Time Frames in Kansas Prehistory The time
periods listed here are intended to be purely chronological in nature rather
than units that reflect cultural changes. However, we use the traditional
names for various periods, names that have come to have cultural meanings
for many. PaleoIndian and Archaic
are such terms. They are in such widespread use that it would be futile to
try to change them now, but people familiar with the cultural implications
should realize that in eastern Kansas there is a long temporal overlap between
the PaleoIndian and Archaic ways of life (both are described below).
We have
chosen to follow the time periods proposed in the Kansas state plan for archaeology,
with small modifications. First, we have subdivided the Archaic period into
three units. We have also subdivided
the Early Ceramic into Middle Woodland and Late Woodland periods.
Finally, we redefine some time periods slightly where recent evidence
suggests that the dividing points should be moved.
PaleoIndian:
11,000 - 6,850 BC 11,350- 8,000 BP Although
a few pre-Clovis sites have been proposed in this region, there is as yet
no strong evidence in Kansas for human occupation before Clovis at 11,000
B.C. The earliest inhabitants appear to have lived in small mobile bands and
to have hunted large herd animals. This way of life lasted until around 6,850
BC in the western part of the state, but in the east a different (Archaic)
pattern emerges after 9,500 BC. The period comes to a close with the gradual
onset of a period of warmer and drier climate called the Altithermal.
Archaic
6,850-15 BC
8,000 BP-2,000 BP
Early Archaic 6,850-4,900 BC
8,000-6,000 BP This time
period coincides roughly with the climatic episode known as the Altithermal.
This was a period of elevated temperatures worldwide and of reduced precipitation
over at least part of the plains. At the Muscotah marsh in northeastern Kansas,
there is no tree pollen present at the peak of the Altithermal. Only a few
Altithermal sites are known to be present in Kansas, a result of reduced populations
and widespread erosion that destroyed many sites and buried others deeply.
Two recent studies of collections in western Kansas failed to document any
point types of this time period. In the northeastern part of the state, however,
there are sites attributed to the Logan Creek complex which dates to this
time period. The Stigenwald site in southeastern Kansas also is Altithermal
in age. It and many Logan Creek sites occur buried in colluvial fans
at the edges of stream valleys. Middle Archaic 4,900-2,490 BC 6,000-4,000
BP The beginning
of the Middle Archaic coincides roughly with the end of the Altithermal episode
and with the reappearance of sites across much of Kansas. East of Kansas,
people were beginning to rely heavily on plant seeds for subsistence, and
this eventually resulted in domestication of many such species. In eastern
Kansas, sites contain numerous axes and adzes that may have been used to kills
trees to open up areas for planting seeds, but there is no direct evidence
yet for domestica-tion in this time period.
Late Archaic 2,490-15 BC 4,000-2,000
BP The Late
Archaic is marked by increasingly sedentary ways of life and hints of long-distance
exchange. The earliest pottery vessels show up in the northeastern part of
the state. This period includes the
time frame from 3,000-2,000 BP that is included in the Early Woodland period
east of Kansas. Here, however, there
are only scant traces of the pottery that marks this time period in the East.
Early Ceramic 15 BC-AD 1000 2,000-1,000 BP As the name
implies, the Early Ceramic period marks the widespread appearance of ceramic
vessels across much of Kansas. Subsistence appears to have been primarily
by hunting, gathering and fishing, although a few seed crops may have been
used to provide storable food. Settlements
include base camps and short-term camps. Middle Woodland 15 BC-AD 550 2,000-1,500 BP The Middle
Woodland period is marked by the Hopewellian Interaction sphere in the eastern
Woodlands with an abundance of exotic materials used for ceremonial purposes.
In Kansas, Hopewellian traits are limited to ceramic designs, a few
special-purpose bladelets, and a small number of exotic items.
The period of intensive interactions did not last for the whole of
the Middle Woodland period, so not all Middle Woodland sites have Hopewellian
objects in them. What is more, there were Middle Woodland populations
that remained at a remove from the interaction, and this may have included
some pottery-making groups in Kansas.
Middle Ceramic vessels tend to have thick walls and plentiful
temper. The cord marking on exterior
vessel surfaces was produced by rolling a cord-wrapped stick across the vessel,
usually in a vertical or diagonal direction. A few vessels have cord marking on the interior,
always applied horizontally because of the conical shape of the vessels.
Not all Middle Woodland vessels in Kansas were cord marked; smooth-surfaced
vessels are also present.
Late Woodland AD 550-1005 1,500-1,000 BP The Late
Woodland period is marked by a shift in ceramic manufacturing to the paddle
and anvil technique that produces a denser paste usually with sparser temper
and a different form of cord roughening on vessel surfaces. Toward the end
of this period, the evidence for horticulture increases, at least in the eastern
half of the state, and the end of the period is marked by a major shift toward
growing crops. Arrow points begin
to occur during this time frame, and by the end of it, they have completely
replaced spear and dart points.
Middle Ceramic
AD 1005-1350 1000-590
BP In this
time period, there was a substantial change in how people lived that involved
a much greater investment in growing crops combined with year-round farmsteads.
The settlement pattern is dispersed, and farmsteads lay at some distance
from one another, except in the Bluff Creek phase.
Late Ceramic
AD 1350-1725 590-130 BP This period
begins with the abandonment of the region by most of the populations that
had lived here previously, followed by movements of people from the east and
south. These populations lived in substantial villages and population clusters
and obtained a good deal of their meat during long-distance bison hunts.
Historic
AD1541-present There is a substantial time lag between the first contact
with Europeans and substantial changes in Native American lifeways. In 1719, trade contacts with French Louisiana
were established that led to changes in material culture, and prior to this,
raiding for slaves had become commonplace. We do not know when the first Old
World epidemic diseases struck Kansas, but judging from evidence elsewhere
in the Plains, it was probably in the 17th century.
