The Impact of Stone Supply Stress on the Innovation of a Cultural Variant: The Relationship of Folsom and Midland

Abstract

Multiple hypotheses have been proposed to explain the relationship between fully fluted Folsom points and unfluted Midland points. One hypothesis, proposed by Hofman (1992, “Recognition and interpretation of Folsom technological variability on the southern plains.” In Ice Age Hunters of the Rockies, edited by D. J. Stanford, and J. S. Day, 193–229. Boulder: University Press of Colorado), is that mobile Folsom bands shifted from making Folsom points, which often fatally broke during the production process, to less risky Midland points as stone supplies dwindled. In cultural evolutionary terms, this hypothesis proposes that an increase in local, site-scale functional controls, specifically stone supply stress, resulted in the modification of the existing Folsom point production recipe and led to the adoption of a new cultural variant, the Midland point. After testing archaeological implications of Hofman's hypothesis, I conclude that it is empirically supported and does explain the innovation of the Midland cultural variant. I then use assemblage-scale measures to reconstruct Folsom/Midland mobility patterns in the southern Plains.

Keywords:

• Paleoindian
• cultural evolution
• guided variation
• mobility
• innovation

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Brooke Morgan and Brian Andrews for the invitation to participate in the SAA symposium and for organizing this special issue. Ashley Smallwood greatly helped me refine the theoretical perspectives through our many enlightening conversations. Thanks to Mike Waters and the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M University for supporting the work at Friedkin and Hogeye that contributed to this study. Finally, Mike Shott and two anonymous reviewers helped me clarify and strengthen this paper.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thomas A. Jennings

Author biography

Thomas A. Jennings is the Director of the Antonio J. Waring Jr Archaeological Laboratory and Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at the University of West Georgia. His interests include Paleoindian technology and the peopling of the Americas.