The Langtry, it's day of glory

As is the common practice, points are given the name of a local point of interest or community. Here the selection seem very apt. Those of you familiar of with some of the lore of the old west may recall the story of Judge Roy Bean "the hanging judge". It was the judge that placed the name Langtry on the map of Texas. A beautiful and talented singer Miss Langtry, and a work of art the langtry point.

Meet the subject of the display, just click.

It was for this reason the museum selected it as a point to demonstrate the development of a craft. It would take several thousand years for the history of the Langtry to be placed in stone. The Pecos Museum was fortunate in the recovery of over a thousand samples of early man points and fragments, at the Zueberbueler site, that tell the story of the man's needs and the final solution. For many years texts, on the Langtry, have been in error. The placement of several, similar or somewhat like point specimens, have been labelled Langtry. The Zueberbueler site in west Texas allowed the museum to cover the slow evolution of man's work to it's final step, the Langtry. It was the years of influence on these craftsmen and result of an unfolding skill that allows us to demonstrate the history of the Langtry. About ten thousand years before this present era (BP), man would begin what may be, with controversy, the period of man human. We now know the era of the Paleo man had come to a close. Paleo man had been a hunter, a hunter with a two million year history. Now this pre human man faced the same extinction as any creature that found his natural source of food becoming extinct. The mammoth and mastodon were slowly vanishing from the land and a creature that depended on them was in peril. Thus began the Archaic period of man. Man the gatherer would be the survivor. But he did more that just learn to live off the land, man the human would find he could do more with that enlarged brain he was evolved with, more than make crude tools and kill with a stick. Among the first thing man of ten millennium in the past did was find safe shelter. In Texas that led him to the rock shelters of the Pecos and Rio Grande river canyons.

The Paleo era, Lerma

No longer were the hunting tools of the past going to serve him. The lance he had used to harass and kill the large animals, was of little value. Change would be the world of man. Now his needs would be met by the harvest of the small and fleet deer, and other smaller creatures he would now feed upon. In the illustration of the Clovis were several small points of similar outline of the early Clovis. Here is the evidence that man had been forced to adapt. His hunting tools for several millennium had begun to prove ineffective. Man no longer could approach his kill as he had with the Mastodon and Mammoth. The new kills were to be on smaller animals, the fleet deer and other small game. The smaller Dalton is today found in many locations in North America. At best they are a transitional point, their usefulness being little better than that of their predecessor the Clovis. The first changes man would make upon moving into the shelters was in his hunting tools. The power to create and advance were rapid in their appearance. Man would now take more advantage of his two million year old brain. In a few generations he would gain more from it than all that came before. At the very depth of habitation evidence, at the Zueberbueler site, were recovered samples of man's advanced skills of working stone. From crude tools he developed the skill of forming thin blades. These thin blades were to become the door to the future of the Langtry and many other point to flourish over the next several thousand years. The icon below will bring to you samples of the Pecos River blades. This paper is their first introduction to the world of archaeology. The viewer will find it hard to grasp the value of these new bits of stone to early man, it can best be compared to the invention of metal it gave man, of a time where even a small steps would be strides into the future.

Pecos blades

With the new skill of working stone to such thinness a new world of lithic development lay ahead. Hunting points that could penetrate the hide of game without the need of mans power to thrust. Points so light that when mounted on a small shaft could be propelled over a distance. It was this new skill of making blades that led to a new form of hunting implement that is all but mechanical. Man would develop the Atlatl. The throwing stick. An illistration of the working of the Atlatl is offered below.

the hunters tools, the Atlatl.

While the Pecos River blades may have served man as knives for man it was only one step on the path to the Langtry. As the next video will show, it was only time before a craftsman trimmed the blades to form the Zueberbueler point.

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