Artifact of the Week 3/21/2011

Both of these unifacial knife fragments are made from Edwards Plateau Chert from central Texas.  Unifacial knives were an important, but often overlooked part of the Paleoindian toolkit.  Overall morphology of these knives is determined by the shape and size of the flake used.  The Blackwater Draw site had a close connection with the Edwards Plateau of south-central Texas in prehistoric times through the two prominent landforms near the site.  These are the Blackwater Draw proper and the Pecos Valley.  Following either of these will lead you directly to chert sources of the Edwards Plateau (click map to expand).

From USGS 18th Annual Report, Part II

 

Artifact of the Week 2/28/2011

LA3324.32904: Unfluted Folsom projectile point fragment made of Alibates agate.

This artifact was excavated from the Blackwater Draw North Bank in 1963 by J. Collins.  This fragment was found in the Folsom-age horizon just 36 cm (14 inches) below the Agate Basin stratigraphic unit.

Alibates chert, sometimes called “flint”, is better described as an agatized dolomite.  The Alibates Flint Quarries located near Amarillo, TX is the source for this raw material.

To learn more about this commonly used raw material, visit Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument.

Points

During some recent editing of the blog I have been made keenly aware of our dearth of projectile point photos on the web.  This is what Clovis groupies dream about at night, right?  Be aware that we are currently undertaking a long-term electronic cataloging project that, in the end, will make the entire collection available to researchers.  With this, we hope to have an image database available on the web for everyone’s viewing pleasure.

You can see some artifact photos on the Collections page or get right to the points here, and endscrapers here.

Artifact Analysis

We have begun a new analysis of all artifacts in our possession at the site.  It is our intention to publish a master volume of the artifacts along with faunal remains and other site data in 2010.  The first step is building a database which I hope to publish on-line.  GTC