Large Retouched Blades

[uniface]

I've not been able to find much information on these. Converse illustrates one similar to this example and says it's a relic of the Plano era (post-fluted points --contemporary with Agate Basin et al.).if later people made these, I'm unaware of it. Found on an Ohio River site in Meade Co., Ky. by Gail Ray of Vine Grove, Ky. So probably near there.

 

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[uniface]

Such tools as these seem confined to the late Paleo to very Early Archaic era, because neither earlier nor later people made large, stout blades at all (at least in the area I study/collect). An Indiana state park site illustrates one almost identical to this one along with a fluted point as typical of the Paleo area there. Beyond that, if anyone has more/better information, speak up. Found by Lashanne Johnson in Benton or Camden Co., Tennessee. Dover chert.

 

[uniface]

This one looks for all the world like a Cumberland point with a snapped off base, but it's a Uniface, and much too thick. Doc Gramly told me they found analogous examples at Olive Branch. Dover chert; ex Robert Webb, 2009.

 

[uniface]

Lincoln County, Kentucky. Boyle chert.

 

[Tesorodeoro]

Lincoln County, Kentucky. Boyle chert.

View attachment 1904968

Crap Uniface, the real relic in that photo is the carpet.

Just poking fun. Please keep up the sharing of ideas backed up with examples.

It’s appreciated.

 

[newnan man]

Lincoln County, Kentucky. Boyle chert.

View attachment 1904968

It looks like they got a lot of good flakes to use off that piece too.

 

[uniface]

Crap Uniface, the real relic in that photo is the carpet.

Just poking fun. Please keep up the sharing of ideas backed up with examples.

It’s appreciated.

People in general just like to look at what they like to look at. And that's fine. But any group will include some "inquiring minds who want to know," and it's these folks I'm working for here. With luck, somebody on a Paleo site will recognize something they'd otherwise ignore, and it will have been worth the effort.

Since I never had access to a Paleo site, I had to scrounge these out of artifact dealer junk boxes and flea bay in order to have examples to study in hand. Having studied the site reports & books, I was able to recognize and acquire this stuff because, basically, neither the people selling them nor such "competition" for them as existed knew what they were. That's changed now, and I like to flatter myself with the notion that the posts I made on boards that no longer exist had something to do with that, despite the "Don't you have any arrowheads to post about ?" complaints these engendered.

"All beginnings are hard" (Proverb).

Now,heading down the home stretch, I figure this is the best way to get at least some of that accumulated information/understanding out there into circulation before passing the stuff on to people who will appreciate it and checking out.

Thanks for for your appreciation.

FWIW

 

[kentucky Quinn]

I greatly appreciate all you share, I’m green and new to artifacts and projectiles and NA tools, etc. I try to soak up as much as I can. hopefully, if I ever do happen on such things, my eyes might have a chance of recognizing such items Thanks again for informative posts

 

[MAMucker]

Thanks for posting these. You’re really on a roll. Those are quite large Unifacial Blades. Why are the edges so steep?

 

[uniface]

Thanks for posting these. You’re really on a roll. Those are quite large Unifacial Blades. Why are the edges so steep?

That's of many questions I wish I knew the answers to. They seem steep for cutting, but so are the edges of points that underwent repeated beveling, and they still cut stuff.

 

[uniface]

The Indiana site referenced above is the Alton or Magnet site in the Hoosier National Forest. Their depiction (below) and attribution to the Clovis era is what I'm going by :

http://npshistory.com/publications/usfs/region/9/hoosier/prehistory/images/fig25.jpg

 

[uniface]

Belated clarification for MAMucker : the edges of Nr. 2 are thin -- definitely a big, thin knife.

 

[H.P.]

People in general just like to look at what they like to look at. And that's fine. But any group will include some "inquiring minds who want to know," and it's these folks I'm working for here. With luck, somebody on a Paleo site will recognize something they'd otherwise ignore, and it will have been worth the effort.

Since I never had access to a Paleo site, I had to scrounge these out of artifact dealer junk boxes and flea bay in order to have examples to study in hand. Having studied the site reports & books, I was able to recognize and acquire this stuff because, basically, neither the people selling them nor such "competition" for them as existed knew what they were. That's changed now, and I like to flatter myself with the notion that the posts I made on boards that no longer exist had something to do with that, despite the "Don't you have any arrowheads to post about ?" complaints these engendered.

"All beginnings are hard" (Proverb).

Now,heading down the home stretch, I figure this is the best way to get at least some of that accumulated information/understanding out there into circulation before passing the stuff on to people who will appreciate it and checking out.

Thanks for for your appreciation.

FWIW

I’m with ya brother, I’m that way with southeastern pottery, not much interest,you sure don’t have many points to show for all the years you collected (I actually traded points for some of m pottery)..whatever makes one happy, if you’re just doing it for me it’s worth it, I’m learning.

 

[uniface]

We continue to find blades in the early Holocene levels (Figure 2). This is significant because archaeologists disagree on whether true prismatic blades were purposefully made during the Early Archaic. We have recovered perhaps two dozen at Rock Creek but only a couple of blade core fragments. Our lithic flake debris analyses are ongoing, but we believe most of the cores were repurposed for the manufacture of bifaces. We have recovered numerous Early Archaic bifaces from the site along with significant numbers of biface reduction and thinning flakes in the early Holocene levels (Figure 3). Our current analyses are focused on determining if we can identify tablet flakes in the assemblage as early stage indicators of preparing cores for the removal of prismatic blades.

From the Early Archaic also then.

 

[Tnmountains]

But the more people learn the harder it will be to find that paleo stuff on line. It is good that you share so that we may learn and not so easily discard the big flakes with secondary edge work.
I know of one ploughed field I used to hunt that had many large hand size flakes but because they were not arrowheads we left them. It was a poor site with few late archaic points but tons of debatage. Wish I had of known 20 years ago what I know today. We never kept thumb scrapers and the points that were turned into scrapers we chunked as well. But back then if it was not in a book it did not exist. We thought the refurbished points were called blunts for stunning animals. I mean really why stun when you need to kill right?

 

[digger15]

Uniface, I really appreciate your posts. And everyone else too. Much respect from me to all of you.

 

[uniface]

Thank you for your interest. Am glad that some find such stuff interesting, and not artifact spam.