Paleoindian Endscrapers

[uniface]

First off, "the new guy" here is NOT trying to start something. OK ? This is not about, or with reference to anybody here personally. It's about replacing inaccurate (if common) impressions with good information.

IMHO, anyone with an interest in paleoindian endscrapers (data - not opinion) should start with

http://www.ele.net/pes/pesintro.htm

It's the best general introduction to the subject on the net.

This deals specifically with southwestern US paleo endscrapers, (which have some regional peculiarities). For an overview of eastern (Illinois) examples (download PDF),

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

And if you just want to look at some neat paleo endscrapers from northern New York, maybe trying out the ideas you've picked up from Baker and Morrow,

http://sracenter.blogspot.com/2008/07/arc-site.html

And for our Canadian friends,

http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/anthropology/cje/Thedford.htm

Cheers & Regards

 

[Tnmountains]

Anything for my area in the South east where we find lots of scrapers. I am sure every one I have is Paleo. LOL Just kidding.What do you suggest?

 

[Road Dog]

In my area in Central NC it's material type used and they are triangle or teardrop shaped.To me these types are early archaic or paleo.

 

[uniface]

Well, look at how many paleo and late paleo points have turned up over the years out your way, then ask yourself whether they might not be paleo after all. A lot of people over the years (collectors and archaeologists alike) have concluded that individual states like Tennessee and Kentucky have probably produced more fluted points than the entire US west of the Mississippi. This inbalance has even led some to speculate that the area from northern Alabama up through Ohio was the original paleo heartland -- the place that Clovis folks and their relatives occupied for the longest time and in the greatest numbers.

You can approach it directly, comparing what you're finding on sites that produce known paleo stuff with what various site reports &c. in your area illustrate and describe. Material(s), size, form, manufacturing technique(s) and so forth often allow you to make an educated guess with the odds in your favor (at least).

You can also approach it by elimination, learning enough about the tool forms typically made by the various archaic cultures in your area to weed them out of your survey. This is easy in places like much of Pennsylvania, where formal endscrapers disappear in the Early Archaic and don't re-appear until Woodland. I know I pounded three big backwater archaic sites around the forks of the Susquehanna for five years like a maniac and found exactly zero scrapers that weren't re-worked Woodland points. This was frustrating as all get out, because uniface scrapers/tools were what I was especially looking for. Any time they needed something like one, they'd just pick up a suitable piece of the lithic scatter around them, use it as an ad hoc tool (the twenty-five cent term is "expedient tool"), and pitch it when they were done with it. 95% of the time with no modification at all. So once you've eliminated everything you know is NOT paleo, what you're left with is pretty well narrowed down.

In other places (the Dakotas come to mind), it seems they were still making some of the same cornered endscrapers with longitudinal scars from previous removals that Folsom used when the settlers showed up. So it depends on your area. The national vs. local aspect of it can be a bugger. Like if you noticed, Morrow cited the same basic ovate endscraper form (on the basis of the Twin Ditch Site) as disgnostic of Early Archaic that showed up at Thedford in a pure fluted point context.

If that particular bug ever bites you, you can end up scouring the internet (I'm up to page 26 of Early Archaic Uniface on Google), buying site reports, and studying a lot of stuff (like flintknapping and lithic sourcing) that maybe weren't all that interesting before.

There are worse ways to go

 

[Th3rty7]

Thanks for the links, the first one is especially helpful and informative. Accurately typing scrapers is an aggravating task, and one I've unfortunately given up on. My main problem iding scrapers to specific culture is nearly every place I hunt is multicomponent, some have evidence of all four major periods. I did find five similar uniface scrapers that came from the same deep stratum. All the points associated with this layer were Hardaway Dalton types. I appreciate your research.

 

[uniface]

Glad to be of some use, Thirty7

The man said, "Dalton scrapers" ?
http://www.lithiccastinglab.com/gallery-pages/2008marchdaltontoolspage1.htm

Knock yourself out

PS : It would be a serious treat to see your Hardaway-related unifaces ! They'd be a "first" for yr. obt. svt. here

 

[Tnmountains]

Here is one of a few uni faced tools I have. It actually comes from N. Alabama and has been considered to be Paleo. I am not an expert.The area it comes from is very disheartening to hunt as its mostly just worked flint with very few points ever found there at least by me anyhow.
Do you think this would be a good example of a paleo endscraper if indeed it is Paleo?
Thanks for the research and time.

