questions for the pros here...

[bravowhiskey]

questions for the pro's here...

Greetings all and a fine day to you.

This fundamental question has been bothering me forever. I'll make this very simplistic.

Ya know, if a guy or gal drives up in a model-T and another drives up in a Corvette one has no trouble discerning which one is newer. It is real obvious.

Now then, we have a fine, perfectly made, beauty of a Clovis point (Paleo, 12000-9000 B.P.) Ok, and next to it we have some roughly made, say a Coahuila which is said to be made in

the late Archaic to Woodland, 4000-2000 B.P. This just doesn't make sense to me. Right out of the blue here is a perfectly developed Clovis (with no lineage we are certain of) and it is

believed to be the first in the "new world".

One would rationalize the more crudely made item would be older. As the old adage goes..."practice makes perfect".

So, now, where do uniface tools fit into this puzzle? Is it believed they fall into a more recent time? Again one would think, the cruder the item the older. It just seems backwards.

So can one of you pro's here please enlighten me?

Right now it is about as clear as mud.

Confused,

BW

 

[The Grim Reaper]

My thoughts have always been the cruder the item the worse the knapper. Cruder doesn't mean newer or older. There are crude looking, or at least poorly knapped pieces, from every culture and there are some very finely knapped pieces from every culture. I have some Triangle Points from the Ft Ancient period that are some of finest made pieces I own.

Now concerning Uniface Tools, they were also used be every culture and most are usually very finely made and have some very fine flaking, especially along the cutting edge. I have seen some Paleo examples that are things of beauty as well as some from the Archaic and Woodland cultures. We don't find a lot of Uniface Tools on our Ft Ancient sites and if we do they are usually small flakes with one single edge worked.

I know member thrity7 has some beautiful examples of Paleo and Archaic types so maybe he will chime in and post some.

 

[Tnmountains]

Unless you have dug down through each culture establishing a time line and culture and then hit clovis tools at the bottom and right below that an even more primitive or rough tool you may never know. I think that paleo style technology came with the inhabitants though. They already had a skill. As food was plentiful due to farming and collective efforts you see time for the fine workmanship and art. Some site locations were sitting prettier than others and the quality reflects that. A lot of unifaced tools were quick expedient tools for a quick purpose and chunked like a plastic spoon or fork especially if materials were plentiful. Just look at all the thumb scrapers larson finds.
Disclaimer: This is my opinion and subject to change with more knowledgable posters
Good day Bravo

 

[TimeWaster]

I think it ends up being essentially a random thing in the long run. Archaeologists are still pondering how Clovis made great stuff, then it fell off many places after that. Think about how brutal of an environment these people lived in. They were not all artists. Just because you have to be able to knap flint to survive, doesn't mean you are a good one. That being said, it was obviously a very important trade to learn. So in archaic times you may have a few hundred people in different areas and through fast moving diseases, bad luck, war, many talented people had to just fall out of the gene pool instantly. So what happens if a flu epidemic comes through and kills all the experienced knappers and leaves only the younger less experienced? They may not be as good, or not have the skills to get it exactly right, so the styles my get cruder until some lucky guy's squaw bears another artisan to teach others. I think it is amazing they made the same kinds of points for so many thousands of years without the losing the technology and styles through their very quick life span.

 

[bravowhiskey]

Thanks, for the input all. Maybe the reason one doesn't see the poorer quality Clovis is because we all want to display our best.

All the Clovis I have seen are superb examples of the knapping art. Kind of what I ignorantly based my confusion on. There certainly are novices now as then and we will be assured of finding some of those samples as well.

How about a thread showing duds, not brokes, but the lesser quality stuff for comparison.

bw

 

[1more4me]

Interesting question Bravo!

I'm not a pro- but will offer an opinion. Mirrors what TN Mountains said about the plastic fork. These were everday tools, something they had plenty of, and served a purpose. Likely had very little to do with how "Good they Looked".

Like your shoes- your high dollar jogging shoes run and dress shoes go to church- but a pair of flipflops will get you to the mailbox and back. If times were good, game plenty, and tribe strong- a little more time was available to knap and teach. If they experienced bad weather, lack of game, disease, etc and the tribe was weak at the time- the ugliest rock with a point would do.

In all my years of finding artifacts- One thing I know is- the ugly points are found at the camp/village sites (some good ones- but many more ugly ones!). Where they sat and knapped, some made good tools- some fractured wrong, and plenty got tossed. (camps always have the chips, pressure, and tiny finishing flakes). But the best points seem to come from tops of highest hills around, which may have been ceremonial, and clustered at what might have been kill sites (neither have chips or flakes around).