New tribes
entered Kansas in this period, including the Kansa and Osage from the east
and the Comanche, Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho and Sioux from the north. Other
eastern tribes were moved to reservations in the eastern part of the state,
but eventually most of them were forced to move to Oklahoma.
European
infiltration began with itinerant traders and then with the establishment
of forts, trading posts, towns, farms, railroads and cattle and wagon trails.
Radiocarbon Dating more to be added
BP Date Conversion
BP stands
for radiocarbon years Before Present, with present defined as AD 1950, the
approximate date of the invention of radiocarbon dating. BP is used because
radiocarbon years are only an estimate of the age of an item based on how
much radioactive carbon it still contains. 14C or radiocarbon is
lost at a very predictable rate after
an organism dies, but the amount present in living things has varied over
time, making radiocarbon years differ from calendar years.
To fix this
problem radiocarbon dates are calibrated against the ages of samples of known
age, usually tree rings (tf01).
The following chart is offered as a rough guide to the differences between
BP (radiocarbon) and AD/BC (calendar) dates. It is only a rough guide, because
many of the variations in the amount of radiocarbon lasted for less than 100
years.
Radiocarbon Years Calendar
Years 0 BP AD 1950 500 BP AD 1326 1000 BP AD 1022 1500 BP AD 617 2000 BP AD 3 2500 BP 652 BC 3000 BP 1261 BC 3500 BP 1819 BC 4000 BP 2550 BC 4500 BP 3120 BC 5000 BP 3780 BC 5500 BP 4344 BC 6000 BP 4897 BC
6500 BP 5476 BC 7000 BP 5890 BC 7500 BP 6395 BC 8000 BP 7033 BC 8500 BP 7571 BC 9000 BP 8247 BC 9500 BP 8787 BC 10000 BP
9450 BC 10500 BP
10641 BC 11000 BP
10991 BC 11500 BP
11380 BC From Reimer et al. 2004 Radiocarbon 46:1029-1058.
You can get more advanced information about radiocarbon dating
by pressing this button (3E).
Archaeological complexes in Kansas
We plan to add to this web page summary descriptions of the various archaeological
complexes that have been defined for Kansas.
Each will come with a map, discussion of the time frame, illustrations
of diagnostic artifacts, and suggested readings.
PaleoIndian
Middle Ceramic Clovis
Steed-Kisker Folsom Nebraska Dalton
Smoky Hill Plainview
Solomon River Agate Basin
Upper Republican Hell Gap
High Plains Upper Republican Alberta Pomona
(no phases) Cody
Bluff Creek Allen/Frederick Uncas Early Archaic
Odessa? Logan Creek
Late Ceramic/Protohistoric Stigenwalt
Odessa Middle Archaic
White Rock Munkers
Creek
Pratt Black Vermillion
Great Bend Chelsea Dismal River Late Archaic
Historic Native American Nebo Hill
Pawnee village El Dorado
Scott County pueblo Colvin
Quivira Terminal Archaic
Kansa Walnut Osage Early Ceramic
Medicine Lodge treaty? Early Woodland:
14BN26 Cheyenne
battle site? Bowlin phase
Arapahoe?? Kiowa??
Comanche?? Middle
Woodland
Indian mission sites
Kansas City Hopewell Reservation
sites Schultz Historic Euro- and Afro-American Cuesta Valley Late
Woodland
Grasshopper Falls
Wakarusa Deer
Creek Greenwood Hertha Butler
Bemis Creek
Keith
South Platte
This section of the Kansas Artifacts web page describes the
various kinds of stone used for making artifacts. General geological terms used here are defined in the glossary.
On naming stone sources:
In Kansas,
the preference of professional archaeologists is to name a lithic type (kind
of stone) for the geologic source from which it derives. This can be either
very general or quite specific. If a precise source is not known, one can
use the geologic era in which the bedrock formed. Thus all of the cherts from
the Flint Hills are Permian in age, while those that outcrop further east
are Pennsylvanian.
When a type
of stone can be attributed more specifically, the names of geologic formations
or members within a formation are used. Thus the highly distinctive Smoky
Hill jasper derives from the Smoky Hill member of the Niobrara formation of
Cretaceous age. Map of Stone sources in Kansas (ss01)
Argentine chert This dark-colored, highly fossiliferous chert outcrops in
eastern Kansas. It is usually of fairly
low quality, but local peoples made use of it for chipped stone tools. The background color can be gray or brown;
the fossil inclusions are usually white (SS54).
Cheyenne quartzite This is a chippable quartzite that occurs as concretions
within a few outcrops of the Cheyenne sandstone in southern Kansas (image
needed).
Dakota quartzite The Dakota sandstone contains occasional well-cemented concretions,
most of which are not suitable for chipped stone tools. There is one deposit
on the Little Arkansas River that was used in spite of its coarse texture.
There are some sources south and west of Kansas that are fine-grained
(image needed).
Dakota sandstone A compact sandstone that outcrops in the Smoky Hill region
in Kansas and elsewhere in the Great Plains.
It was used frequently as an abrading tool. Colors range from red to brown to yellow
(SS03).
Day Creek chalcedony This is a lesser source that outcrops in the high hills near
Ashland, Kansas. It also outcrops in adjacent portions of Oklahoma. Some Day
Creek chalcedony is similar in appearance to Alibates chert, and it derives
from an isolated outcrop of the same geologic formation. It differs from Alibates
in that much of it is translucent, and while not every piece of Day Creek
can be differentiated from Alibates, the presence of translucent pieces and
sections of larger pieces shouts Day Creek (SS04).
diorite A dark-colored gray to greenish rock that is found as cobbles
in the glacial drift of northeastern Kansas that was used to make ground stone
celts (SS05)
and other ground stone tools.
Flint Hills green This is a nickname for a greenish tinted variant of one of
the Permian aged cherts of the Flint Hills.
This variety is fairly common in early sites, up to and including the
Early Ceramic (SS51).
