture intrigued me because the artifact bug bit me early in life. I had already gone artifact hunting with my family several times and my mother inherited her father’s artifact collection of spearpoints, arrowheads, and scrapers. I was completely fascinated with that collection, and I was hooked on artifacts and prehistory at a very early age.   

My family lived in the right place at the right time for artifact collecting. There was not much to do in rural Wyoming in the 1960s and 1970s except hunt and fish and shoot and explore the outdoors. We were fortunate enough to live in a wide open country with large ranches and mostly friendly ranchers. After I found out about the assembly, I rushed home and told my parents. My mother reminded me that Mae Urbanek was a semi-famous Wyoming historian and author who wrote several books on Wyoming history and its early settlers. That fact only added to my enthusiasm.     

Figure Four - Clovis platter cache found southeast of Spanish Diggings. The material
appears to be Spanish Diggings orthoquartzite. John Bradford Branney Collection.    

Cowboys first discovered the prehistoric rock quarries and mining pits at Spanish Diggings sometime before 1870. At that time, the locals believed that Spanish conquistadors dug the mines in their pursuit of precious metals. A rancher-cowboy by the name of Joseph Stein was often credited with coming up with the name Spanish Diggings sometime around 1882. In 1893, a Cheyenne man named Sidney Bartlett brought more attention to what he called the “Mexican mine” by writing an article about the quarries for the San Francisco Examiner. Stein and another rancher named Lauk were so convinced that there was gold at Spanish Diggings that they hired part-time workers to prospect for gold there from 1886 to 1891. The two ranchers and their workers never reported finding any gold or other precious metals at Spanish Diggings.   

The news about Spanish Diggings eventually caught the attention of academic institutions and museums. In 1894, renowned geologist Wilbur Knight from the University of Wyoming visited the site and documented nineteen mining operations on the north slope of a mesa. He reported vertical shafts, horizontal tunnels, trenches, circular pits, mine debris, and large, crude stone tools. The narrative soon changed from the Spaniards digging for gold to prehistoric Americans digging for toolstone.     

Author’s Story Part Two: The day of the Urbanek show-and-tell did not arrive soon enough for me, but it ended as a huge letdown for this young tyke. At that age, I was not an artifact expert by a long shot, but it seemed to me that Mr. and Mrs. Urbanek showed us a bunch of plain ole rocks that they dubbed prehistoric artifacts. I didn’t know what false advertising was at the time, but that was what I thought of their collection. I expected much more, like my grandfather’s collection with glorious spear points, knives, stone axes, and other cool artifacts. I wonder if I revisited Urbanek’s artifact collection today if I wouldn’t have a different opinion. I imagine their artifacts looked very similar to the artifacts that George Dorsey and associates found in 1891 (figure seven). I learned one thing from the Urbaneks' lecture; I wanted to see Spanish Diggings for myself! That night, I lobbied my parents to take us to Spanish Diggings in the spring. 

Figure Five - George Dorsey
at Spanish Diggings. 

One of the early scholars to visit Spanish Diggings was George A. Dorsey, the curator of the Field Columbian Museum in Chicago. In 1891, ranchers Stein and Lauk picked Dorsey up at the railroad station in Guernsey, Wyoming, and headed out to Spanish Diggings. In 1900, Dorsey published a short paper on his visit to the prehistoric rock quarries. The following paragraph was Dorsey’s observation after studying one of the many outcrops of orthoquartzite in the Cloverly formation.    

“Examining one of the walls of the wash we find a solid stratum, thirty or more feet thick, of flint, or rather of sandstone, which has been worked by silicious waters, thus forming quartzite. This stratum is of variegated color, passing from yellowish brown to violet gray, varied with shades of pink, violet, yellow, purple, etc., the whole stratum thus producing a most beautiful and remarkable color effect.”

-George A. Dorsey (1900:238-239)

Figure Six - Sketch map of Spanish Diggings area by R. F. Gilder (Holmes 1919).      

Dorsey was not alone in visiting Spanish Diggings. There were many organized expeditions by scholars and visitors in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Most of the expeditions were focused on filling barrels and wagons with artifacts and raw materials to take back to their colleges and museums. There was little research done on the rock quarries themselves or the prehistoric people who created them. Some of the early artifact finds reported were digging tools made from antler, stone, and bone; rock wedges; and grooved mauls. For several decades, countless crusades of scholars, recreationists, flintknappers, and artifact collectors carted off thousands of tons of artifacts and raw material from Spanish Diggings, creating a huge archaeological data gap and forever altering the quarries’ prehistoric record. That data gap did not stop George A. Dorsey from prognosticating how the prehistoric miners exploited the raw material at Spanish Diggings.  

“The upper two or three feet of rock is very brittle and does not chip well; indeed, it occurs not as a solid mass, but, owing to long weathering, in long thin sheets or irregular blocks.

“After the soil had been penetrated, the workmen encountered the upper unworkable rock through which it was necessary to excavate to a considerable depth before the denser masses of workable material and the jasper and chalcedony nodules were encountered. On account of the broken character of the upper mass of the quartzite bed such excavations were not necessarily difficult operations. Furthermore, it is possible to believe that this work could be carried on with tools similar to those which would be found efficacious in working the exposed stratum down in the valley.”

-George A. Dorsey (1900:240)

Figure Seven - Typical quarry finds from 
Dorsey's expedition to Spanish Diggings.  

Quartzite was the most abundant tool stone that prehistoric Americans mined at the Spanish Diggings rock quarries. There are two types of quartzite. The first type is metaquartzite which started out as a sedimentary rock called sandstone. In metaquartzite, the original sand grains and silica cement were recrystallized through heat, pressure, and chemical action by a geological process called metamorphism. Metaquartzite is very hard because it is primarily quartz. Metaquartzite tends to have deformed interlocking quartz grains (Andrefsky 2005).

