Big Red

[uniface]

Found in North Dakota or Ohio by Harlan Snyder (who lived in West Virginia but hunted on vacations in Ohio and North Dakota -- unfortunately not keeping track of where the stuff he found was from); gotten in a trade for some Early Archaic points from Steve Worden.

Material is red Hixton silicified sandstone (the red is pretty scarce). It's a uniface with retouching pretty much all the way around except for the striking platform at the base. The size (2.5 inches) and shape suggest Early Archaic but the extent of the conservation on it (making every edge count) is paleo.

Your call.

 

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[11KBP]

The size (2.5 inches) and shape suggest Early Archaic but the extent of the conservation on it (making every edge count) is paleo.
Your call.

Nice scraper and very nice material.

I can't say whether it is a paleo or a later culture's uniface tool but in my opinion you cannot use the reasoning that "the extent of the conservation on it (making every edge count) is paleo."

11KBP

 

[uniface]

Like a lot of other issues (like, "It's a tool." / "It's not a tool."), everybody's right within his own frame of reference.

I'm sure you could cite 300 examples of later tools that were curated to this extent. It's partly a matter of necessity (distance from re-supply).

You could just as easily (and correctly, as far as it goes) object that nothing's a paleo item (Clovis points included) unless it's excavated by trained professionals from a sealed horizon with geological confirmation and adequate C14 dating.

Arguments like that will never stop as long as there are people. I just don't -- after a certain point -- get into them. Because they're about people and not artifacts.

As I see it, context determines meaning. Justifiable homicide in self-defense and first degree murder are identical facts -- except for the contexts they occur in.

In the context of the archaeology of the upper midwest, one finds tools of this approximate size and shape (when they are found at all) in Early Archaic contexts -- Hardin and such. But they are not curated to nearly this extent. This edge and part of another on them are retouched, and that's it. By then, their lives were a lot more settled, and long trips into the boonies in search of game for months on end were ancestral memories. I don't have the converse book any more to cite, but he shows a page of them, and I can dig up a comparison-contrast between Paleo & Early Archaic scrapers for you if you like [see next post] that shows the same general principle.

EA uniface scrapers tend to be bigger and ovate, whereas Paleos are smaller, triangular, and tend toward angular working edges.

Like point style differences, tool style differences will eventually be recognised as horizon markers, IMHO. And that's where the bump in the road comes for the "That isn't paleo" faction. The rejoinder is : If it isn't, name the culture that characteristically made stuff like it at a later period.

Then it's "Uhhhhh . . . I'll get back to you on that"

 

[uniface]

http://www.clt.astate.edu/jmorrow/Clovis Era Research.htm

Scroll down & click on End Scraper Morphology and Use-Life to download it if it's of interest.

 

[Th3rty7]

nice one uniface, she's a beauty.

 

[Tnmountains]

The size (2.5 inches) and shape suggest Early Archaic but the extent of the conservation on it (making every edge count) is paleo.
Your call.

Nice scraper and very nice material.

I can't say whether it is a paleo or a later culture's scraper but in my opinion you cannot use the reasoning that "the extent of the conservation on it (making every edge count) is paleo."

11KBP

That is where I am having some problems. I hunt Rivers a lot and the banks collapse. So you may have a site with many cultures including Paleo are all in a pile laying flat. When I pick up a lot of the scrapers or uni-faced tools I have no way of knowing a time frame. A point can be tied to a time frame. Say I am finding kirks lost lakes and daltons would you not think that some of the uni faced stuff could be paleo ? Anyone have any thoughts on this? I am always bumping that 9000 year old mark and unless its fluted,,,,

 

[11KBP]

I'm sure you could cite 300 examples of later tools that were curated to this extent. It's partly a matter of necessity (distance from re-supply).

You could just as easily (and correctly, as far as it goes) object that nothing's a paleo item (Clovis points included) unless it's excavated by trained professionals from a sealed horizon with geological confirmation and adequate C14 dating.

Arguments like that will never stop as long as there are people. I just don't -- after a certain point -- get into them. Because they're about people and not artifacts.

"I'm sure you could cite 300 examples of later tools that were curated to this extent. It's partly a matter of necessity (distance from re-supply)."
That's true I have seen many examples including exotic lithics in Late Prehistoric sites. I guess my first question is, are you sure this piece is Hixton? It appears to be more of a closer grained orthoquartzite, anyway in the picture it doesn't have the luster and texture of Hixton.

