Biface Platters

[PaleIO]

I had someone ask me recently to send some photos of a personal find from several years ago and decided to share here also. Some of you may remember it from AO. I am looking forward to the input I get on this one. I have had professional archaeologists look at them and most have agreed that they are real old...but recently I had a career archeologist tell me he would only date them at 1000-2000 yrs. I am very confident in my belief that they are of Clovis origin but always open to input from others. Two of the biface's were found stacked together sticking out of an eroded creek bank with the additional piece of flint. The third was covered in a thin layer of soil directly below the others. The white one caught my eye, if you look closely you can see the soil line. I have searched the area around and downstream many times since with no additional pieces recovered. I believe the darker material is Spanish Digging's. IMHO the more oval platter is nearly identical to one found near Boulder, CO in the Mahaffy Cache. As always found on private land with full landowners permission.

 

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[sandchip]

I can't see from the pictures ; if the flakes on top run north-south, it's a blade (or microblade) (< 2 "). If not, a blade-like flake.

FWIW.

Whose are you talking about, mine or Tdog's? I can post a few more pictures if necessary.

 

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[ToddsPoint]

As a flintknapper I can tell you that when you reduce nodules of flint, blades just like those shown come off by accident so it's no surprise every culture had them. After a nodule is reduced, it was likely all the usable tool shape debitage was plucked from the waste and used. Gary

 

[uniface]

@Sandchip: The milky quartz one.

 

[MAMucker]

I can't see from the pictures ; if the flakes on top run north-south, it's a blade (or microblade) (< 2 "). If not, a blade-like flake.

FWIW.

I believe this means along the (long) length of the flake.

 

[sandchip]

I hope that PaleIO will forgive me for hitchhiking (again) on his thread, but all this stuff seems related. I just thought about this thing yesterday. It's been in my shop for years and was a gift from a friend who found it in a dirt road here in the same county we both live in here in west central Georgia, probably less than a mile from the Flint River. Before he gave it to me, at some point, he allowed a mutual friend of ours to take it to a show in Florida. Also attached here is a letter outlining what he was told at the show. May well have been used as a chopper, but from the looks of some of the flake scars, it seems that it would also have to have been used as a source of flake knives as well. Not nearly as thin as the beautiful platters shown in this thread, but downright thick, measuring 7.5" long x 4.75" wide x 2.5" thick. Once again, I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on it.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

Excuse me, because I have no basis (knowledge) for contributing...but it sure doesn’t seem like it’s shaped for busting through bone, tendons,...cutting thick muscle.

Seems way too thick, and with not nearly enough sharp edges. Sure I think it would be used for whatever it was suitable for at the time...but it also seems like they were capable of fashioning more useful tools?

I’m trying to apply my limited butchering skills...

I agree with you questioning the purpose of the material. Seems suited to a nomadic culture carrying survival materials.

 

[PaleIO]

One would think these items had multiple uses. Even if it was a source of flint a platter would make an excellent scrapper for a very large animal hide. I think I read somewhere they have tested platters in the past and have recovered camel, sloth and iceaged sized bear DNA. I want to say the Mahaffey cash was one of those tested...

 

[uniface]

FWIW -

Flake cores like that were commonly used, opportunistically and casually, as tools for one purpose or another. But their primary purpose was to enable flakes to be detached from them and used (with or without modification).

If a specific name is needed for it, I'd suggest you call it "one of those things." They're found on sites pretty much everywhere raw material is available in large enough sizes, and in all time periods.

That particular example is much thicker in relation to its width & length than paleo bifacial cores are, reflecting the loss of understanding how to reduce thickness without greatly compromising w&l by later people.