Lunate Crescents (Quarter to half moon) Great Basin

[CMD]

Greatbasinman, Here are a couple of fairly recent articles describing an important discovery of crescents on the Channel Islands off California. The 2nd link includes a photo showing point types found with the crescents, points now considered as dating to the paleo era.

California islands give up evidence of early seafaring: Numerous artifacts found at late Pleistocene sites on the Channel Islands

TYWKIWDBI ("Tai-Wiki-Widbee"): Paleo-era tools from California's Channel Islands

[Greatbasinman]

Thanks for the links CMD, I'd heard of those from the Channel Islands but had not seen any photos. It's kind of hard to believe those stemmed points are that old, they sure look similar to a stemmed Rose Spring which are 1600-600 B.P., very interesting

[Sierratracker]

I am late to seeing this thread. GBM, you have a very fine collection of all types of crescents. Very impressive. My first time seeing eccentrics as well. I agree those do not appear to have any value as a tool. But who knows?? Eccentrics are not in my hunting territories.

My opinion is that these were cutting tools. Not used as a weapons. All of mine were found in campsites. My dad found one in Nevada so I need to ask where he found it. Mine were not found on a lakeshore but along a large river that feeds an old paleo lake. However, this may have been a marshy area at the time. I don't know.

Mojave, I have 8 complete or near complete crescents and 3 of them are uniface. I have 7 broken examples of which 2 are unifacial. So, 5 of the 15 are unifacial. Most (12 of 16) are obsidian. The unifacial versions were found in GB stemmed sites. Of course, after GBM's examples here, mine are not worthy to post. Lol.

[Wichita]

Great topic. Great finds. Thanks for posting Greatbasinman! I know I'm a little late, but welcome to the forum from the great state of Oklahoma!