Published: December 20, 2008 10:02 pm      

More examples of early Archaic dart points from Central Texas

When anyone starts trying to understand the various dart points found in Texas, it is important to first understand what was typically produced in Central Texas. The main reason someone needs to work first with the points from there rather than other regions of Texas is due to the abundance of high grade chert found anywhere within the Edwards Plateau. The Native Americans living in Central Texas had an unlimited supply of chert which gave them the ability to create almost any shape they desired. However, keep in mind the flaking of chert from the Edwards has some inherent qualities which may dictate several limitations. Chert is comprised mainly of plankton which evidently must have been very abundant back when most of Texas was covered by a sea. As the plankton died and settled to the bottom of the seabed, other small creatures in the sea also died and fell in the same areas with the plankton. Lime was heavily dispersed in the salt water and it also settled on the seabed. Eventually the sea retreated and formed what we now think of as the Gulf of Mexico. Then during a major geological event, the Edwards Plateau was subjected to tremendous pressure as it was pushed upward. This pressure caused the plankton to be converted from tiny dead sea animals into what we now call chert. Some of the other fossilized small sea animals were also trapped within the chert during the event. The Edwards Plateau chert varies from area to area both in color and quality. Some of the Edwards chert has a lot of inclusions of other tiny sea animals which may cause the material to break easily but overall there will be good usable pieces free of inclusions. By far, the best chert is commonly referred to as Georgetown brown. This chert is a dark honey colored chert with very few inclusions and it chips and flakes very well. One of the typical characteristics of the Georgetown brown is the fact it starts turning white on the exposed surfaces through time. It is not uncommon to find dart points dating to the Paleo or Early Archaic time periods which are now almost completely white with a patina.

Since all of the various groups who occupied Central Texas had access to the Edwards chert, they were able to create point after point with the basic shape they desired. If a knapper happened to make an incorrect blow or discovered the piece he was flaking had one of those tiny sea animals encased in the chert, all he had to do was throw this piece away and get another new cobble. Not all of the Edwards chert occurs in cobble form. Within many areas of the Edwards, huge lenses of chert can be found embedded in the Edwards limestone. The various groups quickly learned how to extract the chert lenses from the limestone.

The main reason a typologist needs to get a good basic background to understand the various points from Central Texas is due to what I mentioned above. The Native Americans living in Central Texas could consistently produce the same shape over and over. This allows the typologist the opportunity to see the variables within a type if he should get the chance to examine 50 or more of the same type. There is also a basic requirement when someone wants to identify a new type. This requirement states there must be a minimum of 100 points of the new type so everyone can understand the variables within this new type. Two points known as the Baker and the Bandy points fall within this criterion of a more or less fairly recently named dart point.

Just like several of the other Early Archaic points from Central Texas, both Baker and Bandy points have bifurcated stems, i.e. split stems. However, the stem on a Bandy is not nearly as obvious as the stem on a Baker. Split stem points seemed to be found only in Central Texas where they were made. I have seen a few examples of each type found within the watershed of the Brazos River but father eastward into the Trinity basin, they are almost non-existent. Several reasons may have caused this absence. First of all is the absence of any good, large chert cobbles in the Trinity basin. There are some small cobbles of good chert to be found in the upland gravels we have in our area but the cobbles are too small to be utilized to make a decent dart point, only an occasional arrow point or small tool such as a scraper or drill. Secondly if we do not find examples of either Baker or Bandy in our region, the makers of either type must not have visited this area or traded with other local Native American groups. Third, the overall distribution for both types seems to be limited to the regions around the Pecos River into the Big Bend area. In other words, most are found on the southwestern border areas of the Edwards. In the typology book I commonly use, “A Field Guide to Stone Artifacts of Texas,” the authors Ellen Turner and Thomas Hester make the statement the Bandy point may be the Pecos River variant of the larger Martindale point. Both have what is referred to as a “fish tail” looking stem. Both types were found in some of the same excavated sites within the Pecos River area but the Bandy point was also recovered in the excavations at the Wilson/Leonard site located west of Georgetown. Next week I want to discuss the Wilson point which was previously known as the Early Stemmed point. The discovering and the dating of this point at the Wilson/Leonard has forever changed what we once thought was the correct sequence for the Late Paleo and Early Archaic time frames in the South.

Next week: Wilson points, something out of the ordinary