"You could just as easily (and correctly, as far as it goes) object that nothing's a paleo item (Clovis points included) unless it's excavated by trained professionals from a sealed horizon"
I do not have a problem calling a Clovis point a Clovis point when it is out of context but calling a uniface tool like your example a paleo tool when there is no context is beyond my abilities, there are just too many variables.

Thanks for your opinion, it's an interesting subject.

 

[uniface]

As far as it being Hixton goes, while it's not a good photo, I think if I sent it to you to examine, you'd agree. I'm familiar with Penna. quartzites, and a type from western Kentucky I'm still trying to identify. Not close enough to mistake in person.

You're right, of course. Again. The set of assumptions you operate from determines the conclusion you come to. It's a universal constant in human interactions.

This is maybe going to sound like a cop-out. It's really not one :

Sol and Moishe have been business partners for years. One day, Moishe comes to the Rabbi's apartment and unloads a lot of pent-up resentment about Sol. The Rabbi listens and, when he's vented himself out, says, "You're right, Moishe !"

He leaves and, a little while later, in comes Sol with a list of gripes about Moishe. The rabbi hears him out and says, "You're right, Sol !"

Now out comes the Rabbi's wife, who's been evesdropping from the next room.

"What are you -- some kind of idiot ? They can't both be right !"

The Rabbi ponders this for a while and says, "You're right !"

You're right that I shouldn't ID stuff as Clovis culture or Paleo era so freely. I should be a lot more circumspect and tentative.

But I've been going against the grain of the prevailing set of assumptions for years now, and learned a bit from doing so. (As I see it, at least. If your mileage varies, this will be par for the course).

Back before either of us were born, the prevailing assumption in archaeology was that a reliable point type chronology would be the backbone of a reliable time sequence. This is what they wanted, so this is what they went after, so this is what they came up with.

The problem is, they stopped there, ignoring a lot of other stuff that changed just as much, and was just as diagnostic as hafted points are. Case in point : uniface tool forms.

Look at a collection of these from multi-component sites like the one Dorkfish put up a few days ago. Or the box of 50 I just got from western Tennessee recently. It's very easy to separate these into distinctive, repeating types based on size and knapping strategies. The problem is keying them to the point types of the cultures that made them (and thus getting a handle on their approximate age). With most of the evidence that could pin this down ignored, gathering dust in a warehouse somewhere (assuming it hasn't been lost, given away or dumpster-ized), it's a Quixotic endeavor indeed.

Factor in that even something as basic as nomenclature is what the Marine Corps calls a "cluster experience," and you're beyond even Quixotic. Call something an endscraper and somebody is ready to tell you it's a "distally-modified edge tool."

Assumptions (twenty-five cent term = paradigms) are hard to change. They shouldn't be if science is really examining the unexplained (instead of explaining the unexamined), but they are. How obvious is it, for an example, that no people dependent on stones and bones ever passes up an available food resource ? Yet for how many years did everything get shoehorned into the Paleo = herd hunters vs Archaic = generalized hunter/foragers silliness ? A lot of trees died to perpetuate this, and woe betide anyone raising the obvious objection to it.

So, after all this (and a great deal more), as it seems on this end : You're right. Instead of calling stuff Clovis, Paleo or Early Archaic, I should be saying "a typical and representative example of . . ." This based on the hard-won realization that basic tool forms and knapping strategies changed along with point types, and are (at least often) equally diagnostic.

It's wrong of me to be going by hints and clues. But when hints and clues are all you have to go by, it's a start. And that's all anybody can hope to accomplish.

Many times, it's true, much of the stuff that comes from a paleo site is indistinguishable as paleo. Anybody could produce chips and chunks, and everybody did. So, looking into that end of the telescope, that's what you see. People operating from this assumption have told me that every culture produced uniface scrapers (demonstrably false, but that's another topic). So that, absent context, they were indistinguishable. Just "scrapers."

But let's modify the assumption by tweaking the definition. Instead of classing everything with a scraper edge as a "scraper" and letting it go at that, let's get specific and program in the Clovis endscraper design parameters. Now we're looking into the other end of the telescope (in my opinion, the correct one -- this determined by whether it clarifies the picture or obscures it). When we do this, we isolate small, triangular, spurred, uniface endscrapers, typically showing evidence of two or three previous removals parallel with the striking axis on their dorsal faces. Approaching it this way, after due compare-and-contrast diligence (with the pitifully little evidence available to do this with), and you have a tool form that's a horizon marker.