 

[Th3rty7]

Glad to be of some use, Thirty7

The man said, "Dalton scrapers" ?
http://www.lithiccastinglab.com/gallery-pages/2008marchdaltontoolspage1.htm

Knock yourself out

PS : It would be a serious treat to see your Hardaway-related unifaces ! They'd be a "first" for yr. obt. svt. here

Another great link there uniface! that site is awesome. Here are two of the five, traded the other three for a fluted Dalton. These were the best two, largest example is 2 1/8, piece on the right has worn spurs on both sides. Last pic is the business ends.

 

[creek astronaut]

Well, look at how many paleo and late paleo points have turned up over the years out your way, then ask yourself whether they might not be paleo after all. A lot of people over the years (collectors and archaeologists alike) have concluded that individual states like Tennessee and Kentucky have probably produced more fluted points than the entire US west of the Mississippi. This inbalance has even led some to speculate that the area from northern Alabama up through Ohio was the original paleo heartland -- the place that Clovis folks and their relatives occupied for the longest time and in the greatest numbers.

You can approach it directly, comparing what you're finding on sites that produce known paleo stuff with what various site reports &c. in your area illustrate and describe. Material(s), size, form, manufacturing technique(s) and so forth often allow you to make an educated guess with the odds in your favor (at least).

You can also approach it by elimination, learning enough about the tool forms typically made by the various archaic cultures in your area to weed them out of your survey. This is easy in places like much of Pennsylvania, where formal endscrapers disappear in the Early Archaic and don't re-appear until Woodland. I know I pounded three big backwater archaic sites around the forks of the Susquehanna for five years like a maniac and found exactly zero scrapers that weren't re-worked Woodland points. This was frustrating as all get out, because uniface scrapers/tools were what I was especially looking for. Any time they needed something like one, they'd just pick up a suitable piece of the lithic scatter around them, use it as an ad hoc tool (the twenty-five cent term is "expedient tool"), and pitch it when they were done with it. 95% of the time with no modification at all. So once you've eliminated everything you know is NOT paleo, what you're left with is pretty well narrowed down.

In other places (the Dakotas come to mind), it seems they were still making some of the same cornered endscrapers with longitudinal scars from previous removals that Folsom used when the settlers showed up. So it depends on your area. The national vs. local aspect of it can be a bugger. Like if you noticed, Morrow cited the same basic ovate endscraper form (on the basis of the Twin Ditch Site) as disgnostic of Early Archaic that showed up at Thedford in a pure fluted point context.

If that particular bug ever bites you, you can end up scouring the internet (I'm up to page 26 of Early Archaic Uniface on Google), buying site reports, and studying a lot of stuff (like flintknapping and lithic sourcing) that maybe weren't all that interesting before.

There are worse ways to go

not to get off the subject to much,but I have been very interested in the debate amongst archeaologists that go against a more accepted theory of where ancient man first inhabited north america.i have to say that those suspecting that early paleo man crossed into america from europe have a very convincing argument that is supported partially by the quanity of clovis sites in the eastern part of north america versus the western part.as uniface has mentioned there are far more clovis finds in the eastern part of north america than the western.kind of curious what others on this forum think on the topic??

 

[Th3rty7]

PreClovis dna and Solutrean like artifacts beneath the paleo layers are convincing evidence in my opinion. Unfortunately ego, and political baggage play a substantial part in this debate.

 

[creek astronaut]

i agree thirty7,interesting that alot of good evidence to support this theory is coming out your neck of the woods.

 

[uniface]

TnMountains : Wow -- I wrote a long post last night about your artifact, pointing out that the site your northern Alabama example came from was probably a quarry site. On which most of what you'll find will be something like what you're showing.

This morning, it's gone.

Very strange.

Thirty7 : Sweet stuff ! And thanks ! Unfortunately, my browser (firefox on apple) only shows the left sides of bigger images here, so what I can see is the left one and the left edge of the right one. Clicking on the link runs into a technical glitch I don't know how to resolve yet.

First off, that these were associated with fluted Daltons is a major anchor point on my end. I've long wondered about "big paleo" vs. "little paleo," and this goes right to the heart of it. Big paleo seems to run about as far north as central Ohio (in my all-too-limited experience), and be more common from Kentucky/Tennessee. Compare that with the collection from the upstate New York site I linked and the Shoop site in Penna., where nearly all the endscrapers would fit into a 1.5" square with room around, with most smaller yet.

