Archaeologica.org

Minimalist wrote:

What's the difference by a handaxe and a Folsom point?

I was thinking about the original question and finally the answer came to me.

The difference is that there ARE Folsom points in North America!

Hey, you back yet?

Um...I think so.

Minimalist wrote:Um...I think so.

Vegas hangover?

Too much driving.

Minimalist wrote:Too much driving.

Nothing like driving across the desert...zzzzzzz...

Yup.

Digit wrote:Which raises it's own akward question of why the big brain evolved.

Sorry to dive in on a question from two pages back, but (and I know I keep evangelising for this book) Susan Blackmore proposes a worryingly credible explanation in The Meme Machine (Oxford) which is that bigger brains evolved essentially in pursuit of the cultural advantage of storing more memes (including useless ones). I haven't a hope in hell of explaining it in a way here which isn't going to sound like a load of old poop being as it's a pretty complex argument and one you have to go at from scratch with the whole "what is a meme in the first place" question, but it's well worth the effort and one that provides some rather neat answers to this sort of thing (that and why start farming?) - ie subjects that still don't seem to have any one respectable or widely accepted explanation.
By the way, I've just noticed I somehow wrote the difference by rather than difference between, which doesn't make sense. Sorry, I think it's this bloody cast on my hand. At the moment I'm having to retype every fourth or fifth word.
Sorry... please continue.

Copper in Cyprus has never totally run out Cog, it's still being mined today, but the easy surface deposits apparently were exhausted in ancient times.
Who could have managed a trans Atlantic trade? I would think that the Phoenicians would have been favorite for that. They pretty well controlled the Tin trade, rumour of course has placed them in the US in the past, and the usage of Copper in classical times was enormous.
Difficulties in obtaining Copper in quantity would have been as disasterous in classical times as oil shortages would be today.

Proto-Indo-Europeans around Eurasia, had the horse,
the wheel, and where very much into copper and bronze
smelting. Perhaps they came in through the Hudson Bay
passage before the Vikings.

At the height of its usage Bronze appears to have been of such importance that seeking new sources of raw materials, or cornering the market, would have been very worthwhile.
I don't see the crossing of the Atlantic, one winds and currents were familiar, any more risky than the early voyages to the 'Spice Islands' were, and with similar rewards.

Charlie Hatchett wrote:Here's bit of the abstract:

The Old Copper Assemblage and Extinct Animals. American Antiquity 20:169-170.

Quimby analyses an occurrence of deeply buried copper artifacts and associated animal bones near Fort Williams in southwest Ontario. The discovery, made in 1913 and 1916, was recorded in a geological report. Quimby reasons that the site may date to the Altithermal, approximately 3500-2000 B.C., and that the bones are those of bison and the extinct native horse.

Does anyone have access to JSTOR:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-7 ... 0.CO%3B2-9

Still searching...

Charlie, I can send the article in pdf if you're still looking.

When I first started reading this thread I found a lot of questions which I could answer. Most of them have been answered. One thing that struck me and seemed an epiphany was the point Digit made about the technology the first people arrived with being used as an indicator of the date when they arrived. That had never occured to me. It does open up a big window and seems to push back the date considerably. This does depend of course on when the technology of the bow reached their departure point, or points. Since they are alleged to have started from Siberia, does anyone know when bow technology reached there? By ascertaing the dates in which said technology reached various parts of the world one might be able to tell where the first Americans actually came from and when. It's an avenue of investigation which may not have occured to anyone yet. I haven't read of any such study. Have any of you?
Also one minor point I wanted to make about atlatls. They are very simple to use and take very little practice in order to be good with them. The shaft looked like a long arrow. They were in two pieces. The point was attched to a small, short shaft which was inserted into a "socket" in the larger part of the shaft. This smaller shaft was supposed to come off and stay in the prey. The bigger shaft was retrieved and used again. The smaller part was removed from the dead prey and could be reworked and used again. I'm sure this reworking was easier on the small shaft than it would have been if it was one single piece, in which case the point would have had to be removed from the shaft to be sharpened and remounted. There are far more atlatl dart points found in my part of Texas than arrow points. Ok, that's more than one minor point.

I fixed your title WA. I think everyone knew what you meant. This is a great discussion!

Hey Frank! Good to see you around again! How ya doing?

Some of you seem unclear as to how a folsum point was mounted to the shaft. The shaft was split, then a thong was wrapped around the shaft behind the base of the point, squeezing the shaft together on the base of the point. It was also glued with some tarry substance. Some may have had the two piece design. When a critter gets stuck with a dart or spear it usually runs for a while. This was hard on the shafts, hence the detachable smaller shaft. Cuts down on the number of shafts you have to replace especially in wooded areas where they hunted deer.