A TRUE Folsom hafted scraper

[MikeE]

Pictures of Hornstone biface, probably early Archaic
Mike

[CDEAN]

I agree, Mike. It looks almost exactly like hornstone. But has anyone here ever seen a hornstone Folsom? That would be very unusual.

[MikeE]

Mike Gramley has article in the Folsom issue Perhistoric American about a Folsom found just north of this piece in the glaciated area. I personally think they were a Plains specialist who started adventuring east and ran into more advance, or maybe diverse groups, becoming mixed...with the result being some very finely made earl;y archaic types in the regions closest to the plains... Now,, I am wondering how many of you guys ever considered these types of affects cross culturally??
Mike

[uniface]

FWIW (if anything) :

1) The one time in prehistory when it would be most likely to find hornstone in Maine would be around the time of the Adena culture's decline and breakup. Whether or not this still seems plausible or not I don't know, but Don Dragoo's reconstruction of prehistory, back around the 1960s, figured that Hopewell supplanted Adena in Ohio. Forced out, some of the Adena people migrated down the Ohio and up the Tennessee, settling there as Copena. At the same time, others went east, over the mountains, continuing their traditional culture (as in one big mound complex in Delaware) and extending up the coast into New England. If that IS Ohio Hornstone, from the flatness, flaking and shape of it (although not what somebody did with the edges), Adena would be a plausible attribution.

2) One unusual thing that sticks out about the Folsom (?) relic is the long, narrow, low-angled edgework. The very little I've seen of Folsom leads me to expect equally narrow and closely spaced edge finishing, but at a steeper angle (axe edge rather than knife edge) from it. (?)

3) Back to Dragoo again, and a term he coined : the AquaPlano. As he reconstructed the past, the western plains had originally been a herd-hunter's paradise. When the post-glacial warming set in, the lakes and marshes dried up, forcing both the bison and the (Folsom, Agate Basin et al.) people to drift northeastward, following the retreat of the habitat they needed to survive toward the Great Lakes.

What you ended up with is, for a brief period, western Plano types in places like the Dakotas, Minnesota &c. and Folsom as far east as western Illinois.

[sands of time]

Found west tx , desert region .

[knife river]

Looks like a nice piece of good old Georgetown blue to me, right down to the little inclusion in one ear.

Uniface, the edge retouch on a Folsom isn't steep from the git-go. On first stage points the angles are low and the flakes are relatively broad. The flaking becomes steeper, shorter, and occasionally narrower as the point undergoes multiple resharpenings.

[MikeE]

Given that the artifact is from west Texas I would have to agree with Knife River ...its very unlikely that its Hornstone. Georgetown materials and Hornstone are very similiar, but I doubt traveled that far.

Uniface--Adena's are found in Maine especially along the coastal islands, but they are rare, I have wondered about the term or notion they were pushed out, but consider the move to the NE the result of trade thru Penn. with the area. Once they got word how nice it was up here they took off, probably why it look like a forcing...hehehe

I do believe that flaking techniques used by the Folsom groups heavily influenced the Early Archic technologies in states like Illinois, Indiana, and maybe even Ohio.
M

[uniface]

Originally Posted by KR

the edge retouch on a Folsom isn't steep from the git-go. On first stage points the angles are low and the flakes are relatively broad. The flaking becomes steeper, shorter, and occasionally narrower as the point undergoes multiple resharpenings.

I'm having trouble getting my head wrapped around that.

With Folsom, once the outline's finished and the edges are ground, "typically," re-sharpening is only at the tip.

No ?

Yes ?

[knife river]

Originally Posted by uniface

I'm having trouble getting my head wrapped around that.

With Folsom, once the outline's finished and the edges are ground, "typically," re-sharpening is only at the tip.

No ?

Yes ?

Yes and no. For reasons I don't fully understand, they would occasionally resharpen only the tip. I think that was done while the point remained hafted as we frequently see points with a break in the silhouette and different type of retouch around the tip.

There are other points that have been resharpened to include the lower edges. The flaking is sequential and uninterrupted from ear to tip with a smooth silhouette. I think they were probably removed from the haft for that. Why? I don't know, but I think it was done to insure the forward cutting edge remained wider than the sinew-wrapped section in order to minimize drag/friction when entering the target.

When they were brand new, there was fairly minimal edge retouch -- just enough to straighten the edge and clean up the deltas left from the heavy pressure flaking to shape that face for fluting. And from a few rare examples of spanking new points, it seems the tip was "apiculate" -- a $3 word for needle tipped (as were several other types of pressure-flaked paleos). That feature disappeared pretty quickly with use/resharpening. I think a Folsom might undergo numerous resharpenings -- perhaps seven or more before it was exhausted from either loss of length or width.

Still a lot to learn about these fascinating points!

[Panola]

I found this artifact on the Trinity Drainage ( east Texas ) a couple of years ago . The site produced for me Early-stemmed , Scottsbluff , Wells , Plainview and a number of San Patrice and Pelican looking thangs . Clayton V. found a Midland base also there .

I sent this arrowfact to Tom Westfall , Dean of the Folsom school . Tom is the most astute of the avocational collectors when it comes to western paleo ( only Ben Stermer is mentioned along with Tom . )

Tom sent these remarks back to me ; this is a paleo scraper ----if I found it in context with folsom tools /artifacts I would identify as a folsom tool . However since it was out of context ( gravel bar ) I could not call it folsom for certain . ( Tom correct me if I misquoted you . ) .

It is unifacial and made of a high grade of flint material . One edge of the scraper is a darker cortex look but it is very nicely knapped also .

Any comments or corrections will be welcome . Don Black