The Tools And Their Form

In general most tools that have a working edge applied to them, that do not meet the use as a knife will get the name scraper applied to them. Frequently we suggest a use based on the needs we see man had. Long slender wood sticks with polished points suggested a use in making sandals, very small hunting points suggested their use in hunting birds. The same with stone tools. But even then we encounter items recovered that baffled us. The time of these tools date from man's first use of the shelter as both a protection from the elements as moving in to begin full time habitation. The date we offer is some time after 10,000 BP to just after the start of the Christen era, or post 2,000 BP. During that time we see tools being an influence on man's first points used at the shelter. From early crafting tools that were large and lacking uniform form to gaining an accepted shape and quality. Not so unlike the hunting points that were being developed by the craftsmen. One of these point - tool relationships would be the Zueberbueler point. Starting at the lower levels of the Zueberbueler site, we encounter a early crude tool that could be called a blade form, a tear drop. Without additional evidence we can only guess at their true use. What we do know is that man was searching for a new way to hunt. Only a generation or two in the past, hunters had hunted the plains above the shelter with lances. Their hunts had been for the Mastodon and Mammoth. Now that these and many other beast had become extinct, the large lances no longer offered man the form of hunt he had been accustomed to. A new hunting tool was needed and would be discovered. The Atlatl and it's use of darts, would make the use of dart points the common at the site. But it was not just a one day or one idea change that man faced. This would be a totally new way of hunting. That would include new game as well as new tools. A modification of old hunting implements was not the answer. The lance points, points in use many thousands of years were out, the very idea of charging his prey and personally inflicting injury were gone. The new creatures he hunted were fast and elusive, he was in need of a tool that offered him not only speed but accuracy. Thus the development of the AtlAtl. The throwing stick. No longer the long lance, now a light dart was employed. No more the need for a stone point that would allow the user to thrust in the point and withdraw. Now was needed a point that would pierce the skin, then remain in to aid bleeding. As our display of early stone tools suggests, a tool in use was altered to make the earliest dart points. Our display of the Langtry point will give the full story of the next several millennium, as change after change were introduced. Let's visit the tool that became a point. The Zueberbueler point. In addition, there were stone tools that required only a minor degree of shaping or chipping, yet were employed daily. Their use would alter their appearance so we could recognize them. At the Texas shelter the need to make paint required pallets for mixing of stone, pigment, as it became paint. One excellent sample we offer here. On the reverse side there remains evidence this slab had been a cupped faced grinding stone, the use of stone was common in the grinding of nuts and other edibles. Here our slab met a greater need in paint making. A close look and you may see the result of the cave artist at work. The pallets From time to time I have been asked "where are the war clubs, the tomahawk". To their surprise, I have never encountered such tools in the sites that were habituated by early man. Could it be that such needs were still a craft away? As mentioned earlier, it's time for the micro tools. If you have guessed this is about small tools, you are right, in fact it is about some very small tools. A investigation of sites along the southern Mississippi river led to the discovery of clay balls and the story of pottery. We hope you will visit the directory, and the many displays of pottery that were to come. Also the point types that were used with the Atlatl. The tools used were similar to the ones we have covered here in this paper. But one site, the Jake Town site, in Mississippi, presented the first samples of what were termed Jake Town Perforators, the new history of micro tools was now to be discovered. These tools were much smaller that those commonly recovered and thus the name micro tools were applied to them. As a common method of forming them was noted it was easy to relate these tools to similar tools recovered at other sites, such as from the Poverty Point and Clayborne sites. There most important feature was that of being made from a uniface blade. Do not confuse this term with blade formed points. Blade points are given the term blade due to the fact thay have no barbs, and are the earliest form of hunting points, and they date from before 10,000 BP up to historic times.

Micro blades are tools made from flat shafts of stone, these shafts are cut away from the stone core in such a manner as to leave a workable stone that is flat and easy to form. A visit to the blade display may offer some help here. A common term you will be hearing is uniface. This is the heart of most micro tools and many points of the time. The Core and blades. You may have noted that the majority of blades struck from the core are in the center and they will be uniface. From large cores these can be modified to become full size points. Most will have only shaping done from one side of the blade and can be considered as uniface points. Note the bulb end of these points is used in the base. This enlarged or fat end is the end of the blade that received the craftsman's blow to separate the blade from the core. As you were sure to note there was the cortex cap. Minor back chipping here and you had a scraper. After the cap is removed there will be several blades removed from each side to prepare the core to offer the interior surface to retrieve the uniform uniface blades. These side blades will invariably have a exterior surface not unlike the cortex cap. These cortex blades, easily identified as right or left cortex blades, are, as with most usable stone, employed to make tools, knives or side scrapers.

Yes sir, it was waste not want not. Next page.