The second- and like more relevant opinion is- Clovis and Folsom cultures were meat eating travelers (who needed sharp pointed and bladed tools and lots of them.) Into the Archaic, with a far greater populations, many cultures became more stationary, migrating less, and gathering/farming more. Tools over the periods change to reflect this- and points from any given group may have had more or less importance at different times.

On a side note-
I've heard some opinions to reflect that pre-european indians were very proud, majestic, masters of thier environemnts --- and others speak to the same as not being much more sophisticated than a pack of thieveing fighting coyotes lead by an Alpha with nothing but food, shelter, and sex on the mind... Thier societies, like ours today, can be improving in one way and failing in others- maybe knapping was too lowly a task for men at some point, or maybe they got ugly when men started...
PEACE

 

[NC field hunter]

My opinion on this is one I have mentioned on several occasions. I think what we see in these tools is man's "progressive" travel toward what we are today. As time passed, man realized corners could be cut with minimal consequences. Learning how to work with his mind and not his behind.

 

[larson1951]

this interesting so thanks bravo for starting this thread

i see that reap says "My thoughts have always been the cruder the item the worse the knapper."

i might have missed it but i don't think anyone has said the material available in any given area had a lot to do with tool quality

material with the right properties (like KRF and the Porcellanites) for making tools were highly regarded and became valuable trade and export commodities since they would hold extremely sharp and long lasting edges

 

[Gold Maven]

I have been gathering artifacts for a long time, and what has always puzzled me is how ancient man could produce the exact same style of artifact for 500 or a couple thousand years.

Doesn't it seem odd that roving bands of Paleo man, spread out all over North America were making the exact same style of tools?

 

[larson1951]

I have been gathering artifacts for a long time, and what has always puzzled me is how ancient man could produce the exact same style of artifact for 500 or a couple thousand years.

Doesn't it seem odd that roving bands of Paleo man, spread out all over North America were making the exact same style of tools?

yup i agree with that, like clovis etc

 

[pointshunter]

I think if it was ever possible to time travel ( i know very far fetched idea ) it would be a great idea that someone would go back far enough to find out for sure who really was the first here it seems like there is a lot of speculation who really was here first in the states as far as early man goes and who was the first to make what . Like I read an article the other day where they found this site and were dating it with a thing that detects the last time that particular soil has seen light and they decided the pieces found were 1000's of years earlier than anything else found so far. To me I'm not to sure how accurate that process could be and to be able to state that that was a site pre dating all others? That's a big call on something so important .

I agree about how the quality would differ from one spot to another depending on available rock and I think the disease thing would have made a difference but I also was thinking what about when they fought with each other if your tribes knapper was killed during a fight that could have made a difference as well.

 

[Twitch]

If a Paleo man looked at the model-T and the Corvette he would have no idea which one was newer.

 

[NC field hunter]

this interesting so thanks bravo for starting this thread

i see that reap says "My thoughts have always been the cruder the item the worse the knapper."

i might have missed it but i don't think anyone has said the material available in any given area had a lot to do with tool quality

material with the right properties (like KRF and the Porcellanites) for making tools were highly regarded and became valuable trade and export commodities since they would hold extremely sharp and long lasting edges

Larson, you called it before I could. Lithic matters a tremendous deal. As the piece ages, weather change can cause a once flawless piece to start wasting away also. However, I understand what the poster here is getting at. Tom posted the only ugly Clovis that I have ever seen. All of the other Clovis points are beautiful. Perhaps they aren't really any prettier or well crafted. Subconsciously we may creat the beauty of the Clovis because we know their age.??

 

[Tnmountains]

I have been gathering artifacts for a long time, and what has always puzzled me is how ancient man could produce the exact same style of artifact for 500 or a couple thousand years.

Doesn't it seem odd that roving bands of Paleo man, spread out all over North America were making the exact same style of tools?

We have often wondered on very isolated hidden sites tucked back up in a valley where they made just one or two types. That is all you find. Those points from that one time period and then no other occupation. The question we struggled with was this. Is this all they knew how to make due to isolation. Or is this all they needed to survive.

 

[mcb66]

Clovis people in North America were really late in the game. Their culture had been developing for thousands of years across Asia and Europe. They had mastered their technology. Something happened at the end of the Pleistocene era and most of the humans, mega flora, and mega fauna in North America went extinct. From that point it all started over. Technology got a reboot.