Ever feel like there are just way too many types?

[JoshinMO]

Not only that but each Point is unique. Once You think You got most figured out there is another type or two You didn't know of?

[CoachG]

Nobody truly knows in my opinion. It's more area based than anything.

[Hoss]

There are Josh and just like Coach says no one knows it all.

[JoshinMO]

Yep, look at just corner notches, or stemmed. Wow

[Scorpion68]

Or when you're trying to ID a point - Just when you think you got it figured out, you notice that your point has a heavily ground base which is just ever so slightly concave and you have to start all over again. I got more unident points than anything

[TSUMS]

That's why I stick to northeast types when collecting.. way too much other types..

[Kyflintguy]

Clusters! Im really ok with the way it is honestly. What we have is the result of alot of hard work by people who have tried to understand and organize all of the morphological differences and spatial relationships of the many differences we see in North American projectile paints and types. If you cluster all those types into groups that are related in age, form and distribution you get a much simpler picture. And trying to know everything is ludicrous. Just try to understand your area of interest to the best of your ability or however much time you have to dedicate to it and dont sweat the rest imo. I try not to get tore up about types or worry about what I dont know instead I go with what I know and can find and when a new idea or fact comes along I integrate it into my knowledge base. If Im stumped then Im ok with calling it by its morphological name I.e. stemmed, parallel sided knife.... Maybe woodland, maybe not. Makes no huge difference if you dont figure it out, you still know its a Native American artifact.

[JoshinMO]

Yep, noticed clusters from A Noel Justice book and liked the idea. Ha, actually found a knife like what you describe but gave it away to property owner that day. It was even heat treated.

[BabaORiley]

What about an Archaic point found by a Woodland and reworked by their technology? A hybrid that cant be typed? Just a thought...good topic Josh...

[Kyflintguy]

Not being sarcastic but just responding to your question Baba but my thought is this. If you know your looking at an Archaic reworked by Woodland your doing good. If you dont know that much and you got something that doesn't fit anything known, Id call that unique! No need kick ourselves when we cant figure something out. Archies often dont worry about types, they try to understand the context and note the morphology and thats about it...

[BabaORiley]

Ky I wouldn't know one from the other without a ref guide. I was sort of juxtaposing and used the two eras off hand. You are right on about the Archies also . I have often wondered about ancients finding other ancient points and reworking them. Typology really doesn't concern me either. It is an interesting aspect but as an Archie once told me...who cares..its an artifact...

[sailorjoe]

Hi Josh. To reply directly to your question: Sometimes I do and sometimes I do not. But mostly I don't feel like there are too many. I enjoy trying to determine the type of artifact that I found. It is my nature to do so. But there are many points that we find where it is not possible to assign them to a specific named type. As many of you know, I sold the large bulk of my collection several years ago. Because I wanted to get as much as possible for it, I tried to ID them all and sorted them into types where possible. By doing that a potential buyer who was knowledgeable about point types would get a better idea as to what I had when I was contacted. They might ask how many Paleo and Transitional Paleo points I had. I could tell him that I had 30 and about half were Daltons but only 2 Clovis and 1 Cumberland. Most of the really serious collectors who are also buyers have a good knowledge of the types found in their area of interest. When I say I have a Kirk Corner Notch, a Wade and a Snyder for sale then a buyer knows before hand that I have 3 corner notch points for sale and because of the relative rarity that the Kirk was going to cost the most to obtain if they were the same in all respects except for the age. Regarding the number of types that I IDed that I found in North Alabama and Mid. Tennessee (assuming I was correct on them all and I probably was not): I had 976 points of 93 types, 20 blunts, and 285 points that I could not ID. Among other tools besides the points I had 213 uniface tools, 4 chert celts, 6 green stone celts, 26 adzes chisels, hoes and a lot of other hardstone artifacts. As for broken bases and distal ends of points, I had more than I wanted to count so I put them in a box and weighed them. They weighed 4 pounds. James Cambron who along with his co author David Hulse who was probably the author of more named types than anyone whether they are professional or amateur archeologist often was not able to ID a point I asked him about. He would say something like "Gosh, Joe I don't know--looks kinda like some kind of late Archaic or Woodland thing to me". The problem with point typology is that in many cases many points may have different names for the same point.

[JoshinMO]

Hey Joe, I hear You on A dwindled Collection. That's a whole lot of types You had. I like the way that amateur archie replied to You. )

[SDhunter]

It's definitely confusing. Human error in knapping I'm sure has contributed to the confusion. For example, someone was knapping a point, with something in mind, but he makes a mistake, and says " oh crap". " well I'll just make it this way instead." Maybe he gets bored making the same point all the time, and just makes a different version.
It is interesting though

[JoshinMO]

Typology is very interesting and there is so much info out there.

[Ron Kelley]

Hey Josh, What I find interesting is the fact that you could take the same point and travel around the country with it and it would have several different type names.

[Ron Kelley]

I have collected rocks from all over the country and man would that throw someone for a loop trying to type points.

[JoshinMO]

True, maybe typology will get a major change someday. I'm not saying any change would be better but another way could be better.

[chase]

There too many types it stems from archaeologists every wants to discover the past as fact most are done on an site only basis and then named accordingly simple but true

[chase]

We all want to discover America that has been done from my history books it was done in 1492. ....we as a group know better it now becomes a reconstruction of how it unfolded and how trade routes evolved