Kansas Relics 101

[uniface]

http://www.ksartifacts.info/ksartifacts2.htm

A nice resource for anyone in Kansas.

[Neanderthal]

Nice site, but there's several "Kansas" points listed there that aren't from remotely around Kansas.

[uniface]

The site has this notice posted : "This web page was developed by the faculty and students of the Department of Anthropology at Wichita State University. It is designed for people interested in archaeology. Web site design, text, and graphics are Copyright 2006 by Wichita State University."

They'd probably be interested to learn which ones they got wrong.

[Neanderthal]

You're right. Here's a direct quote from their typology page.

"Note that it is sometimes difficult to identify a particular point with a named point type. In part this results from the Frison effect. But it is also the case that very few point types were named on the basis of finds in Kansas. We use names for types that were first defined in Texas or Illinois, or Michigan, and whether all of these names are appropriate for Kansas collections is not clear. Two competing tendencies make typing points difficult. One is that essentially identical types to have two or more names that were originally applied in two different places, such as Dustin (Michigan) and Lamoka (New York). In our web page, we have chosen to use the names developed closest to Kansa."

This brings up a big peeve of mine. People often feel it necessary to stick a "name" on a point, in lieu of accuracy. As is the case on their page, they would much rather call a point a "Uvalde" in error, than simply just saying an archaic bifurcate, etc. This is a problem with both collectors and academics alike, perhaps more with the later. There's absolutely nothing wrong with calling something a Contracting Stemmed Dart, if that's all of the factual information you can assess.