It has long been assumed that Folsom points are more standardized than Clovis points, although an adequate test of this proposition has yet to be undertaken. Here, we address that deficiency by using data from a sample of Folsom and Clovis points recovered from sites across the western United States. We used geometric morphometric techniques to capture point shape and then conducted statistical analyses of variability associated with Clovis and Folsom point bases and blades. Our results demonstrate that Folsom bases and blades are less variable than those on earlier Clovis points, indicating an increase in point standardization during the Early Paleoindian period. In addition, despite published claims to the contrary, Clovis and Folsom point bases are no more variable than blades. Based on these results, we conducted additional analyses to examine the modularity and size of Clovis and Folsom points. The results suggest Clovis points have more integrated base and blade segments than Folsom points. We suggest that several classes of Clovis points—intended for different functions—might have been in use during the Clovis period and that the later Folsom points might have served only as weapon tips, the shape of which were constrained by the fluting process.
Most models of Folsom adaptation consider specialized bison hunting and high rates of residential mobility to be defining characteristics. We use spatial and assemblage content data from a sample of 619 Folsom sites located throughout the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and Southwest to evaluate whether the archaeological record actually reflects these characteristics. Three spatial scales of analysis are utilized. First, site scale analysis of a subset of sites shows a great deal of variability in spatial and temporal characteristics. Sites can be roughly divided into small, single occupation locales and large, serially occupied sites. Second, day-to-day foraging occurs at what we term the foraging scale. This intermediate spatial scale is poorly understood for Folsom groups, though large sites such as Blackwater Draw and Lindenmeier provide clues that are supplemented by information from the ethnographic record. Third, the macro-regional scale analysis utilizes the entire site sample and indicates that the Folsom archaeological record consists primarily of small locales scattered across the landscape punctuated by only a few large, serially occupied sites. Overall, our analysis suggests that Folsom adaptive systems were more variable than normally recognized, and, in certain settings, may have been characterized by reduced residential mobility. Furthermore, we postulate that Folsom land use, rather than being conditioned primarily by mobile prey, may have been at least partly conditioned by more predictable resources such as wood, water, and toolstone.
The notion that Paleoindians used bifaces as “mobile cores” is widespread in Late Pleistocene lithic research, although it can be difficult to test empirically. Here, we use experimental replication to establish two quantitative predictions that would be indicative of biface-core transport. If bifaces are being used as mobile cores, then we should see among a group of sites of varying toolstone procurement distances (a) a negative relationship between toolstone procurement distance and the mean unifacial tool maximum-thickness value from each site; and (b) a negative relationship between toolstone procurement distance and the variability (standard deviation) of maximum flake thickness values from each site. We then test these predictions against data from six Clovis sites of varying toolstone procurement distance in the Lower Great Lakes region. The results show that both sets of data possess a strong, positive relationship with increasing toolstone procurement distance, which is inconsistent with the notion that biface-cores were transported. Since the Clovis presence in the Lower Great Lakes is widely acknowledged to be a colonization pulse, we conclude that the lack of biface-core transport there is an economizing and risk-mitigating behavior consistent with the models of Kuhn (1994) and Meltzer (2002, 2003, 2004).
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