Archaeologica.org

I think I'll take your advice on the three handaxes. I'll keep it short and sweet. I haven't actually made contact with Dr. Kowalski. Pat has, though. He was told there are no handaxes in N.A.

Charlie,
Tell him you have hns handaxes. He'll really go off then!

Charlie, Tell him you have hns handaxes. He'll really go off then!

I’m the conservative one between the two of us.

Well that proves that everything is relative. Laughing

Based on what I've picked up from you and Cog recently, I like that last one you posted. It seems to me that I see evidence of flaking and carbonate deposits.

Good luck with him Charlie.

Stan, You wrote something about mineral images being projected. Do you have any links for that.

Charlie Hatchett wrote:

Well that proves that everything is relative. Laughing

Based on what I've picked up from you and Cog recently, I like that last one you posted. It seems to me that I see evidence of flaking and carbonate deposits.

Good luck with him Charlie.

I agree with the last one, also, Beag. What's your top 3 picks?

Wow Charlie, that's tough but #1 is just not doing anything for me. I can see that it appears to be flaked and that it has carbonate coating but it looks so disorganized that it's hard to belive that it is worked by man. Maybe it's a discard? Anyway that's my best guess.

BTW Charlie, the calcium that gradually fills in the knapped areas is interesting. Do you know what the chemical mechanism is that causes that? And how much time do you think would pass before an artifact is indistinguishable from a regular rock?

BOING!

I may not have the fastest synapses in the world, but something just clicked.

Charlie found one in situ stemmed projectile point in the gravel cap underlying (older than) fine-grained sediments in which Clovis points have been found by others and dated by them at ca. 12,000 years. Said tool (archaic [not! VSMcI] 20) has remnants of a carbonate coat covering the flake scars. (flake scars = tool shaping = older than carbonate coat = older than gravel cap = older than Clovis = older than 12,000 years). Other stemmed tools from nearby float (out of context) also have remnants of carbonate coats covering flake scars, as do many other float specimens showing various flaking technologies. He finds other artifacts in the overlying fine-grained sediments, the ones that have produced Clovis points at a nearby site, but none of them have remnants of a carbonate coat. We can assume they are younger than the carbonate coat episode.

But carbonate coats don't start out as relatively thick spots on flake scars; they start out as thin films covering the whole piece and thicken slowly over time. And nature doesn't treat an artifact as an artifact; she treats it as a piece of gravel. So we can further assume that, after these pieces were made, they rested a long time in the place they were dropped, and that the climate at that time was hot and dry, with intermittent moisture (for the carbonate to be moved in solution and later deposited on the tools. Sangamon Interglacial?) Then the climate got a lot wetter (Wisconsin time?) This in order to erode the sediments containing the tools, concentrate them, and move them along in a relatively high energy environment to their current position in the gravel cap, knocking off most of their carbonate coats in the process.

So, these tools Charlie is finding will have to be older than the gravel cap out of which they are now eroding. And they can be of various ages. Two especially, if those chip marks aren't natural, have had flake scars modified by water transport, i.e. dulled edges, before the carbonate coat was added (paleo 20, photo 2010a; preclovis 2019). Others may have been recycled at a later date (preclovis 20190, preclovis 20206).

And we have the same or similar carbonate thing in Mexico! At Hueyatlaco, above (younger than) the Tetela brown mud layer with dated pumice at the top of the sediment column is a layer of large carbonate nodules (concretions) that caused me a headache at first -- I thought they were pumice lumps. They overlie (are younger than) the artifact sequence at Hueyatlaco, both unifacial and bifacial tools. Here you have a time, perhaps long after the artifacts were dropped, when calcium carbonate was deposited in the soil somewhere (relatively dry climate) and later mobilized in solution (wetter) to be deposited as carbonate concretions. See my unpublished manuscripts section for mention of this. Silvia González told me in 2002 that she found the same large carbonate concretions ringing the Valley of Mexico at a relatively high elevation.

So what might be productive for Charlie to do is look for local, thick caliche layers in sediments OLDER than the gravel cap, then look closely for in situ tools there. They will be hard to spot because they will be covered with that caliche coat. Also he should check with the local state soils and geological survey offices for help with potential areas to investigate and, perhaps, background information on caliche formation...

http://www.valsequilloclassic.net/Forum ... 20&start=0

Great! Thanks Charlie.