Florence A chert The Florence limestone which outcrops in the Flint Hills
produces a variety of cherts. The southernmost identifiable variant is Florence
A. The raw stone has a somewhat yellowish cast with coarse banding in the
outer portions of nodules and pale gray in the interiors. After heat treatment,
the yellowish portions turn pink. Fusilinid fossils, shaped like miniature
footballs, help to distinguish it, as do fine wavy bands that look like fingerprints.
Kay County chert is a nickname for this stone (SS06)
Florence B chert This variety of Florence chert is found in the southern Flint
Hills. It is most commonly seen in
sites east of Wichita. The mass of the chert is dense and fairly dark, from
gray to brown. Some is distinguished
by scattered white algal bodies in the chert (SS07). Florence C chert This is the most common variant of Florence chert. It comes
in a variety of shades of gray and typically has white includsions that are
fossil fragments including bryozoans and sponge spicules (SS08)
Florence D chert This is the most northerly of the distinctive varieties of
Florence chert, outcropping north of the Kansas River. Florence D is marked
by dark blue banding in the outer portions of the nodules (SS09).
End scrapers made from this material have a wide distribution.
hematite This is a red iron oxide that occurs as concretions in a
variety of geologic deposits in Kansas (SS10). A hard, pure, silvery-colored variety is called specular hematite
(SS11).
A common soft variety is known as red ocher (SS11a).
Kansas pipestone A fine-grained reddish stone very similar to catlinite
that can be found as cobbles and pebbles in the glacial drift of northeastern
Kansas and adjacent states (SS12).
It differs from catlinite in containing more quartz and hence in being harder
to work. Kansas pipestone was being used to manufacture stone pipes in this
region long before catlinite began to show up.
Kay County chert A nickname for Florence A chert, named for the chert quarries
in Kay County, Oklahoma (SS06).
limonite This is a yellow oxide of iron that occurs widely in Kansas
(SS46).
Some limonite concretions have a hard outer shell and a soft interior. Native
Americans sometimes made red paint from limonite by heating it in a fire,
which changes the color.
Ogallala Formation This geologic formation consists of sands and gravels eroded
eastward from the Rocky Mountains. It
is a surface deposit over much of the western half of Kansas, and it produced
the lag gravels that are present on hilltops as far east as Wichita.
Chippable stone in the Ogallala formation includes silicified sediments,
trachite and petrified palm wood.
Ogallala palm wood This is usually a white stone with small dark specks scattered
through it (SS59),
although a few dark specimens occur (SS56). It is very light in weight, which is perhaps
its most distinguishable feature. Occasional
artifacts of this material are found throughout western Kansas.
Ogallala silicified sediment The most common chippable stone in the Ogallala formation
in Kansas is a silicified sediment that ranges in color from buff to reddish
(SS13)
to gray. A flake of this material, when held up to a light source, will be
seen to contain some sparkles. The
gray variety
(SS13a) bears a very strong resemblance to what is called Potter
chert in Texas (SS37).
Sioux quartzite A pinkish medium grained quartzite that can be found as cobbles
and boulders in the glacial drift of northeastern Kansas and adjacent states
(SS14).
Used to make manos, mauls and other ground stone artifacts. The bedrock sources are in southwestern Minnesota
and adjacent parts of South Dakota and Iowa.
Smoky Hill jasper This type of stone is found in outcrops of the Smoky Hill
member of the Niobrara chalk formation in northwestern Kansas and southwestern
Nebraska. It varies considerably in flaking quality, ranging from fairly soft
and chalky in some nodules and outcrops to dense, glossy and hard in others.
Commonly, it occurs in relatively thin lenses and this gave prehistoric flintknappers
a head start in making bifacial tools. The most common colors range from yellow
to caramel brown, but green, black, red and white varieties occur (SS15).
The jasper is often banded, and color changes between adjacent bands are abrupt.
Sometimes there is a seam of translucent material between opaque bands. Heat treatment of the yellow to brown varieties
yields reddish tones. Frequently there
are little white inclusions in the stone, and more rarely mossy black dendrites
(G74).
trachite A coarse black stone found in lag gravels from the Ogallala
formation and used to make chipped stone artifacts. It is opaque, grainy and black in color. Trachite
cobbles develop a thin pale gray patina (SS16). Trachite is common in the vicinity of Council
Bluff Reservoir.
Westerville chert This Pennsylvanian age chert varies from coarse to fairly
fine in texture. It is usually yellowish-brown
in color, and fossil inclusions are sparse. (image needed)
Winterset chert This is a chert of Pennsylvanian age that outcrops in eastern
Kansas and western Missouri. It occurs in various shafes of gray but can be
pale brown in some locations. The most distinguishing feature of this chert
consists of veins of calcite that give it the geologic nickname of zebra
chert (image needed).
Westerville chert This Pennsylvanian age chert from eastern Kansas is usually
of low to moderate flaking quality and can be very coarse. It is usually yellowish-brown
in color but turns various shades of red with heat treatment. Fossil
inclusions are usually sparse, while calcite-filled veins and voids are more
common (image needed).
Wreford A chert One of a variety of cherts from the Wreford formation that
outcrops in the Flint Hills. Wreford A is restricted to the southern Flint
Hills. It ranges in color from tan through buff to grayish buff (image
needed). It has a medium to fine grain.
Wreford B chert This chert is medium to fine grained and blue-gray to gray
in color. Found throughout the Flint Hills, it often contains mottling that
is slightly darker than the surrounding stone and usually contains many small
white fossil fragments (image needed).
Wreford C chert This chert from the Wreford formation of the Flint Hills
ranges in color from yellow through tan and brown to grayish. It is medium
grained in texture with few fossil inclusions (image needed). Exotic stones found in Kansas sites Archaeologists use the term exotic for materials that have
been carried a long distance to a site. map 2
Alibates chert A high quality chippable stone that outcrops along the Canadian
River in the panhandle of Texas. Alibates has a distinctive mottling best
described as like bacon rind. It comes in a variety of colors, with white
and reddish tones dominating (SS23).