And (not that I suspect you missed this the first time -- I give you more credit than that), the flip side of the coin (just as present as the other side, though not showing) is "OK. If these endscrapers are not Clovis, what other culture typically made tools like them ?" If the answer, after more due diligence is,"in this given location, nobody else ever did," there you have it.

At least that's how it looks here.

 

[uniface]

I hunt Rivers a lot and the banks collapse. So you may have a site with many cultures including Paleo are all in a pile laying flat. When I pick up a lot of the scrapers or uni-faced tools I have no way of knowing a time frame. A point can be tied to a time frame. Say I am finding kirks lost lakes and daltons would you not think that some of the uni faced stuff could be paleo ? Anyone have any thoughts on this? I am always bumping that 9000 year old mark

Well, like the Marines say, "Improvise, adapt and overcome" (to the extent possible).

Some deflated multi-component sites can be sorted out by lithics -- especially Clovis from later occupants. Others can't be.

Sometimes sites will have different culture loci (spots). After years on the sites i hunted, I pretty much knew where I'd find, say, Piedmont Archaic stuff, broadpoint era stuff, &c. Keep good enough track of exactly where you found stuff and useful patterns like that start to emerge that you can use to cross-type your deflated finds.

If you live close enough to a major library -- especially at a State U. -- enquire whether they'll let you read the site reports they have in their reference holdings. Sometimes you have to be a student there before you can see these. but it's worth a try. If so, what kind of student ? Maybe you know one you could walk in with ?

I've found that asking state archaeological society people questions is pretty much useless. They just never reply, or do once to be polite before they start ignoring you. But you can always try anyhow. Maybe you know somebody who knows somebody with an "in" at one ?

Basically, pursue every possible lead. Even a blind hog gets an acorn once in a while.

 

[naturegirl]

Sigh, I'm gonna sound stupid, but here goes. The points are distinctive enough that they have been categorized into all the different types, and thier ages are known. Wouldn't some of the flaking, that must be distincive, also have been used on the other tools made at the same time? Why can one not study tools and scrapers and re-touched flakes, and find some similarities to the points, that seem to be so well understood? If this is an inappropreiate thread for this question, sorry. It just popped into my head after reading all this, and it may not belong here.

By the way uniface, your pictures are great, I just keep going back to look at them.

 

[uniface]

Exactly so, NatureGirl. Nothing stupid about it (or you) at all.

People brushed past a lot of significant opportunities on their way to establish the great point typology continuum. Now they're belatedly starting to play catch up ball on them.

Lithic technologies and strategies run throughout more areas than just point manufacturing.

It's a long story.

 

[uniface]

http://bama.ua.edu/~alaarch/prehistoricalabama/paleoindian.htm

The scraper shown here (part way down the page) is the sort of thing I had in mind when I wrote what I wrote.

FWIW

 

[silvercop]

 

[SouthernGirl]

Thanks for the alabama link that little dot in cherokee county is so close to my place makes me want to look harder.

 

[Airborne80]

This has been a great, interesting and informative debate and so..... as I am not educated enough to weigh in on the main topic... I will nitpick

You said"Justifiable homicide in self-defense and first degree murder are identical facts -- except for the contexts they occur in."

I say.... not so. First degree murder and Justifiable homicide are not similar at all, beyond the fact that someone was killed. I think that you meant "2nd degree murder".

now... of course I am just trying to get a smile form you guys but I do stand by my "point" nevertheless

 

[uniface]

80 : Some guy's been threatening you for a while. Shot your dog. Bad blood. He comes onto your property drunk, with a gun. Looking for trouble. One thing leads to another and you waste him. Malice afforethought ? Yep. Justifiable ? If you live around here, also Yep. Make it easy though. Second degree.

Switch gears now.

What's great about this place, to me, is how much I'm learning here. For one thing, not to go running off at the mouth so loosely, like I did in this thread. My big-picture mentality thinking's getting tightened up by addressing component details (and having people's critiques in return).

Seeing unifaces people have found shown in site collection contexts is a major plus, to me. Once I get a halfway decent impression of a site from the range of what's found there (and how much of it), the tools from it have a context. And big collections of them from known locations, like Joshuareem's, are a dream come true.

