Clovis,Folsom, and Midland components at the Debra L. Friedkin site,Texas: context,chronology, and assemblages

The archaeological transition from Clovis to Folsom and Midland in the North American Great Plains coincides with the end of the Pleistocene and onset of the Younger Dryas. Comparisons exploring the adaptive changes that took place during this period frequently employ regional-scale approaches. The focus on regional-scale analyses largely results from the dearth of sites repeatedly visited by multiple early Paleoindian groups. However, regional-scale comparisons have the potential to overlook smaller-scale differences. The Debra L. Friedkin site, Texas offers an opportunity to study Midland, Folsom, and Clovis technology and site-use at a single site. This paper presents the context and chronology of the Midland, Folsom, and Clovis assemblages and a site-scale analysis of lithics from the Friedkin site. It is argued that point production and late-stage reduction were primary activities, and the use of bifacial cores for flake tools was important throughout these occupation periods. Site use at Friedkin differs from early Paleoindian occupation at the nearby Gault site and expands our understanding of settlement and technological organization in the region.     

Anticipated mobility and its archaeological signature: A case study of Folsom retooling strategies

This essay highlights the value of anticipated mobility for untangling variability in prehistoric stone tool manufacture. To do so, it explores the organization of weaponry production at a series of Folsom campsites via the highly visible archaeological signature of Folsom fluting. A model of weaponry replacement based on deep planning and anticipation of needs is proposed, according to which Folsom hunters commonly replace their projectile points as they wear down, break or are lost, but on fewer occasions engage in the mass production of fluted points. This technological organization is consistent with a highly mobile way of life in which advanced planning buffers the risk associated with limited or stochastic access to good quality lithic raw materials. The model is then put to the test at the Lindenmeier site in northern Colorado. The spatial patterning of fluting activities in two discrete areas of the site demonstrates contrasting strategies of point manufacture: conservation versus gearing up (creation of a surplus). It is argued that these patterns represent distinct facets of a single technological organization.     

A biface and blade core efficiency experiment: implications for Early Paleoindian technological organization

Early Paleoindians often are described as highly mobile hunter–gatherers who employed lithic technologies designed to minimize stone transport costs. We experimentally reduced blade and bifacial cores and found both reduction strategies to be equally efficient for the production of useable flake blanks. Further, when compared to similar core reduction experiments, the results of this study showed no significant differences in core efficiency between bifacial, prismatic blade, and wedge-shaped blade core reduction. Biface and blade cores with initial weights greater than 1000 g produced useable flakes as efficiently as informal cores. However, bifacial and blade core efficiency decreased with initial core weight. When considered in terms of Early Paleoindian technological organization, differences in core efficiencies suggest that Folsom groups employed core reduction strategies designed to minimize stone transport costs, but Clovis groups did not.     

Spatiotemporal dynamics of the Clovis–Folsom transition

Despite the importance of the Clovis–Folsom transition for understanding the history of western North America, its spatiotemporal dynamics remains unclear. Here we report a three-part study in which we investigated the transition using radiocarbon dates from Clovis and Folsom sites. In the first part of the study, we used dates from Folsom site-phases to determine when and where Folsom originated. In the second part of the study, we employed Clovis and Folsom dates in analyses designed to determine whether Folsom spread via demic diffusion or cultural diffusion. In the third part of the study we investigated the velocity of the Clovis–Folsom transition. The analyses suggest that Folsom first appeared around 12,800 calBP in the northern High Plains and spread north and south from there. They also suggest that the spread of Folsom was, at least in part, the result of population expansion. In addition, the analyses indicate that the spread of Folsom was relatively fast for a prehistoric diffusion but well below the maximum velocity that has been estimated for such events. These findings, in turn, have implications for the hypotheses that have been put forward to explain the Clovis–Folsom transition. They refute the idea that the Clovis–Folsom transition resulted from an extraterrestrial impact over northern North America at 12,900 ± 100 calBP but are consistent with the alternative proposal that the transition was a response to climate-driven environmental change.     

Bison butchery at Cooper,a Folsom site on the Southern Plains

Cooper, a Folsom arroyo-trap bison kill site in northwest Oklahoma is composed of three large-scale kill episodes. The bison bones have been examined for butchering evidence and exploring the butchering pattern. Damage categories to cortical bone are indentation, cut mark, helical fracture, and impact blow. The 99 elements damaged are from 36 carcasses across all three kills, and damage morphology indicates both lithic and bone expediency tools were used in the butchering. Animals are being butchered in an upright position on their stomachs, with transverse and abdominal muscles the focal point. Experimental butchering of a bison replicates the reconstructed sequence and underscores a gourmet butchering style for the Cooper kills.     

High-Tech Foragers? Folsom and Later Paleoindian Technology on the Great Plains

Archaeologists generally argue that early (ca. 11,000–8000 B.P. populations on the North American Great Plains moved over very large areas, relying on sophisticated, biface-based flaked stone technology and on extensive resharpening and recycling of tools to cope with unpredictable access to raw material sources. This paper reviews the development of this reconstruction and considers the degree to which data from assemblages of Paleoindian flaked stone tools support it. Published information implies that patterns of raw material use vary greatly over the Plains, that bifaces were not the centerpiece of Paleoindian technology, that there are no published efforts to document an unusual degree of resharpening or recycling, and that the data that are available on these topics do not suggest that either was important. Detailed analysis of one assemblage, from the Allen site in southwestern Nebraska, carried out with these issues in mind, shows similar patterns. The great difference between what the literature says about Paleoindian technology and the documented character of that technology suggests that Paleoindian lifeways were far more variable than current discussions suggest.     

An analysis of Folsom projectile point resharpening using quantitative comparisons of form and allometry

A sample of Folsom points from the Southern Plains of Texas and New Mexico is analyzed quantitatively in order to assess patterns of point resharpening in relation to distance to raw material source area and evaluate models of how resharpening was accomplished in terms of point design. A newly developed digitizing method is used to capture 12 interlandmark characters from coordinate data to describe point form. Principal components analysis is used to investigate size and shape variation in point form, and the symmetry and allometry of characters are used to explore the effects of resharpening on point dimensions. Size allometry illustrates the degree of association of relative point proportions, and other aspects of point form, with point size. Blade length, the leading edge of the weapon, was found to be isometric with point size, suggesting that this character was critical to the proper functioning of weapon tips. The regulation of blade length to point size supports a fixed-in-haft model for Folsom point resharpening. Multivariate analyses show that reduction in point forms do not correlate with distance-to-source but are more consistent with the model of the cyclical resharpening and replacement of points. This research illustrates that multivariate and allometric analyses are useful methods for investigating models of technological organization and the effects of resharpening on point form.