Some people call Alibates an agate because of the banding; more properly it
is a chert that formed in dolomite.
Bijou Hills quartzite This is a coarse grennish quartzite that outcrops in northeastern
Nebraska and southern South Dakota. It was commonly used for cutting tools (SS55).
Burlington chert This Mississippian-age stone outcrops in the general region
where Iowa, Illinois and Missouri
meet. It can be of very high quality,
and is most often white (image needed).
catlinite A fine-grained reddish stone that is quarried in southwestern
Minnesota. Native Americans used catlinite to make tobacco pipes and a few
other artifacts. It is difficult to
distinguish from Kansas pipestone without mineralogical analysis, but some
varieties of catlinite are paler in color than Kansas pipestone and may have
small bleached spots within the stone (image needed). It also tends to have a soapier feel than Kansas
pipestone.
clinker This is a material that looks something like scoria, which
is a volcanic rock filled with little holes like a sponge (image needed). Clinker is not volcanic in origin, however.
Instead it forms when coal seams catch fire, baking surrounding materials
to such high temperatures that gasses are produced, creating a foam.
Erosion eventually resulted in pieces of this material getting into
the Missouri River, and the foamy structure made it light enough to float
downstream. Native peoples collected
pieces to use as abrading tools.
Crescent Quarry chert This variation of Burlington chert outcropped near St. Louis.
It is very rare in Kansas. It is marked by sudden changed in color and texture
within a single piece, making for artifacts with striking appearance (image
needed).
Dakota quartzite In addition to the coarse quartzite concretions found in
Kansas, the Dakota formation in Texas, New Mexico and Colorado contains finer-grained
well cemented quartzites appropriate for flintknapping (image needed).
Edwards Plateau chert This stone, from central Texas, is of extremely high quality.
Color varies from nearly white to black and brown; the majority is gray (SS27).
Flattop chalcedony This stone from northeastern Colorado is translucent
and has a pinkish cast (SS28).
It is of excellent quality for chipping. Similar and related stone found in
adjacent portions of South Dakota and Nebraska is called White River Group
chalcedony.
Hartville Uplift chert This chert from eastern Wyoming is of excellent quality.
Brown in color, it usually has black mottling and dendrites
(image needed).
Knife River Flint Actually a chalcedony that is usually brownish in
color similar to root beer, with some more opaque whitish mottling and a tendency
to develop a white patina (SS30).
Heated pieces of this stone have a somewhat bluish cast. The quarry source
for this material is in North Dakota, but cobbles of it are also found in
glacial drift in South Dakota.
Nehawka chert This name is given to a set of Pennsylvanian age cherts that
outcrop in southeastern Nebraska and adjacent parts of Iowa (SS31).
They are named for the town of Nehawka, near which are bedrock quarries of
this material. Nehawka chert is occurs in tones of gray and is often ooilitic
(SS48).
obsidian This is natural glass produced during the eruption of a continental
volcano. Obsidian is easily flaked and produces a very sharp edge (SS32).
Obsidians from different sources can be fingerprinted by analyzing their
trace element composition. Most of the obsidian found in Kansas comes either
from the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico or from sources in Wyoming and Idaho.
Peoria variant of Warsaw chert This is a variety of a Mississippian-age chert that was quarried
near the little town of Peoria in northeastern Oklahoma. It is of particular
interest in Kansas archaeology because it does not seem to have been used
prior to the protohistoric period, when people from some Great Bend villages
began using it in large quantities. It is light gray to white in color (SS33),
often with a few rust-colored streaks and sometimes contains crinoid stems
or the impressions from crinoid stems.
Spanish Diggings quartzite This material is called Spanish Diggings for the name applied
(mistakenly) to the prehistoric quarries from which it derives. It has excellent flaking qualities and varies
in color from beige to burgundy (image needed).
Tecovas jasper Also called Quitaque chert, this material outcrops along
the northeastern edge of the Llano Estacado in the panhandle of Texas. In
general appearance, it is similar to Alibates chert, but it frequently contains
combinations of deep red and bright yellow (image needed) that are not as
common together in Alibates, and it sometimes has small former voids that
have been filled with a blue-white material (image needed).
turquoise A blue-green to blue mineral composed of hydrated copper aliminum phosphate (image needed).
The turquoise that occurs in Kansas sites probably derives from sources
in New Mexico where it was mined in prehistoric times.
Describing
and classifying North American projectile points requires mastery of the appropriate
terminology and the ability to recognize critical attributes. This guide is
intended for the use of students at Wichita State University who are beginning
their careers in archaeology. It provides a guide to both the terminology
and the attributes that are used to distinguish between various point types.
First, however,
a word on point types versus point styles. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion
that prehistoric flintknappers had one or more particular forms in mind when
one views a large set of points from a single component site. What is open
to question is whether a particular form of point was simply a response to
a set of technological requirements, such as the kind of wood into which the
point was inserted and the purpose to which the weapon would be put -- thrusting spear v. throwing spear (in which
case the proper terminology is point type) or whether the makers were using
the form to distinguish themselves from neighboring groups (in which case
the appropriate terminology is point style).
It is my
view, based on long experience and a bit of logic, that the various forms
encountered on the Great Plains are almost always types rather than styles.
For instance, I was able to show that in one particular set of sites, each
arrowmaker was producing four different types of side notched arrow points
(Blakeslee 1999:XX). Similarly, in spite of having different names applied
to them in different regions (Cahokia, Washita, Plains side notched), the
same point type can be found from Texas (Mexico, actually) to Canada and from
the Rocky Mountains to the east side of the Mississippi River. Clearly, they
were not used to distinguish among the various groups who lived in the region.