One really big hitter I have to mention has been interacting with Neanderthal. He's answered my question "Then who else did ?" Case in point : the artifact (from Texas) I pictured in
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,259175.0.html
(it was this one I meant to compare the Alabama one to, by the way).
It turns out that the Jarrel phase of the Texas (Middle) Archaic did make stuff very similar to this. In fact, it turns out that one of them is posted here on this site :
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,75061.0.html
(scroll down to around picture number 25 or so. If you clicked the link to mine, you'll recognise it). They can't be very common, as I've never seen one on a dealers' site or on eBay, but they exist. In another case, it turns out that a big endscraper/spokeshave on a lamellar blade I was sure had to be Paleo turns out to be Western Hopewell. Which, like Texas Archaic cultures, seems to be off the screen -- tough to find good information on (at least in the places I've been looking). So a BIG Thanks to You, Neanderthal, for furthering my own education.

I've already learned, in two months, how many holes there are in my knowledge of stuff west of the Mississippi. To many to make continental generalizations about, for sure.

So it's definitely a two-way street here

Thanks in return !

 

[Airborne80]

80 : Some guy's been threatening you for a while. Shot your dog. Bad blood. He comes onto your property drunk, with a gun. Looking for trouble. One thing leads to another and you waste him. Malice afforethought ? Yep. Justifiable ? If you live around here, also Yep. Make it easy though. Second degree.

Switch gears now.

What's great about this place, to me, is how much I'm learning here. For one thing, not to go running off at the mouth so loosely, like I did in this thread. My big-picture mentality thinking's getting tightened up by addressing component details (and having people's critiques in return).

Seeing unifaces people have found shown in site collection contexts is a major plus, to me. Once I get a halfway decent impression of a site from the range of what's found there (and how much of it), the tools from it have a context. And big collections of them from known locations, like Joshuareem's, are a dream come true.

One really big hitter I have to mention has been interacting with Neanderthal. He's answered my question "Then who else did ?" Case in point : the artifact (from Texas) I pictured in
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,259175.0.html
(it was this one I meant to compare the Alabama one to, by the way).
It turns out that the Jarrel phase of the Texas (Middle) Archaic did make stuff very similar to this. In fact, it turns out that one of them is posted here on this site :
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,75061.0.html
(scroll down to around picture number 25 or so. If you clicked the link to mine, you'll recognise it). They can't be very common, as I've never seen one on a dealers' site or on eBay, but they exist. In another case, it turns out that a big endscraper/spokeshave on a lamellar blade I was sure had to be Paleo turns out to be Western Hopewell. Which, like Texas Archaic cultures, seems to be off the screen -- tough to find good information on (at least in the places I've been looking). So a BIG Thanks to You, Neanderthal, for furthering my own education.

I've already learned, in two months, how many holes there are in my knowledge of stuff west of the Mississippi. To many to make continental generalizations about, for sure.

So it's definitely a two-way street here

Thanks in return !

Hmmmmmmm...... not to make it a legal discussion but just for fun I will clarify. Using your example.... I see no Malice afforethought once you stated that the guy entered my property drunk and with a gun. Its not even second degree murder in that scenario. It's self defence, justifiable and even if there were other factors... the very worst scenario would be manslaughter.... no jail time. Remember..... first degree murder requires premeditation and/or other special circumstances. I am not a lawyer but am a retired Los Angeles police officer and have spent more than a little time in court on these matters. Of course... that was California Law and it may differ from your area. Now.... I am Federal but thank God I am off of the streets (young mans game) and am our agencies Chief Firearms and Tactics Instructor. Hopefully..... no more murder case related court time hahah.

thanks again for starting this thread because like you...... I learn so much from these things. I am like a dry sponge and I soak up as much as I can with the knowlledge provided here. Stay safe!

 

[uniface]

Footnote : I've gone back and edited my original post, having found some more accurate information on Mr. Snyder than I had before.

He lived in Edon, Ohio, and operated the Michindhio Museum. According to a newspaper account, while the family bought some items from further west to go with the Sioux beadwork they'd brought east with them from Nebraska, the majority of his 7-10,000 relics were found on the family farm in Williams County.

FWIW

 

[Tnmountains]

Bump: If you like unifaced you will love Uni. I miss his post and theories. He is still working hard on it though. You can do advanced searches and see his passion of one certain type of tool

 

[natchitoches]

i like uniface. he made you think deeper about the artifacts.