Paleo Drills

[texas cache]

This may be a silly question, but I have photographed several "paleo" drills. I have always thought that a drill was made by a later culture and not the paleo culture. I assumed that for example a broken Angostura could be made into a drill and reused by a later group. I have two questions here: 1) Are there true paleo drills, and 2) if an Angostura was later picked up by lets say the Pedernales culture and they in turn made a drill out of it, how would it be classifed? Paleo? Archaic?

Thanks,
Pat

[Mojave]

Pat,
I'm obviously not an expert on Texas forms but in all my years looking in the Great Basin I NEVER saw one single artifact I could say was a paleo drill. I do believe however in some other regions there have been "points" found in the correct context that we would call drills. It seems I recall seeing some Dalton/Meserve tools that were worked into very pointy drill-like or perforator tools. I think most "paleo drills" are really not paleo. jmho

[texas cache]

Here's a photo of the drill I was referring to....

[David Crain]

Pat,

The way I understand people have made flint drills here since Clovis times. I hope I get a chance to look thru the Gault material someday, will be interesting to see if they have any classic form "drills" along with the burins and graver type tools.

Here's my favorite paleo drill, I think Golondrina, from Wharton, Tx.

Thanks,
David

[David Crain]

BTW that Angostura drill is very nice. I've seen a number of those. They look to be paleo made, pressure flaking and all.

[texas cache]

How can you tell that it is paleo flaking? I have seen large crude flaking on some pieces. Can that pressure flaking be made by another culture? Is there another type of pressure flaking? I can see that it is make on a paleo piece... but the difference??? That's what I want to see and learn... sorry for being a pita...just wanting some knowledge.

[uniface]

Not that this is very relevant to what they did down your way, but Lar Hothem illustrated a number of "drills" that were, in his opinion, from the Paleo era in Ohio. I suspect he'd found enough of them on Paleo sites there that the attribution was reasonable. (Referring to First Hunters).

[David Crain]

Pressure flakes are pushed off instead of knocked off. Other people besides paleo folks did pressure flaking but most of the later people did it in a more random style than the paleo folks.

I don't subscribe to the theory that most points with two different styles of flaking were altered by later people. I just think that often the professional knappers, who were the craftsmen that made the majority of the points, were not always the end users of their wares. So when it was time to sharpen something it was often done by a non-professional knapper.

Rarely would one find a point and rework it. Just think about how hard it is for us to find a point, a professional knapper can make a sack full in the time it takes to find one. So the "reworked by later culture" pieces are probably a lot more rare than some tend to think.

Just my opinion.

[Mojave]

The term "paleo-flaking" is one of the most over-rated and meaningless terms. Too many people try to identify something as being paleo because of the flaking patterns and styles. With a VERY small number of exceptions, flaking styles CANNOT be attributed to any time periods.
JMHO

[David Crain]

Originally Posted by Mojave

The term "paleo-flaking" is one of the most over-rated and meaningless terms. Too many people try to identify something as being paleo because of the flaking patterns and styles. With a VERY small number of exceptions, flaking styles CANNOT be attributed to any time periods.
JMHO

Are you saying you can't tell the difference between Paleo and Archaic manufacture?