Another
reason to view the forms as types rather than styles lies in what the finished
products looked like once they were attached to the weapon hafts. The glue
and binding would obscure the whole lower portion of the point, obscuring
most of the attributes that distinguish one form from another. This view of
the variation in form may also help to explain why several forms appear first
in the Early Archaic of the southeastern United States and then gradually
move north and west. This is the time frame in which various species of trees
responded to the end of the last glaciation by expanding their range to the
north and west from the Wisconsin
period refugium on what is now the continental shelf off of Florida and Georgia.
Spread by natural processes such as the activities of birds and squirrels,
various species of trees expanded their range at different rates and to different
extents, and the first appearance and subsequent expansions of some haft element
traits may be tracking the various species of trees whose wood was used for
spears.
Finally,
another warning has to do with various projectile point type guides. The older
ones are completely hopeless with regard to the ages of the various types,
and those intended for buyers of points often feature egregious errors. The
best guides available are those by Judge, an experienced flintknapper and
a careful scholar. Size Extreme (>15 cm),
large (75-150mm), medium(37-75mm), small
Dividing points are arbitrary, and another strategy would to be to
use effective half width or weight to define categories.
The intent is to divide specimens into cache blades (usually extreme in size),
spear, dart and arrow points. Length cannot be measured readily on badly broken
specimens, but in cases where only the blade is broken, point size sometimes
can be estimated from 1) examination of the haft element, especially effective
haft width, and 2) by comparison with the hafts of complete specimens.
Overall
shape lanceolate, ovate,
triangular, constricted, pentagonal. This attribute is judged regardless of the placement of notches
on the point. For instance, small side notched arrow points may be triangular,
ovate or lanceolate in outline.
Blade attributes The blade portion of the point extends from the point back
to the haft portion, which is defined by the presence of a stem, notches,
constriction or lateral grinding. If there is no definable haft element, as
with unnotched ovate and triangular points, the following blade attributes
pertain to all of the point except the very base.
Blade
edge shape concave, straight,
convex, recurved, angular, asymmetrical Blade edges should be recorded as concave or convex
when they depart markedly from a straight line. Point tips are usually convex,
even on points that have otherwise straight edges. Given that breakage and
reworking are common, the intent of the flintknapper is best judged from a
set of points, not from an individual specimen. Likewise, asymmetrical blades
are often the result of reworking.
Flaking
pattern percussion only,
collateral, diagonal ribbon, narrow. Percussion flake scars tend to be larger than pressure
flaking scars, with deeper bulbs of percussion.. Collateral flaking is transverse
to the long axis, with flake scars from each edge running parallel to one
another so that they meet in the center of the blade. Diagonal ribbon flaking,
seen for instance on Allen points, consists of evenly spaced fairly long flake
scars that run at a marked angle from the edges, sometimes producing the appearance
of single scars that run all the way across the blade.
Edge
modifications serrated, alternately
beveled, bifacially beveled, broken and repaired. Serration is a sawtooth
edge and can vary from fine (small closely spaced teeths) to coarse. Alternate
beveling consists of the production of one steep edge on each face of the
blade (or stem) placed such that the beveled area appears on the same side
of the blade no matter which face is up. Alternate beveling of the blade is
the product of resharpening/repair while the point is attached to the foreshaft. Bifacial beveling is the result of purposeful
initial shaping. In it, narrow beveled zones are present on both faces of
both edges, producing a strong edge. Broken and repaired points often have
an irregular blade outline, and even when they do not, the repair can be recognized
from an abrupt change in flaking pattern.
Barb
size large,
medium, small, broken Projections from the base of the blade are called barbs.
They can be quite small or very long, as in Calf Creek points. It is important
to examine the base of the blade closely to determine whether barbs may have
broken off. barb
orientation lateral,
diagonal, down Barb
tip shape rounded,
pointed, square
Shoulder
attributes Size weak, narrow, medium,
wide
Orientation sloping, horizontal, barbed
Blunting faceted, ground Shoulders are faceted (rarely) by driving burin spalls
lengthwise across the shoulder from the end of the barb. Grinding of the shoulder
edge is fairly is best determined by feeling edges (of shoulder, sides of
haft element, notches, base) and comparing the sharpness to that of the blade.
Haft element attributes haft
element type constricted, stemmed,
corner notched, side notched, base notched These are analytical categories, not necessarily the
same as the models in the heads of prehistoric flintknappers. Stemmed points
grade into corner notched which grade into side notched, and in some sites
you will find the same basic type of point that includes both stemmed and
corner notched or corner and side notched variations. Corner removed is used
to describe points which have a small wide portion of the basal corners removed
producing a wide, very short stem. A constricted haft element is shown in
the figure that illustrates point outlines. Stemmed points come in a wide
variety of shapes, as will be illustrated below.
haft
element shape bulbous, expanding
stem, straight stem, contracting stem, bifurcated stem
lateral
edge shape straight, concave,
convex Shape of the stem edges is independent of the shape
of the stem, so an expanding stem may have straight, concave or convex lateral
edges.
lateral
edge flaking normal, alternately
beveled, bifacially beveled lateral
haft grinding sides of point,
sides of stem, inside notches lateral
haft faceting Y/N This rare technique involves removing burin
spalls from both edges of the stem.
Notch attributes main
notch type side, corner, base,
single base There is actually considerable variation within these
categories of notches, depending on their shape (see below) or precise placement.
Much of the variation is captured by notch shape (below) and some of it by
effective haft width and haft length.
notch
shape wide or narrow;
deep or shallow;.squared or rounded; upcurving; E-shaped. auxiliary
notches above main notches,
below main notches, on ears, center of base
Base attributes ears downward pointing,
bulbous, flared, horizontal
Ears vary in shape and size from large and bulbous to small and pointed .
basal
corners If not part of
an ear, the corners of the base should be described by shape:
rounded, squared, pointed, etc. base
shape convex, straight,
concave, V-shaped basal
thinning multiple flutes,
single flutes, unifacial fluting, thinning flakes Flutes are large flakes struck from near the center
of the base. Points made from an already thin blank may have fluting on only
one face. Thinning flakes are shorter and considerably narrower than flutes.
