Blood Residues on Fluted Points from Eastern Beringia

1998 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas H. Loy ◽  
E. James Dixon

Blood residues have been microscopically and chemically detected on fluted projectile points from eastern Beringia. From these residues a variety of large mammal species, including mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), have been identified using biochemical and molecular-biological methods. This is the first time a direct association has been made between the use of fluted projectile points and human predation of extinct fauna and other large Pleistocene mammals in arctic and subarctic North America. This suggests the northern fluted-point assemblages are part of the Paleoindian big-game hunting tradition that was widespread in North America at the close of the Pleistocene.

1989 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-66
Author(s):  
Shawn D. Haley

The earliest cultures of North America produced exquisitely made fluted projectile points. Over time, projectile points became progressively more crude in form and workmanship. A common explanation for this apparent regression is that native North American stone workers “lost the art of fine flint knapping.” This hypothesis is questioned and an alternative offered. It is suggested that regression had not occurred. Rather, there had been a shift in epistemological importance away from projectile points into more relevant areas for those more recent cultures. Points simply were no longer important to them.


1999 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliet E. Morrow ◽  
Toby A. Morrow

This paper examines geographic variation in fluted point morphology across North and South America. Metric data on 449 North American points, 31 Central American points, and 61 South American points were entered into a database. Ratios calculated from these metric attributes are used to quantify aspects of point shape across the two continents. The results of this analysis indicate gradual, progressive changes in fluted point outline shape from the Great Plains of western North America into adjacent parts of North America as well as into Central and South America. The South American “Fishtail” form of fluted point is seen as the culmination of incremental changes in point shape that began well into North America. A geographically gradual decline in fluting frequency also is consistent with the stylistic evolution of the stemmed “Fishtail” points. Although few in number, the available radiocarbon dates do suggest that “Fishtail” fluted points in southern South America are younger than the earliest dates associated with Clovis points in western North America. All of these data converge on the conclusion that South American “Fishtail” points evolved from North American fluted points.


1959 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emil W. Haury ◽  
E. B. Sayles ◽  
William W. Wasley

AbstractIn 1955-56 the Arizona State Museum excavated an elephant-kill site on the Lehner ranch in the San Pedro valley, near Hereford, Arizona, and found 13 projectiles, mainly Clovis fluted points, eight butchering tools, and charcoal from two fires among the remains of nine immature mammoths and elements of horse, bison, and tapir. Bones and artifacts occurred on and in gravels of a former perennial stream exposed in the modern arroyo bank. Most or all of the animals were probably killed over a comparatively short period by hunters identified with the Llano complex by the Clovis points. The Lehner site and the nearby Naco site represent the southwesternmost extent of the presently known range of the Llano complex. The post-kill sequence of alluviation and erosion supports a geological age of 13,000 or more years for both bones and artifacts. Arizona, Michigan, and Copenhagen radiocarbon measurements of hearth charcoal indicate a date of 11,000 to 12,000 B.P. Since these dates are substantially older than the oldest radiocarbon assays for the Sulphur Spring stage of the Cochise culture, it is probable that the transition from big-game hunting to collecting is reflected in the change from Llano complex to Cochise culture, and that this shift in economic emphasis took place before the complete extinction of the late Pleistocene megafauna.


Antiquity ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 89 (346) ◽  
pp. 940-953 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Loendorf ◽  
Lynn Simon ◽  
Daniel Dybowski ◽  
M. Kyle Woodson ◽  
R. Scott Plumlee ◽  
...  

Abstract


1966 ◽  
Vol 31 (5Part1) ◽  
pp. 644-661 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J Mayer-Oakes

AbstractSurface collecting in 1960 and excavations in 1961 have produced a large sample of chipped obsidian tools from El Inga, a site in Highland Ecuador. From a total surface collection sample of 83 projectile points, 25 complete and 3 nearly complete specimens have been examined intensively. They are described here by precise line drawings and narrative statements about the presence or absence and quantity or quality of morphological and technological attributes within the five attribute systems of material, form, dimension, chipping, and grinding. The three major projectile point styles derived here — “Fell's Cave Stemmed,” “Ayampitin,” and “Paijan” — are interpreted as representing horizon markers in South American preceramic times. The “Fell's Cave Stemmed” style is earliest and shows some technological relationships to the "fluted" points of North America.


2013 ◽  
Vol 285 ◽  
pp. 111-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
John D. Speth ◽  
Khori Newlander ◽  
Andrew A. White ◽  
Ashley K. Lemke ◽  
Lars E. Anderson

1968 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard G. Forbis

AbstractIn 1963, the Glenbow Foundation excavated a bison bone bed exposed at a water hole in southern Alberta near the Montana border. Age estimates grounded in geology place the bone bed between 7,000 and 11,000 years ago. Projectile points at the Fletcher site include the Alberta and Scottsbluff types. Other artifacts suggest that the site was not only a kill but also a butchering station. The heavy emphasis on bison here, as well as at nearly all related sites in the northern Great Plains, makes it clear that Fletcher properly belongs to the Paleo-Indian big-game hunting continuum rather than to the Archaic stage.


Antiquity ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 74 (285) ◽  
pp. 507-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
David G. Anderson ◽  
Michael K. Faught

The distribution of projectile points over broad geographic areas yields important insights about Palaeoindian settlement pattern and history. While traditionally viewed as a Great Plains adaptation, the data show that fluted points are far more common in Eastern North America. These artefacts are not evenly spread across the landscape, furthermore, but occur in distinct concentrations. Within some of these areas distinct cultural traditions quickly emerged, something that appears tied to the sudden onset of the Younger Dryas.


2002 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry L. Jones ◽  
Richard T. Fitzgerald ◽  
Douglas J. Kennett ◽  
Charles H. Miksicek ◽  
John L. Fagan ◽  
...  

Recent excavations at the Cross Creek site (CA-SLO-1797) on the central coast of California revealed a stratigraphically discrete midden component dating between ca. 8350 and 7700 cal B.C., making it the oldest mainland shell midden on the west coast of North America. A large recovery volume revealed an assemblage dominated by grinding implements (handstones and milling slabs) and crude core and flake tools typical of California's Milling Stone horizon, but the Cross Creek findings extend the antiquity of Milling Stone back to the terminal Pleistocene. The tools and associated faunal remains suggest a gathering economy profoundly different from the terminal Pleistocene big-game hunting of interior North America. This variation is difficult to reconcile as a simple adaptive outgrowth from late Pleistocene hunting and may reflect a separate coastal migration route into the New World.


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