It also shows (as I see it) that the general triangular form didn't so much stop being made as faded away, showing later characteristics (like more shaping via "up-&-over flaking" behind the working edge) as time passed, and tending to lose its angular corners (textbook typical early Archaic endscrapers are not triangular and have rounded bits). What's interesting also is the "wrong-way" notches on the sides of the one on the left. These have always puzzled me (and still do). Yours are off the axis of the tool, but aligned with the working edge. Odd hafting strategy here ?

Seriously neat stuff ! And thanks again !

 

[SoIll]

Uniface here's one I'd like you to see. What do you think?

 

[Th3rty7]

looks like a prismatic blade to me Solll.

 

[uniface]

TnMountains : I'm backing up & starting your reply over from scratch, because I think it's important.

Your piece could very well be Paleo. Looks like Sonora, from the little specks in it.

What you'll typically find on a habitation site (endscrapers, broken point bases, &c.) will be a different set of artifacts from what you'll find at a kill site, and that will differ again from what a quarry site produces. From your description of the kind of stuff that turns up there, I'd guess your piece came from a quarry site. If there's an outcropping or pit this stuff comes from nearby, it's almost for sure.

At a quarry site, they were digging out nodules (assuming that chert's nodular) and roughing them into usable forms. So a lot of what you find will show cortex (like yours seems to), and tend to be waste, rejected material or failed reduction attempts. Fairly near that, with luck, you'll often find where they were living while they were gathering and processing chert.

By one definition, your piece fits the blade criterion (being more than twice as long as wide). Since the bulb of percussion is almost certainly at the bottom end of it as you show it, and you've got a burin-like removal of the left edge running in the same direction, I'd have no problem calling it a blade. Clovis and blades go together like rock concerts and drugs.

Check out http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/gault/clovis.html and
http://www.lithiccastinglab.com/gallery-pages/cloviswheredidcomefrompage1.htm

Offhand, it's not an endscraper on a blade -- compare it with the example of one halfway down the page at
http://www.lithiccastinglab.com/gallery-pages/cloviswheredidcomefrompage2.htm

but it easily could have been one with thirty seconds' worth of work.

 

[uniface]

SoIll : That's an interesting piece that's hard to get a handle on. What it looks like is the initial removal from a nodule prepared to be a core by knocking the cap off and creating a ridge along the thinnest edge of it to focus the first blade removal along its length. Once the first one's off, it's worked around like peeling an orange.

So, yeah, it is a prismatic blade -- a special kind of one. I've got one very similar to it of Coshocton that I wish I could show you. Maybe some day.

A paleo endscraper ? What they were doing out at the tip of it doesn't ring a bell -- it may have been that they were removing a flaw in the material that would have impeded making it into one, and put it aside at that point without ever getting back to finish it.

I frankly don't know. It looks like it exceeds the maximum blade length limit usually given for Hopewell (two inches), but it's unusually narrow. In the first pictures it looks like Dover (?). In the last one, Burlington (?)

 

[uniface]

Thirty7 -- I meant to ask you and forgot.

Are these from Virginia ? General area there ?

Can you ID the material they're made of ?

Points were of the same stuff ?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Tnmountains]

Uni try your Safari browser on your Mac or grab and stretch your screen out at the corners. Firefox should show though. Nothing better than an apple for multi tasking a zillion programs at once with no lag

 

[Th3rty7]

Thirty7 -- I meant to ask you and forgot.

Are these from Virginia ? General area there ?

Can you ID the material they're made of ?

Points were of the same stuff ?

Thanks in advance.

They're from southern West Virginia, I have no idea on the first material on the left, never seen another piece like it. I'm unsure of the other too, although it's similar too a high grade carter cave translucent flint. Most of the points and tools we found were made of this material or a similar but lower grade. It's pretty far out the range for carter cave but I've found several artifacts made of the same material in different parts of the state. If anyone has an idea of the material of the scraper on the left I'd love to hear it.

 

[uniface]

Thanks, Thirty7. Every little bit helps.

As far as the range of Carter goes, Gary Fogelman found a big early Archaic uniface tool of it in east central Pennsylvania (!) It's the artifact in the center of the cover of his book "Pennsylvania Chert" and Hothem illustrates a humdinger fluted Dalton of it in his Ohio paleo book.

Southern West Virginia : like around Charleston ? or like up on the Cumberland plateau ?

Hothem noted that a surprising percentage of Ohio fluted points are of flint nobody can source. Pretty, oddball flint seems to be a paleo/early Archaic trait -- a minor but consistent one.

TnMountains -- gonna try your hints. Thanx