Early Man
Projectile Points
in the Southwest
MUSEUM OF NEW MEXICO PRESS
POPULAR SERIES PAMPHLET NO. 4
EARLY MAN PROJECTILE POINTS IN THE SOUTHWEST
by Kenneth Honea
INTRODUCTION
The cultures of Early Man in the Southwest, though yet imperfectlyknown, seem most readily distinguishable by characteristictypes of projectile points. The majority of finds, and theyare rare, have been made on the surface; much less often at campor kill sites.
Camp sites were situated on ridges, in sand dunes, or on hillsoverlooking streams, lakes, or ponds. Occupational features generallyinclude hearths, split and charred food bones, debris fromstone tool manufacturing, and a full inventory of stone tools.Seeds, grinding stones, storage and cooking pits are rarely foundat such early sites.
Kill sites, by contrast, are usually situated on the edges ofstreams, lakes, or ponds. Features will include animal skeletons,sometimes partially dismembered, points used in killing game,some stone butchering tools such as scrapers, knives, utilized flakes,and waste flakes resulting from the sharpening of stone tools.Preferred parts of game may be missing, indicating they werecarried back to camp. Hearths are occasionally found at kill sites,indicating that part of the game may have been prepared there.
Points used by Early Man were likely thrown at game witha spear-thrower or atl-atl, rather than shot at them with a bowand arrow. Atl-atls were probably of wood, and had a long grooveon one side. Into this groove was placed the spear with a pointhafted onto one end. The atl-atl was thrust back and thrownforward, releasing the spear on the forward thrust.
On the basis of findings, archaeologists have reconstructed twowidespread methods of hunting by Early Man. In the first instance,game was observed, stalked and killed at watering places.In the second, game was driven into an arroyo, stream, lake, orpond, or stampeded over a cliff.
EARLY MATERIALS AND TECHNOLOGIES
It is a curious fact that Early Southwestern Man most oftenmade his tools of very finely textured stone. Perhaps this customwas induced by the exacting, finely controlled technologies ofstone flaking practiced and the kinds of tools made. Indeed,workmanship on many projectile points, knives, and scrapers is sowell achieved that one is led to believe that Early Man strove toexpress some degree of esthetic idealism in his tools.
Demands in technology often led to the widespread trading ofchoice materials. The best known of these is from the alibatesquarries near Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle. Fine qualityflint from this locality has been found at Early Man sites as farwest as Arizona and as far north as Wyoming and Montana.
Early man prepared point “blanks” by the striking of suitableprimary flakes by direct percussion from a block of stone, thecore. The striker consisted either of a hard subround hammerstone,or a cylinder-hammer of soft stone, bone, antler, or hardwood. Flakes driven off by the former were usually thicker atone end. Those produced in the second instance were relativelythin throughout their length. Long flakes or “blades” were alsooften used as blanks, especially in the making of