They may also appear on only one face, as in Goshen points. base
blunting absent, grinding,
faceted, cortex Faceting consists of burin spalls driven off the basal
edge from one or both corners. Be sure to distinguish a faceted base from
a broken base. Sometimes a blunt base
is achieved by leaving the cortex from the core on the basal end of the point.
It is always worthwhile to examine the basal edge carefully.
Point metrics Total length
Total length of the point blade length
Total length of the blade from base to tip, including ears when present. haft length
Total length of the haft from the point of effective haft width to
the center of the base (discounting any basal notch). base to
maximum width The distance along the
long axis from the center of the base to the point of maximum width. depth of
basal concavity Measured from
ends of ears to maximum depth. Not measured on basal notches.
maximum
blade width Maximum width
of the blade base width
Width across the base from one corner to the other effective
haft width Minimum
width measurable on the haft element for notched, expanding stem, and constricted points. Maximum stem width on contracting
stems and maximum width of haft element on lanceolate points, however that
is judged (such as by extent of lateral grinding). thickness Maximum thickness
of the point haft thickness
Maximum thickness of the center half of the haft element.
Ratios length/width length/haft
length Breakage
and reworking can alter this ratio dramatically, so it is essential to record any evidence of breakage and repair. width/thickness Maximum width/maximum thickness
Weight
Rock art is a general term for any engraved or painted images
on cliffs or standing stones or on the walls of caves. For the most part,
it is not possible to interpret them other than in a general fashion.
petroglyph An image formed by inscribing or pecking the form on a rock
wall. Most of the surviving rock art in Kansas consists of petroglyphs (RA01)
because pictographs weather away more quickly.
pictograph A piece of rock art formed by drawing or painting (image
needed) rather than by cutting or pecking the image into the rock.
Artifact List
hoes points arrow dart spear preforms wedges
beads crystals earspools gorgets hammerstones mortars pendants pigments bodkins fish gorge fish hook fish hook prefm fleshers gorgets hide wk tools knife handle matting needle needles p phalanges picks rattle whistles antler bracelets antler bodkins antler cyl antler flakers antler points antler rakes ant scraper haft
sh corn scrapers sh gorgets sh hoes exotic shells Link to Lesson
Plans for Archaeology Describing Pottery Manufacture Pottery is made from mixtures of clay, water and temper. Prehistoric peoples
collected clay from a variety of sources stream deposits, outcrops on hillsides
and subsoil clays. These sources differ in the kinds of clay they contain,
trace elements in the clay, and inclusions such as silt, sand and organic
materials. These attributes affect the final appearance of the pottery, including
its color and texture. Temper is added to the clay to prevent excessive shrinkage during drying
and firing. Clay does shrink during thee processes, and too much shrinkage
means the pot will crack. Adding any material that will not absorb water and
then shrink during drying alleviates this problem. In addition, some clays
can be pre-shrunk by adding a temper that yields calcium ions that neutralize
ions on the surfaces of the clay particles, allowing them to come into closer
proximity. Limestone, shell and calcite are all good sources of calcium ions. One also has to be concerned about temper particles that might swell up
when fired, weakening the pot. Shell is a good example. At a certain temperature,
the mineral that makes up shell is transformed into a second mineral and swells
during the process. Prehistoric potters countered this problem by firing some
kinds of temper separately before adding it to the clay. This is certainly
true of the shell, and at least some of the time limestone, calcite and bone
temper were heated as well. How much temper was used varies through time. The thick-walled vessels of
the Early Ceramic period tend to contain more temper particles per unit of
clay than later, thinner-walled vessels, but there is considerable variation
within both the thick and thin varieties. Some of this may reflect the requirements
of particular kinds of clay, but one can see variation in the amount of temper
particles from spot to spot on the edges of a single sherd. Apparently, prehistoric
potters did not always mix temper and clay so thoroughly that the paste was
uniform in terms of the amojnt of temper in it. What kind of temper a pottery used was dependent on 1) the kind of clay
that was available, 2) what was available in the potter's environment, and
3) cultural traditions. An example of the latter is the use of grass fibers
to temper the clay of the earliest variety of pottery found in Kansas. The
potters of the Nebo Hill phase of 1500 BC used shredded big bluestem as a
temper. The grass burned when the pots were fired, leaving a light, porous
vessel (aop01). One of the most easily acquired kinds of temper is sand (aop02).
Sand grains from different sources vary considerably in size, shape, how rounded
their edges are, in the minerals adhering to their surfaces, and in the number
and kind of non-quartz grains included. These variations help to make sand
tempers in different kinds of pottery unique. Sand was used in all pottery-making
time periods except the Late Archaic. Another readily available tempering material is grog (c38),
which is made up of crushed fired pottery. Among people who made and used
pottery, broken vessels were always around, and all the potter had to do was
to smash up fragments of a broken vessel to provide temper for the next batch
of pots. In the Early Ceramic period, potters of the Cuesta phase made grog-tempered
pottery, and in the Middle Ceramic grog-tempered vessels are found commonly
in the Smoky Hill and Solomon River Phases and in the Pomona Variant. Crushed granite temper (c81)
is rarer, but not necessarily because it takes a lot of work to create the
temper. In Kansas, granite is readily available only in the northeastern corner
of the state. The cobbles of granite found there are sometimes crumbly, and
repeated use in a fire makes them even more crumbly. Crushed granite temper
is found in quantity in pottery of the Valley Variant of the Early Ceramic
period and in the Nebraska phase of the Middle Ceramic period. Not surprisingly,
sites of both are found in the northeastern part of the state. Mica temper (c82)
is uncommon in Kansas except for pottery of the Dismal River Aspect, the remains
of Plains Apaches of the Late Ceramic period. The Apaches apparently learned
to use mica temper from the pueblo potters of the northern Rio Grande. Such
pottery appears in Kansas only in the latter part of the 17th century, and
its use here ended when the horticultural Apache bands were driven south and
west by the Comanches in the first half of the 18th century. It is restricted
tot he western half of the state; the easternmost recorded Dismal River sites
are in the vicinity of Great Bend. Limestone temper
(c83) is far more widespread. Its use begins in the Early Ceramic period,
where it is extremely common in the Greenwood phase of the Flint Hills. Limestone
temper occurs more occasionally in Middle Ceramic sites. In the Bluff Creek
phase, potters sometimes used a highly fossiliferous limestone for temper,
producing an easily recognized temper (aop03). When limestone temper has been
leached from sherds by acidic groundwater, it leaves behind angular to rounded
voids (c87). Calcite temper (c84) is fairly limited in time and space. It is found in
the pottery of the Keith Variant of the Early Ceramic period in northern and
western Kansas. The burned calcite crystals in the pottery are gray in color.
