Knife River Quarry to be Dedicated as NHL

Knife River Quarry is well known to those who study prehistoric lithics on the Plains of North America.  Owned and protected for many years by the Lynch family of North Dakota, the quarry was included as a National Historic Landmark in 2011.  The dedication will happen this Saturday, June 9 at the property.  Thanks to Damita Engel of Metcalf Archaeological Consultants, Inc. for writing the nomination, an often thankless task.

A sample of KRF from lithic sourcing web page.

Bismarck Tribune Article

Official NPS link

While visiting the quarry, don’t miss the Knife River Indian Villages National Park.  A great stepping stone into the Upper Missouri region and the village where Lewis and Clark picked up their most famous guide, Sakakawea.

Earth Lodge at Knife River

For more on North Dakota’s Historic Preservation programs visit their site here.

Artifact of the week 11/9/2011

Folsom ultrathin biface from the Clovis site North Bank.

Ultrathin bifaces are a recently recognized element distinctive to the Folsom toolkit.  Ultrathin bifaces are found at many Folsom sites including those in North Dakota, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.  Ultrathin bifacial manufacturing technology appears consistent between numerous sites recognized by distinctive, opposed diving bifacial thinning flakes (Root et al. 1994).

Morphologically, the Folsom ultrathin biface is broad in width, has finely retouched excurvate margins, and is extremely thin (Boldurian 1999:111).  Functionally, its use is generally interpreted as a non-hafted knife or cutting implement used for butchering and processing game.  Pegi Jodry (1998) has suggested that ultrathin bifaces were used and maintained by women for specialized butchering required for drying strips of meat.

Comments welcome.

Boldurian, Anthony T.  1999  Clovis Revisited:New Perspectives on Paleoindian Adaptations from Blackwater Draw, New Mexico.  University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia.

Jodry, Margaret A.  1998  The Possible Design of Folsom Ultrathin Bifaces as Fillet Knives for Jerky Production.  Current Research in the Pleistocene 15:75-77.

Root, Matthew J., J. D. William, Marvin Kay, and L. K. Shifrin  1999  Folsom Ultrathin Biface and Radial Break Tools in the Knife River Flint Quarry Area.  In Folsom Lithic Technology: Explorations in Structure and Variation, edited by D. S. Amick, International Monographs in Prehistory, Archaeological Series, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Photo of the Week 9/9/2011

An excellent example of the gravers discovered at Blackwater Draw.  This was excavated in 1963 and is made of Edwards Plateau chert.

New Mexico Prehistory 2011

Thanks to all who braved the heat to come out for the New Mexico Prehistory Weekend this year.  Pottery firing was done off-site due to an open flame ban but the results were remarkable.  The work of Ulysses Reid is not to be missed.

Preheating.

Dung and Osage Orange scraps.

After burn.

The finished product.

Cleaned up and on display.

Many folks were introduced to the spear thrower (atlatl).

Bead working demonstrated.

General pre-industrial technology of the southwest was covered.

And, as always, yucca fiber art was a big hit.

There was a large turn out of knappers (ooga booga to you all), archery, native plant talks, and horn working.

I was remiss in taking photos so if anyone would like to contribute, we would be glad to post them.

Thanks to all who participated.