The Manufacture of Northern Fluted Points: A Production Sequence Hypothesis

ABSTRACT

Recent research has begun to shed light on the role the Northern Fluted Complex (NFC) played in the peopling of the Americas. Our understanding of NFC chronology and origins has increased with the discovery of new sites with buried and datable fluted-point components and digital means of morphological and technological continent-wide analyses. However, we have had few opportunities to observe examples of NFC points discarded early in the manufacturing process, hindering our understanding of NFC technology and, ultimately, Paleoindian behavior in the North. To resolve this problem, this research contributes a hypothesis of the NFC manufacture process developed from examination of exhausted fluted-point fragments and the addition of a small collection of artifacts that potentially represent earlier stages in the NFC reduction continuum. Flaking Index is used to identify the appropriate placement of artifacts in the reduction sequence. Experimental replication of NFC points is used to test the production sequence hypothesis.

KEYWORDS:

• Northern Fluted Complex
• reduction continuum
• Arctic/Subarctic
• Paleoindian
• Flaking Index

Acknowledgements

This research would have been impossible without the expertise and valuable time of Eugene Gryba, from whom I have learned so much. I am grateful for his contribution to this research, as well as helpful comments on drafts of the hypothesis. This study was also possible because of the dedicated scholarship of Donald W. Clark and A. McFayden Clark. Access to collections was graciously provided by curators and professors at the Museum of the North, University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Alaska Bureau of Land Management at Fairbanks, National Park Service Alaska in Fairbanks and Anchorage, Canadian Museum of History, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, and Center for the Study of the First Americans, Texas A&M University. I am most appreciative of Ted Goebel, Kelly Graf, Michael Waters, and David Carlson for their guidance and providing comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript. I am also grateful for the comments and suggestions provided by two anonymous reviewers, which were most helpful in revising this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Heather L. Smith received her PhD in Anthropology from Texas A&M University in 2015 and now serves as Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Eastern New Mexico University. Her research interests include human adaptation and dispersals in the late Pleistocene, the adaptive role of lithic technology during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, and quantitative methods of material culture analyses with an emphasis on geometric morphometrics, GIS, geoarchaeology, evolutionary archaeology, and cultural transmission. Dr Smith specializes in the transmission of Paleoindian lithic technology between areas south of the late Pleistocene ice sheets and the Arctic.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Arctic Social Sciences and Archaeology programs of the US National Science Foundation [grant numbers 1204085 and 1019190].