Bone temper is seldom the dominant type in archaeological sites. The single
exception is the so-called Birdwood culture of southwestern Nebraska which
consists of Pawnee hunting camps. Apparently the potters used the most readily
available tempering material --bison bone which may already have been crushed
and heated during the manufacture of bone grease. [Note: The identification
of the Birdwood culture with Pawnee hunting camps was first made by Steve
Holen in an unpublished paper.] Bone temper (c86)
shows up more sporadically in various Early and Middle Ceramic period complexes,
including the Bluff Creek and Smoky Hill phases and the Pomona variant. Once the clay and temper have been mixed together, it is time to shape the
pot. Ancient potters used a variety of techniques to do this. The very earliest
pots in Kansas, those of the Nebo Hill phase, appear to have been made by
pinching. In later time periods, pinching was restricted to miniature pots
(c60). The fact that this is so makes it clear that one hypothesis about why
miniature pots were made that they were practice pots made by novice potters
is unlikely. Making a tiny pot by one technique does not provide practice
for making a large pot by a different technique. The technique used most commonly in the first half of the Early Ceramic
period (i.e., in the Middle Woodland) is a combination of lump modeling, slab
construction and pulling. Lump modeling starts with a ball of clay into which
a cavity is punched, creating a thick-walled cup. The conical bases of most
Middle Woodland pots appear to have been formed by this method. To enlarge
the pot and thin the walls, the clay is drawn upwards with the fingers in
a pulling motion. This makes the pot taller and thinner, but leaves the thick
base seen on pots of this time period. To make an even larger vessel, and
many of these pots are quite large, the potter can even off the lip of the
vessel and add a new slab of clay to it. This process may explain the occasional
coil break seen in the sherds (c14). Pulling up the walls of a conical pot leaves walls that are irregular in
thickness. Middle Woodland potters fixed this problem by rolling a cord-wrapped
rod across the exterior of the vessel, either directly upward (c19) or at
a diagonal (c20)
, leaving telltale cord marking. The same was not possible on the vessel
interior, where the curvature of the vessel prevented the stick from lying
against the vessel wall. Therefore, the interiors had to be smoothed using
a horizontal motion. If the cord-wrapped stick was used to do this, it left
horizontal cord-marking that is occasionally mistaken for a fabric impression
(c32), as in Greenwood phase pottery. Another technique involved some sort
of toothed tool that left horizontal grooves (c32a).
If a smooth interior was desired, the marks left by the smoothing out of the
walls could be erased with a wet piece of suede. This technique of creating a pot leaves one with relatively thick walls
and with a paste that has not been compacted. This can be seen best in thin
section slides but can also be detected with the naked eye (and hand) after
long experience. The next technique to appear in Kansas is the paddle and anvil technique.
This process also starts with a ball of clay into which a hole is punched.
The thinning of the walls is accomplished by holding some sort of an anvil
on the inside and paddling the exterior lightly with a flat tool. Each tap
thins the wall slightly, making the pot a little bit bigger. By moving both
paddle and anvil between strokes, an experienced potter can make a large pot
with fairly thin walls. Thinning the very base of the vessel is still difficult,
and this tends to be the thickest part of pots made by this method. The vessel walls made by this method tend to be quite compact and dense.
The paddling thins and stretches any voids present in the paste and also bends
the paste around large particles of temper. These details can be seen in thin
sections quite readily and less easily with the naked eye. Sometimes, anvil
impressions can be seen on the interior of vessel sections. In order to keep the paddle from sticking to the damp clay, it was either
wrapped with cord or a fragment of netting or was grooved. Each method leaves
a clear signal on the surface of the pot. A cord-wrapped paddle leaves a cord-roughened
surface. On the upper portion of a pot, where the paddle is held in a consistent
position, cord-roughening can be difficult to distinguish from cord marking.
On the more highly convex body of the vessel, however, cord-roughening can
be seen as relatively short patches of parallel cord impressions (c21b) versus
long, nearly parallel patches (c21a). A paddle wrapped with netting leaves a surface that can be identified by
the dimples created by the knots (c53).
Sherds with these marks are never common in Kansas sites, and use of a piece
of netting seems to have been more of a convenience than a technique imbued
with cultural meaning. Pottery formed with grooved paddles shows up first in the White Rock phase
at the end of the Middle Ceramic period and is present in the Great Bend mosaic
of the Late Ceramic. Called simple stamped (c78),
this pottery has rectangular raised grooves on its surface. The interiors of pots made by the paddle and anvil technique were sometimes
smoothed, wiped or thinned. Sometimes wipe marks can be seen on the upper
portions of the interiors, apparently left by a handful of grass (aop5).
Scraping to thin the walls sometimes dragged temper particles, leaving distinctive
tracks (aop6).
Although none have been identified in Kansas, mussel shells make excellent
pottery scrapers, and one has been identified in a potter's tool kit in Nebraska
(aop7).
