Distinctive Projectile Point Technology Sheds Light on Peopling of the Americas

EurekAlert! ^ | July 11, 2018 | Thomas J. Williams, Texas State U

[SunkenCiv]

In the lowest layer of the Area 15 archaeological grounds at the Gault Site in Central Texas, researchers have unearthed a projectile point technology never previously seen in North America, which they date to be at least 16,000 years old, or a time before Clovis. While clear evidence for the timing of the peopling of the Americas remains elusive, these findings suggest humans occupied North America prior to Clovis - considered one of the oldest, if not the oldest, Paleo-Indian culture of North America, and dated to around 11,000 years ago. In 2002, Area 15 of the Gault Site in Central Texas was identified as an ideal area to search for remnants of early cultures. The site features five distinct layers in the stratigraphic profile that showcase different cultural components, each with stratigraphic separation between the cultural depositions. Here, Thomas J. Williams and colleagues focused on the Gault Assemblage, the oldest deposit, which they compared to materials found in the Clovis layer (stratified above the Gault Assemblage). Based on optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating, the Gault Assemblage sediment samples are approximately 16- to 20-thousand-years-old, the authors say. Additionally, Williams et al. discovered ancient materials in the lowest Gault deposit, including small projectile point technology, biface stone tools, blade-and-core tools, and flake tools. The authors compared these Gault Assemblage artifacts to Clovis tools and found that the blade-and-core traditions, in particular, are similar to Clovis blade-and-cores (meaning they continued into the time of Clovis), but biface traditions underwent significant changes in the Clovis level. Meanwhile, the early projectile point technology is "unrelated" to Clovis at all, they say.

[AndyJackson]

What a thoroughly fascinating article on several subjects that I knew nothing about, e.g.:

1. What Clovis points are - heard the term, just never knew what was distinctive.
2. Optical Stimulated Luminescence Dating - to this PhD physicist I am amazed that it actually works
3. The Balcones Fault and Escarpment - forming the boundary between the coastal plains and the Texas Hill Country above Austin and San Antonio, places I know well, but ...
4. The Gault Archaelogical Site

SC, thanks for coming back and keeping this going

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks AJ for the kind remarks. Optical Stimulated Luminescence Dating is part of a broader family of surface dating, also includes cosmic ray exposure dating (I’d like to see that done, if appropriate, to the Ramesseum and the Great Sphinx), thermoluminescence (often used on ceramics, such as pottery), and infrared stimulated luminescence.

What is OSL dating?
https://www.baylor.edu/geology/index.php?id=868084

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminescence_dating

Cosmic-ray Exposure Ages of Meteorites
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003TrGeo...1..347H

Cosmogenic nuclide dating
http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glacial-geology/dating-glacial-sediments-2/cosmogenic_nuclide_datin/

[Dusty Road]

No guarantee I can make three in a row without breaking one but I'm very capable of duplicating a Clovis or a Folsom.

[TXnMA]

Nice work! (Edwards?)

Looks like you have midline ridge development down well enough to be pretty sure of fluting success.

Now -- look at how far the pre-Clovis knappers at Gault were below yourt skill level...

You and I probably have better looking debitage piles than that... '-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At 80, my hand-eye coordination is definitely "over the hill", now. But, every time I attempt a Clovis, I can still hear "Solly" (J.B. Sollberger) sitting beside me at Lake Belton -- saying (after hearing an end-shock "SNAP!") -- "See! I told you to always thin the ends first!" '-)

IMHO, teaching flintknapping to the next generation had a lot to do with human language development...

TXnMA
 

[ApplegateRanch]

Thanks for the photo link.

Take a close look at ‘T’. Even enlarged, it still looks like a human face etched on it.

[Theophilus]

They were always suing one another for patent violations. Twas the reason they never got past the stone age. Apple and Android arrows head peoples were among the worst. Microsoftis people made their victims accept a EULA before they could stare up at the great blue screen of death!

[SunkenCiv]

It resembles a smiley face — apropos, since the US invented the www.

[octex]

Thank you for the photos, TXnMA!

[Dusty Road]

If you knew Solly then there’s a good chance we have met in the past, I used to hit the Texas Knap-in’s on a regular basis. We’ve lost allot of the old knappers but I’m amazed at the skills of some of the young guns.

[wildbill]

We had a post recently about a pre Clovis site on an island up near Vancouver Canada that was about the same age I believe.
the theory is that they came by boat/rafts along the glacoer edges on the sea shores