Stone Tool Manufacturing in the Gault Assemblage: Experimental Analysis of Dart Points and Bifaces below the Clovis Horizon at the Gault Site, Texas

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

It is essential to investigate well-stratified residential sites containing both Clovis and pre-Clovis materials to compare technologies used in the same location under similar conditions. The Gault site, Texas, contains the entire occupational sequence in the region, spanning the Paleoindian, Archaic, and Late Prehistoric periods. The Gault Assemblage, found beneath the Clovis horizon in excavation Areas 12 and 15, primarily consists of fragmented artifacts with a few complete specimens. Lithic analysis of dart points and bifacial tools from Area 15, complemented by experimental work, has identified technological behaviors related to ancient social groups that existed between three to six millennia before Clovis. This paper examines the strategies and techniques observed in the Gault Assemblage, focusing on flaking technologies to understand both assemblage-level and individual-level stone tool production behaviors, thereby contributing to the characterization of these ancient Paleoindians.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53909