Pots can also be smoothed with the ground edge of a pot sherd, but ground
sherds with the kind of convex edge needed for this job are rare in Kansas. The paddle and anvil technique becomes the dominant method of pottery manufacture
in the latter half of the Early Ceramic period and maintains its dominance
through the Middle and Late Ceramic periods. Lump modeling and pulling drops
out entirely, and pinching is used only for miniature vessels. Coiling is
frequently used to add rims to vessel bodies during the Middle Ceramic period,
evidenced by coil breaks at the vessel necks. A few other vessels also exhibit
coil breaks (c16),
as do some vessels from the Late Ceramic period. In Kansas, there are only a few basic vessel forms (aop08).
Jars are the most common form in all of the ceramic periods, and they vary
in shape through time. Bowls are small vessels that lack a rim; they may have
vertical or insloping upper walls. They appear in the Middle Ceramic and continue
in use ino the Late Ceramic. Water bottles have relatively tall insloping
rims and small diameter mouths. They occur only in Late Ceramic assemblages. Complete vessels are found only rarely, and broken vessels complete enough
for reconstruction are critical to our understanding of vessel size and form.
What we usually have for analysis are sherds small fragments of broken pottery
which have to be analyzed to determine which part of a vessel they come from.
Starting at the very top of the vessel, the basic divisions of a vessel are
lip, rim, neck, shoulder, lower body and base (aop09).
Each of these parts of a vessel can vary considerably, making potsherds
highly diagnostic, even in their fragmentary state. Lips can be smoothed,
cord roughened or decorated, and they vary in shape from flat to rounded to
beveled (c07)
or extruded. The rim has many important characteristics, including form, cross section,
shape and orientation. The basic rim forms found in Kansas are direct, collared,
channeled collar, S-rim, and rolled lip (aop10).
Within these basic forms, there are many variations, such as rim height, cross
section (aop11),
orientation (aop12)
and the like. Of the basic forms, true S-rims are rare in Kansas, but recurved
collared rims are often called S-rims. Rolled lip vessels are also rare, being
restricted to the Steed-Kisker phase and its immediate neighbors in the northeastern
corner of the state. Necks and shoulders are also highly variable. Necks can be either gently
or sharply curved or even angular, while shoulders vary in width, curvature
and orientation. It is often impossible to distinguish shoulder sherds from
lower body sherds except when the shoulders are decorated and smoothed while
the lower body is not. Cord-roughening on lower bodies tends to occur in a
cris-cross pattern, while it is more parallel on the shoulder. Describing decoration Texturing of exterior vessel surfaces also varies. Although most texturing
can be interpreted as the byproducts of manufacturing techniques, the choice
to leave cord marks or simple stamping on a vessel surface was purposeful.
Surface texturing includes cord marking, cord roughening, net roughening,
cob roughening and simple stamping .Although such texturing is not considered
to be decoration, in isolated cases it appears to be (aop15).
Vessel interiors were usually smoothed, probably so that food would not
stick to them. Nevertheless, some sherds exhibit interior surfaces that do
have some texturing, either grooving or so-called fabric impressions. Both
kinds of interior texturing are limited to a minority of vessels of Early
Ceramic age. The most common residue seen on vessel exteriors is soot (aop16). Burned
food is also common on both exterior and interior surfaces. Rarely, one sees
residue on a vessel interior other than burned food (aop17).
ALL ABOUT POTTERY
Pottery is useful to archaeologists because it is plentiful and highly variable.
It is plentiful because it breaks into small pieces that retain many of the
characteristics of the complete pot. And because there are so many variables
in its manufacture, the pottery of each time and place is usually quite distinctive,
making pottery highly diagnostic.
Burned and crushed shell temper (c85)
shows up in a variety of times and places. Like the comminuted bone in hunting
camps, it may have been available as the result of the manufacture of lye
or merely from the collection and roasting of mussels for food. Shell temper
is common in some archaeological units in Kansas during the Middle Ceramic
Period, including the Steed-Kisker, Nebraska and Uncas phases. In the Late
Ceramic period, it is common in the Lower Walnut phase of the Great Bend Mosaic
and in Oneota sites. Shell temper that has been leached from sherds by acidic
ground water leaves flat cells in the paste that are easily identified (c87).
Describing Pots and potsherds
Decoration on prehistoric vessels from Kansas tends to occur in well-defined
decorative zones, which vary from period to period and from one cultural tradition
to another (aop13).
Decoration on the rim interior shows up in the White Rock phase at the end
of the Middle Ceramic period, and more rarely in Bluff Creek and complexes
of the Late Ceramic period. Decoration on the inner lip edge is rare, but
the lip top is the most commonly decorated zone after the Middle Woodland.
Decoration of the outer lip edge, rim top, and rim face varies considerably.
Rim face decoration on direct rims is common in some Early Ceramic complexes
in eastern Kansas, but it becomes rare in the Middle and Late Ceramic periods.
In contrast, collar faces and collar bases are frequently decorated in the
Middle Ceramic, but with considerable variation in frequency from locality
to locality. Shoulder decoration exhibits several patterns. In the Middle
Ceramic period, it occurs in relatively high frequencies in the northeastern
part of the state, but it is also very common in the White Rock phase in the
north-central part of the state.
Decoration was applied with a variety of techniques. They include
cord-impressing filleting punctating
cord-wrapped stick impressing glazing rocker stamping
dentate stamping incising thumbnail impressing
engraving inching tool impressing
filleting punch and boss trailing
Decorative motifs also vary widely. Collar motifs vary in type and frequency
from locality to locality across the Central Plains (aop14).
Some motifs, on the other hand, last for considerable periods of time, showing
up both in the Late Woodland and in the Middle Ceramic. Others show up sporadically,
such as cross hatching on collared rims that appears in the Middle Woodland
and again in the Middle Ceramic (xx), but not in the intervening Late Woodland.
Some motifs are restricted to a single time period, such as the pendant feather
motif (xx) of the Valley phase and the hawk or thunderbird motifs of the White
Rock phase (xx). 
