Intrusive Mound/Raccoon Notched

[paohrocks]

Intrusive Mound Points were first published by William C. Mills in 1922 from his excavations at Mound City in Ross County Ohio. They were found in association with burials made in the tops of existing Hopewell mounds, hence the name Intrusive Mound. The point style has a wide distribution and many regional names but here in western Pennsylvania they are called Raccoon Notched or Intrusive Mound.
There are several variations of this point - all of which are characterized by extreme thinness and delicate chipping. The most common variety is triangular in design with U-shaped side notches. the base is straight and as wide as the shoulders with little to no grinding. The second variety has diagonal corner notches which leave sharp pronounced barbs and stem corners, it sometimes has a pentagonal shape. The rarest variety has a decidedly pentagonal design, the widest part of the point being in the middle of the blade. Also common is the flat tabular blade exhibited in Hopewell points.
Converse postulates dates of 600 AD - 900 AD while Stanley Lantz postulates 500 AD - 950 AD.
Lantz also mentions how many sites that produce Raccoon Notched points in western PA also produce triangular points, I can attest to this. Converse makes no mention of this this.
Below are several pics of these artifacts from my collection.

[UpNorth]

Very nice points... thanks for the info...👍

[paohrocks]

Thanks Up-north

[gregszybala]

Great post, thanks.

[paohrocks]

Thank you Greg

[tomf]

Very educational. Great points too.

[paohrocks]

Thanks tom

[Jethro355]

Exactly what I’d expect.
signed in.
learned something.

thanks, paohrocks!

[paohrocks]

Thanks Jethro

[Hal Gorges]

Good post Chris...Sweet little Coons.

[paohrocks]

Thank you Hal

[flintguy]

So could you clearify the difference between a Jacks Reef pentagonal and intrusive mound one? Same area, roughly same time period, but I hear people distinguish between the two as if they are separate.

[paohrocks]

Good question flintguy. I am not a professional but in my humble opinion I believe they are the same relic just given different regional names. The name Jack's Reef was coined by William Ritchie in 1961 for his work at the type site (Jack's Reef) in Onondaga County New York. Hope that helps.

[flintguy]

Thanks, in my humble opinion I agree, not as though that counts for much but I felt maybe I was missing something because you hear people talk about them as a different group. Good info on this post.

[redrocks]

Nice points Chris. And good info ..I learned something!

[paohrocks]

Thank you Red

[antmike915]

Excellent finds Chris, great post.

[paohrocks]

Thanks Mike.

[CMD]

I think the Raccoon Notched and Jack’s Reef Corner Notched are related in some fashion, the former being side notched instead of corner notched. Actually, the second example shown in this thread looks like it’s corner notched, and would type as a Jack’s Reef if found here in southern New England. And, of course, Jack’s Reef points are frequently pentagonal.....

[CMD]

I really value the cluster model typology, created by Noel Justice, which groups related points. Out of print, and pricey, but a great typology....

https://www.amazon.com/Points-Midcontinental-Eastern-United-States/dp/0253209854

Justice includes two types in his Jack’s Reef Cluster: the Jack’s Reef Corner Notch, and the Raccoon Side Notch. Both have pentagonal preforms. The Jack’s Reef Pentagonal, for instance. In this illustration the last three points shown, e through g, are Raccoon points, and all the others are JR Corner Notch. Hope this helps....

[paohrocks]

Great feedback

[Mugwomp13]

Yes I bought it when it first came out been very useful

[Cmcramer]

Interesting post! I live just 30 minutes from THE Jack's Reef site, and have walked those fields. ( ...so has everyone else, apparently .... ). Your "Intrusive Mound" type is new for me, so I'm trying to juxtapose it with Jacks Reef. Boudreau's New England Typology, photos attached, shows all Jack's Reefs with distinct corner notches; so does Ritchie's Typology. Nothing close to a side notch as shown in a couple of your examples. And not one of the 35 samples in these two reference books shows a Jacks Reef with a squared off tang like a couple you show. Even points on their way to being 'pentagonal' do not have squared tangs. Also, Jacks Reef bases look to me to be not as wide as the shoulders, as Intrusive Mound type may be. But yes, both types are thin (4 to 5 mm) and I would say finely chipped, and about the same size. Looks like both types could be described as generally excurvate, or sometimes trianguloid: maybe a result of re-sharpening? I've attached a pic of two of my pieces that I would say are Jacks Reefs: fine chipping and quite thin !

Ritchie (1961) indicated that Jacks Reef points were 'found in Intrusive Mound Culture sites in Ross County, Ohio'. So when he named the Type 'Jacks Reef', he must have been aware of Intrusive Mound as a Type; he went ahead and named a new Type anyway. So I guess he saw a distinction. Is this an example of where Typology Lumpers and Splitters diverge? Here is an interesting quotation from a journal article about Jacks Reef Type:

"While several researchers have suggested that these points [Jacks Reef] have their origin in the Intrusive Mound Culture of Ohio, sites in western New York show smaller numbers of these points than expected. If Jack's Reef points were related to the Intrusive Mound Culture of Ohio, we should expect to find these points to be prominent on sites in western New York and common on early sites prior the disappearance of the Intrusive Mound Culture around A.D. 400. Instead, the later dates of use and prominence in central and eastern New York argue for a different point of origin."

This may be a case of a distinction without a difference, but just typing this post out has helped me to better ID a couple types I may come across. Now, about those Brewerton's.....

[paohrocks]

More solid feedback. Appreciate everyone filling in the blanks.

[CMD]

The difference that Ritchie noted, and the reason he erected a new type, the Jack’s Reef Corner Notch, is because the JR is a corner notch and Intrusive Mound and Raccoon are side notch. That is a fundamental difference, and would require erecting a new type. Justice placed both types in a single JR cluster. They are basically contemporary in time, and both are regarded as the first true arrowheads, first to be used with a bow, in the areas where found. They basically share the same geographical distribution, but I find no Raccoon Side Notched in RI, so there must be some differences in range.

[paohrocks]

Lantz mentions a Raccoon Corner Notched variant in his Bulletin of Carnegie Museum of Natural history, "Age, Distribution and Cultural Affiliation of Raccoon Notched Point Varieties in Western Pennsylvania and Western New York" Number 28, Pittsburgh, 1989.
Converse also mentions Intrusive Mound corner notched variants in his book Ohio Flint Types.

[sailorjoe]

This is a super post. Very informative for us all. Great discussion on your part and commentary by CMD. Jacks Reef CN and Pentagonal are both found in my old hunting grounds in the Tenn. River valley in north AL. although not super common. I had 9 CN and 9 Pentagonals in my former collection of 976 identifiable unbroken points. I also had one Knight Island which looks like the JRCN except it is side notched. It was named as a type by David Hulse and first described by him in the 1964 edition of the Handbook of Alabama Archaeology by James Cambron and Hulse. I suspect these are all the same point types as those found in Ohio and New York. In the Handbook description the authors mention that the Knight Island was similar to points described by Riitchie. I don't know why they decided to give in a separate name when they give due credit to the JRCN and Pentagonal.

[paohrocks]

Thank you sailorjoe, this is one of the best features about this forum, the ability to discuss and learn. Very much appreciate all the feedback, it's like adding pieces to the puzzle.

[CMD]

Joe, the reason I like Justice’s approach is that he groups similar points from different regions into related clusters. I think the proliferation of different type names for very similar points is one thing that results from our prehistoric archaeology being regional in nature. Once past the Paleo era, the cultures are regional, and approached that way.....

[paohrocks]

That's what I'm trying to do and say CMD.