Spanish Diggings is famous for a second type of quartzite called orthoquartzite or silicified sandstone. Orthoquartzite is a clastic sedimentary rock called sandstone which was made almost entirely of quartz sand grains. In orthoquartzite, the quartz sand grains were not deformed like metaquartzite but instead were bound together with silica cement through a geological process called silicification. The prehistoric miners at Spanish Diggings discovered that the high-quality, fine-grained orthoquartzites were near perfect for making tools and projectile points.  

 

Figure Eight - A knife form with a broken tip that I found on one of my earlier visits to Spanish Diggings. The prehistoric individual used orthoquartzite from one of the quarries.    

Author’s Story Part Three: If you ask a Wyoming native when spring will arrive, he or she might inform you that spring arrives in June. If you inquire when summer begins, that same Wyoming native might tell you summers begin sometime in early July and end in August. If you question what the rest of the year is called, that same Wyoming native will inevitably answer, “Winter in Wyoming!” 

Spring finally arrived in Wyoming and my family was ready for their pilgrimage to Spanish Diggings. My parents knew a rancher from our church who owned a big chunk of Spanish Diggings. The rancher gave us permission to hunt rocks on his property and even mentioned that we might find some “petrified turtle shells” if we were lucky. He even drew us a little map of how to get there so that we did not get lost. Even today, Spanish Diggings is not an easy place to find.

My father drove us to Spanish Diggings in our Chevy station wagon. I remember the roads became progressively worse the closer we came to Spanish Diggings on the map until we were traveling on what was best described as a glorified cow trail. My father stopped smack dab in the middle of a wide ravine filled with sagebrush and rattlesnakes. The ground next to the car was littered with chunks of orthoquartzite and chert cobbles from the mine pits. There was so much refuse on the ground that it made hunting for artifacts nearly impossible. It was literally like looking for a needle in a haystack. We spent the day hiking up and down the hills. We found a few primitive tools and worked pieces but nothing special. Our little adventure was probably not worth the wear and tear on our car. The best finds of the day were five or six fossilized turtle shells. I remember finding those as if it was yesterday. I often wonder what happened to those fossils. I regret not taking better care of them.  

Figure Nine - 
SHADOWS on the TRAIL Pentalogy 

I worked on a large ranch and farm a few miles northwest of Spanish Diggings every summer in high school and through a summer or two of college. I occasionally visited Spanish Diggings on my dirt bike in the evenings after work. I found nothing but broken cobbles and crude hammerstones. In all my visits to Spanish Diggings, I only found one small projectile point made from chalcedony. From what I read in the literature, my lackluster result in finding finished artifacts was not much different than that of the early scholars and visitors. When explorer William Henry Holmes visited Spanish Diggings in the early twentieth century, here was how he characterized the trip.

“Nothing whatever was found in the finished state, and even partially worked specimens were not numerous. The refuse about the pits is characterized by the large size of the partially shaped rejects.”

-W. H. Holmes (1919:213) 

Prehistoric Americans came to the quarries, selected good pieces of raw material, roughed them out, and took them elsewhere to finish them up as stone tools and projectile points. Looking back at the grade school assembly, the Urbanek collection might not have been so bad after all. Rough slabs and barely worked cobbles of quartzite and chert were probably typical, even back in the early cowboy days. Perhaps that was the reason why the early cowboys thought Spaniards dug the mines and not prehistoric Americans; the mine debris on the ground was not indicative of who created it!

These days I find a lot of artifacts made from orthoquartzite. I suspect the raw material came from Spanish Diggings but that might not be the right conclusion. Like other popular high plains raw materials like Knife River or Flattop, Spanish Diggings orthoquartzite has its own imposters and lookalikes coming from other areas. I even discovered a prehistoric rock quarry in northeastern Colorado where the orthoquartzite looks remarkably similar to a few flavors of Spanish Diggings orthoquartzite.   

Well, that’s my story. I hope you enjoyed it. No matter what happens to Spanish Diggings or me in the future, I will always cherish those early memories of Spanish Diggings!            

References Cited

Andrefsky, William Jr. 2005. Lithics – Macroscopic Approaches to Analysis. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.  

Dorsey, George Amos. 1900. An Aboriginal Quartzite Quarry in Eastern Wyoming. Field Columbian Museum, Publication 51, Anthropological Series, Volume II, Number 4. Chicago. 

Holmes, W. H. 1919. Handbook of Aboriginal American Antiquities. Part I – Introduction to Lithic Industries. Smithsonian Institute. Bureau of American Ethnology. Bulletin 60. Washington D.C.   

Reher, Charles A. 1991. Large Scale Lithic Quarries and Regional Transport Systems on the High Plains of Eastern Wyoming – Spanish Diggings Revisited in Raw Material Economies Among Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers edited by Anta Montet-White and Steven Holen. University of Kansas Publications, 19.   

     

About the Author

John Bradford Branney grew up in Wyoming and from an early age developed a passion for everything prehistoric. He has amassed and documented a huge collection of prehistoric artifacts and fossils. After high school, Branney earned a B.S. degree in geology from the University of Wyoming. Branney then chose a career in the oil and gas industry where he worked for thirty-plus years. During that career, he earned an MBA in finance from the University of Colorado. Branney has written numerous magazine and journal articles about prehistoric artifacts and high plains archaeology. He is currently writing his twelfth book and the sixth book in his prehistoric adventure series the SHADOWS on the TRAIL Hexalogy.