Opinions Welcome

[uniface]

I got into the habit, years ago, of leaving a few artifacts lying out where I sit in the living room. When nothing else is going on, I'll pick one up and take a closer look at it, to see if it really is what it seems to be, or if there's anything about it I hadn't noticed that might be significant.

That was the case just now with this little biface that was part of the neumanman bombing. At first glance, either a little knife, or a point preform (pretty much the same either way).

But the plot sickens : one face shows an overshot flake, and the other side looks like it was prepared with two guide flakes for a flute (Enterline technique). These flank an earlier one knapped from the center. Unfinished Paleo ?

 

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[H.P.]

It looks like a thick piece..No matter who’s making it If you’re ever gonna thin it at this point you have to raise one of the edges and shoot flakes across the piece, I don’t know why the maker stopped, maybe he got snake bit...

 

[uniface]

Good eye.

 

[newnan man]

I thought it was unfinished too. No fine edge work, don't know what it would be used for at that stage.

 

[uniface]

 

[newnan man]

I call all those types Turtle Back scrapers. I think many were just to strike flakes off for expedient blades.

 

[Tdog]

Doesn't look near as thick as I first thought. I think it's a preform but from what era, I'm not sure.

Edit: Clovis Point Made With Enterline Fluting

Now that I'm boned-up on Enterline fluting, I can see what you're talking about Mr. Bill. Still, that preform looks somewhat short for the final product to be effective on large mega-fauna. You think so or not?

 

[uniface]

Always more questions than answers, Terry.

The more I ponder it, the more I wonder if it might not be from early on, as they were figuring it out or, more likely, from later, when they were forgetting how everything came together in the finished product -- steps are all there except for thinning the base enough, but it doesn't add up.

For sure, they did sometimes make small points. Even little toy-size ones.

FWIW

 

[H.P.]

Jack Crafty on utube can take that and make a paper thin point without losing too much width and length,, he posts regularly

 

[uniface]

Re-reading an article Doc Gramly wrote on the Phil Stratton site utilized prismatic blades (North American Archaeologist vol. 34 nr. 2), it dawned on me that a lot of the neumanman bombing could pass for pre-paleo.



So so the question now is, how long did lamellar blade making continue in Florida ?

 

[H.P.]

According to my visits to several large quarry sites, I would say through the woodland period.

 

[uniface]

People made lamellar blades at quarry sites ? News on this end. Pretty much everywhere else they were made (if/when made at all) at workshop/habitation sites.

And how does one distinguish one era's tested rock from another's' so as to date activity at a quarry ? By patination ?

 

[uniface]

Moving right along here, for whomever might be interested (assuming anybody is).

More "second, closer look" fun. Two of the blades in the group above. Both are poster child samples of knapping procedure that is noted (so far, at least) as specific to Clovis blade production (see Collins if interested). I.e., striking platforms are

--isolated
-- relieved
-- ground
-- and bulbs of percussion are very low-amplitude ones (not big and round like later ones).





Number 2: relieved on one side; naturally isolated @ left. Can't get the bulb on this one well-enough in focus to illustrate it, but also low.

 

[H.P.]

People made lamellar blades at quarry sites ? News on this end. Pretty much everywhere else they were made (if/when made at all) at workshop/habitation sites.

And how does one distinguish one era's tested rock from another's' so as to date activity at a quarry ? By patination ?

Sorry, I should’ve included workshops also,! I don’t know much about the blades you’re talking about, but from the Photos they look like the ones I found,on almost any kind of site, almost non existent on habitation sites...Some historic sites have a micro blade and core industry..

 

[MosesOfTheSouth]

my best one face i've been meaning to share with bill/uni.











there are more picures. let me know if there are angles you'd like uni/bill.[

 

[uniface]

Super pieces, Mo !! Both of them.

Since you're offering, one looking straight down, like you'd do with any point. And both, please.

What river, where, what chert &c.?

 

[MosesOfTheSouth]

threw a few others in for good measure.

 

[uniface]

1. Thank you !

2. Unless it's classified information, where are these from (county, river, state) ? What cherts ? I can guess, but it's better to know.

3. BEAUTIFUL STUFF !!!!

4. Two prismatic blades, a limace and an extensively reworked thick flake are what I see there, FWIW.

 

[Lone Star]

Expedient tool

 

[uniface]

FWIW, an exedient tool is usually a piece of debitage casually used, usually without modification, to accomplish some purpose and then discarded.

The tools Moses shows were, in the case of the blades, purposefully made. The irregularly shaped one has been repeatedly and purposefully modified. The limace reached its present form after successive reworkings. The khacki one, like the others, has purposefully formed edges.