Some more South American Paleo

[joshuaream]

Some of you that know me from another board have probably seen these before, but posting them here was a good enough reason to get the frame down from the wall and handle them again.

These are the better pieces from the Cayude Site in Venezuela. I've got these plus about 30 kilos of lithic scatter, cores, core blades, colorful debitage, etc.

The first couple of shots are just some bifaces, broken bases, etc.







These are the distal ends of outrepasse flakes. The flake terminated and took out the opposite bifacially worked edge. These show extensive use wear along the pointy tips.



The other face, lots of flake scars.



These are some different outrepasse flakes, showing the bulb of percussion. These show a lot less work on the reverse side and were probably taken at an earlier stage in the reduction process.

[joshuaream]

continued:

A big piece with a flute.


Another fluted base.


Side A


Side B with a big outrepasse flake.


Another piece with a prepped fluting platform.


Very typical cross section from these early stage bifaces.


A group shot of some of the bases.

[uniface]

Very nice stuff !

[joshuaream]

I should mention that some of this material was published in Current Research in the Pleistocene 5 or 6 years ago.

Joshua

[mootsman]

Thanks for the look! It got me interested enough to do a little Google work which resulted in the paper by Ranere and Lopez published in a South American journal in 2007. The entire paper is available free and it is fascinating.

[joshuaream]

Originally Posted by mootsman

Thanks for the look! It got me interested enough to do a little Google work which resulted in the paper by Ranere and Lopez published in a South American journal in 2007. The entire paper is available free and it is fascinating.

They put a book out in 2000 or so, but I hadn't seen the article until you mentioned it. The title is similar to their book, so I think I just overlooked it. Thanks for pointing it out!

I haven't met them, but judging from one of the pictures they've been visiting my clovis site...

[Shannon Graham]

Those outrepasse flakes that have been worked to a point are really interesting. Never seen anything like them. Thanks for showing.

Shannon

[uniface]

Cultural Diversity in Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene Populations in Northwest South America and Lower Central America.

[joshuaream]

Originally Posted by Shannon Graham

Those outrepasse flakes that have been worked to a point are really interesting. Never seen anything like them. Thanks for showing.

Shannon

Shannon,

At first I thought they were just knapping mistakes that were utilized, but after finding several and seeing several more in local collections I think they were an intentional way of salvaging a very useful tool from a broken biface. The three sided nature of the tool makes for a very strong tip that would have made a great awl type tool. After taking the flake, they trimmed and dulled the edges of the flake making it easy to handle. (The really, really crude drawing shows the outrepasse flake and the tool.)

I've seen the same overshot tools in Costa Rica at two different Clovis sites; here's a picture from the article that Mootsman mentions and that Uni posted from Panama that shows a couple. The pool of sites isn't huge so I wouldn't quite call them a hallmark tool for Clovis in the Tropics, but so far I think they've been found on all the Clovis (or Clovisoid, Clovis-like) sites from Nicaragua on into South America that show evidence of biface production (vs the couple of kill sites where finished tools were utilized, broken and discarded or lost.) I haven't seen any from the US or northern Mexico, but seeing them somewhere here might be an indication of a path of migration. (South via California, via Mississippi River to the Gulf Coast, Florida along the Gulf Coast, east flank of the Rockies, etc.)

Personally, I think some of the extreme beveling on some Dalton points is from a process that removed a similar tool. They could burinate the blade edge creating a similar three-sided tool, and then resharpen the edge of the point by beveling it. I haven't seen a lot of tangible evidence for it, but in theory it's one of the better explanations why some Daltons are beveled so steeply.

Joshua

I guess it's upside down, but the arrow points to the platform. The flake ran across the face of the blade, and then dives through the piece. Either they were poor knappers that were consistently lucky, or they were really good at controlling flakes.

[Mojave]

Carl Yahnig has them in Kentucky.
I have them in California/Nevada.
That is a PaleoIndian “thing.”