Often characterized by distinctive chipped-stone technology, the Calf Creek cultural horizon made its first appearance in the central and southern plains of North America some six thousand years ago. ...Distributed over a known area of more than 500,000 square miles, it is one of the largest post-Paleoindian archaeological cultural complexes identified to date. One of the most notable aspects of Calf Creek culture is its distinctive, deeply notched bifaces, many of which show evidence of heat-treating. Recent targeted dating suggests that these unique traits, which required exacting knapping and other techniques for production, arose in a relatively narrow window, sometime around 5,950–5,700 calendar years before the present. Given the wide geographical distribution of Calf Creek artifacts, however, researchers surmise that these technological innovations, once adopted, spread fairly quickly throughout the associated cultural groups. Editors Jon C. Lohse, Marjorie A. Duncan, and Don G. Wyckoff have collected in this comprehensive volume much of what is currently known about the Calf Creek cultural horizon. In a collaboration involving professional and academic archaeologists, landowners, and avocationalists, The Calf Creek Horizon brings together for the first time in a single source fine details of geographic distribution, regional variability, typology, and technological aspects of Calf Creek material culture. This first-ever “big picture” view will inform and direct related research for years to come.
A piece of obsidian was found during excavations of a possible Middle Holocene Calf Creek biface cache at site 34ML168 in Oklahoma. Energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence analysis of the obsidian flake ...shows that the source material derives from Glass Mountain in California. This is the first instance of California obsidian in this region. However, most intriguing is that Glass Mountain erupted thousands of years after the presumed Calf Creek artifacts were made. By examining the depositional history and lithic technology of the cache, and source provenance of the obsidian, we discuss the significance of this find and present possible scenarios regarding the long-distance conveyance of the obsidian artifact. This study complements other archaeological cases where the use of geochemical sourcing connects people, places, and things of unexpected distances across ancient North America.
...while Dr. Bell was focused on prehistory in eastem Oklahoma, he was colleague to a man who, along with anthropologist Iva Schmitt, was developing a research program on the historic and ...protohistoric Wichita in central Oklahoma. ...at the 1958 annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Norman, Oklahoma, Dr. Bell (1961) gave a paper arguing that, after Spiro times, eastern Oklahoma's Arkansas River Basin was inhabited by Plains Villager immigrants from the west. ...a sharing of these findings stimulated the idea that more detailed studies of key sites could enhance understanding of ethnic ties and chronologies for at least such eighteenth century documented groups as the Cadohadacho, Kitsai, and Taovayas. ...he was insistent that the Wichita people be brought into the thinking about this site's preservation, study, and interpretation. ...in the middle 1970s, as the Spiro site garnered the most attention for state and federal supported development, the State Archaeologist and Dr. Bell met with Wichita tribal leaders, and the State Archaeologist led a field trip to the Deer Creek site to initiate collaborative thinking about what to do there.
In this, the first of a two-part series, lithic technological research since 1990 is reviewed for the Southern Plains and their eastern and western borders. The study region is basically that covered ...in the 1990 monograph, From Mountain Peaks to Alligator Stomachs, compiled and written by Larry Banks. My review looks at the identification and sourcing of knappable stone in archaeological studies of how that material got reduced, transported, and used over this study area. This first part focuses on the identification of knappable materials discovered since the publication of Banks' monograph and on efforts to refine the identification and sources of varieties of materials discussed by Banks. While some progress has been made in furthering our knowledge of the character and sources of diverse toolstones in the region, archaeologists have not been availing themselves of geologists' expertise or technologies that could enhance our understanding of what these materials are and where they occur. With this basic knowledge we could better model the reduction strategies and curation-transport practices that will be discussed in the second part of this review.
Western Oklahoma surface finds of two large bifaces raise questions about their function and cultural affiliation. Both are of flint from west-central Texas. A study of their technological attributes ...provides clues potentially linking them to Paleoindian and Archaic groups who inhabited the region. The Westfahl biface is interpreted to be an example of an "ultra-thin" biface associated with Southern Plains Folsomassemblages. The larger, thicker Engle biface shows evidence of heat treating and is believed to be a biface core, perhaps of a middle to late Holocene hunter-gatherer assemblage.
In this, the first of a two-part series, lithic technological research sime 1990 is reviewed for the Southern Plains and their eastern and western borders. The study region is basically that covered ...in the 1990 monograph,
From Mountain Peaks to Alligator Stomachs
, compiled and written by Larry Banks. My review looks at the identification and sourcing of knappable stone in archaeological studies of how that material got reduced, transported, and used over this study area. This first part focuses on the identification of knappable materials discovered since the publication of Banks' monograph and on efforts to refine the identification and sources of varieties of materials discussed by Banks. While some progress has been made in furthering our knowledge of the character and sources of diverse tool stones in the region, archaeologists have not been availing themselves of geologists' expertise or technologies that could enhance our understanding of what these materials are and where they occur. With this basic knowledge we could better model the reduction strategies and curation-transport practices that will be discussed in the second part of this review.
Long renowned for their clues to the presence and predatory abilities of North America's earliest humans, Southern Plains sites with bison remains have provided vertebrate paleontologists with food ...for thought for nearly a century. Bison skulls from Texas, New Mexico, and Kansas figured prominently in early taxonomic schemes, ideas on bison evolution, and the chronology of geological deposits before radiocarbon dating. Now, in addition toinnumerable finds of isolated cranial parts, bison remains are reported for over 30 non archaeological sites from southwestern Kansas to southern Texas. A radiocarbon-dated chronology is slowly developing for these paleontological finds, and, on this basis, bisona remains appear to be nonexistent in deposits older than 50,000 yearsBP. Moreover, most localities older than 20,000 years BP yield more remains of herbivores other than bison. Although several competing models ofNorthAmerican bison evolution are currently in vogue, Southern Plains finds demonstrate that serious problems hinder full acceptance of any model. These problems include small sample sizes, poor understanding of age and sex differences within nominal species, inadequate dating of most faunal localities, and (most of all) identification errors resulting from misinterpretation of nomenclature. As a result, many identifications of bison species published in the last 20 years are suspect.
