The Manufacture of Northern Fluted Points: A Production Sequence Hypothesis

Summary

Fluted projectile points have been found in the archaeological record of the North American Arctic for over 50 years. Only recently, however, have fluted points found in buried contexts associated with dateable materials and included in region-wide comparative analyses provided chronological, morphological, and technological evidence to support the cohesion of the Arctic specimens as their own fluted variant: the Northern Fluted Complex (NFC). Few sites have provided the opportunity to observe examples from the NFC discarded early in the production sequence, which can provide a glimpse of Northern manufacture protocols. This paper presents a hypothetical sequence of NFC point production developed using evidence from exhausted and discarded fluted point fragments, and a collection of rejected and damaged bifaces from four NFC sites. Discussion will address the integrity of the archaeological evidence for production stage by using multiple reduction indices, as well as an experiment re-creating NFC points using the manufacture sequence proposed. Conclusions address whether characteristics of the NFC reduction sequence can inform on the mode used to culturally transmit fluted point technology to the North.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21693