Age?

[kyphote]

Any thoughts on the age of these items pulled from a small patch of ground in Virginia? All are struck or tooled, some more crudely than others. The larger objects are uniface with all or partial cortex on the flip side. All are the lithic material I'm used to seeing around here (except the black chert) but the style is crude and unfamiliar to me. Happy to send close-ups if needed.

Thanks

 

[arrow86]

The row second from bottom has some nice broken points but without the bases not sure you can make a accurate call on the style or age

 

[Icewing]

4,736,409 years this Friday

 

[kyphote]

The row second from bottom has some nice broken points but without the bases not sure you can make a accurate call on the style or age

That's what makes this mystery challenging. None of the points at this site come with bases. They're all triangular. This pic represents an extremely small fraction of what I've dug. No bases. The axes, scrapers and blades don't ever look pretty either. Almost always some cortex showing.

My guess has always been "discard" but every piece I dig -- and I've dug hundreds from this spot -- is stylistically the same. I'm in Virginia.

 

[Quartzite Keith]

All is typical stuff found at a work site where bifaces were being made, with a couple of possible exceptions. You must be near a good quartz and quartzite source. The black chert piece is obviously out of place and was brought in from some distant place. Must be an interesting story there... In the bottom row, middle, the shape is like a Hardaway or Hardaway Dalton, so if that is a finished piece (can't see enough detail in the picture) that would be Early Archaic. The two pieces just to the right of the black chert piece look like fairly large, late stage broken bifaces which would tend to be Late Archaic. (While quartzite was used during all time periods in Virginia, the Late Archaic Broadspear/Savannah River guys really went nuts with it and knapped it like crazy making big, flat bifaces.)

 

[Kray Gelder]

4,736,409 years this Friday

Something like that occurred to me, too.

 

[Fred250]

Look into bipolar knapping. From my limited understanding it is just smashing rocks together and working with what you get. Some say it was advantageous in situations with an abundance of hard to work material and would yield the more “crude” looking tools.

 

[kyphote]

Extremely helpful replies, thank you. Been determined to sort this out. Back in the buckets they go!

 

[arrow86]

Post any points you have found at that site , especially if they have the base

 

[kyphote]

Post any points you have found at that site , especially if they have the base

This is about the best base I can provide, but let me go through the buckets again tonight.

Edit: just found these, as well.

 

[arrow86]

I would think late archaic / early woodland but it is hard to tell with most of them missing the base

 

[kyphote]

Here’s the most distinctive after going through all my buckets. Again, all of these were pulled from the same tight patch of ground. Ballpark date based on this and others shown? Thanks again. HUGE HELP!

 

[arrow86]

I think middle to late archaic

 

[kyphote]

Thank all of you! Case closed!

 

[Quartzite Keith]

If you haven't already found it, the site below is very helpful for Virginia stuff. Middle, bottom, "Lithics" and "Points"

https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/archaeology/projectile-points-lithic-types/

 

[kyphote]

If you haven't already found it, the site below is very helpful for Virginia stuff. Middle, bottom, "Lithics" and "Points"

https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/archaeology/projectile-points-lithic-types/

Mystery solved thanks to your link. My baseless points are Badin points. Middle Woodland. Sort of depressing but at least we’ve also identified earlier points, providing the inspiration I need to keep digging. Thanks all.

 

[Quartzite Keith]

Mystery solved thanks to your link. My baseless points are Badin points. Middle Woodland. Sort of depressing but at least we’ve also identified earlier points, providing the inspiration I need to keep digging. Thanks all.

Badin? You sure? Badin are not "baseless". Basically what they are is when someone goes to one of the old work sites, finds broken tips and decides to recycle then into points by punching or pressure flaking in from the snapped edge (usually on both faces) to create a hafting area. See the pictures at the link below for classic examples. Most I have seen are like the two on the left where it looks like the base was aggressively punched in on a broken tip. The rest of the edge work is usually left exactly as it was found, with no further modification. Since they are recycled, the parent material comes from the debitage of older sites, so you likely have archaic stuff mixed in. Is your site near a stone source? If you don't mind me asking, approximately where in Virginia are you? ( If Woodland, you should be finding pottery.)

https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/record/uuid:005a087c-b718-4266-ac8c-db011e398462

 

[reuellis]

Can you tell us more about the excavation process? Duration, size of the team, and any bio material like bones that might reveal daily diet? Did they have livestock or hunt? Any human remains? If they had dogs, how large were their rectums based on any excrement found? Any evidence of female inhabitants?



I challenge you to short-answer this one!

 

[kyphote]

Badin? You sure? Badin are not "baseless". Basically what they are is when someone goes to one of the old work sites, finds broken tips and decides to recycle then into points by punching or pressure flaking in from the snapped edge (usually on both faces) to create a hafting area. See the pictures at the link below for classic examples. Most I have seen are like the two on the left where it looks like the base was aggressively punched in on a broken tip. The rest of the edge work is usually left exactly as it was found, with no further modification. Since they are recycled, the parent material comes from the debitage of older sites, so you likely have archaic stuff mixed in. Is your site near a stone source? If you don't mind me asking, approximately where in Virginia are you? ( If Woodland, you should be finding pottery.)

https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/record/uuid:005a087c-b718-4266-ac8c-db011e398462

The site is mineral rich and borders a quarry. Strangely I’m not finding pottery. That’s the most I can say because we were hit a few nights ago. Here are the Badin tips posted by Virginia Dept of Archaeology:



Thankd for for your help!

 

[Quartzite Keith]

The site is mineral rich and borders a quarry. Strangely I’m not finding pottery. That’s the most I can say because we were hit a few nights ago. Here are the Badin tips posted by Virginia Dept of Archaeology:
View attachment 1688730

That's what I thought. What you originally posted looked like typical quarry debitage. From a cobble source? Along the fall line perhaps? Looks like mostly quartzite. That points strongly to Archaic use. As an example, which is fairly typical (at least for the Piedmont/Coastal Plain zone of Virginia), at the Fannin Site, a quartzite (mostly) cobble source on the Nottoway River just over the fall line, of 303 projectile points found, 13 were Woodland, 4 were Paleo and all others where Early, Mid or Late Archaic. i would say until you find pottery, no Woodland component. If in the Southeastern part of the state, a fair chance of finding a Paleo component.