Type:  Kanawha Point

Location: Indiana

Age: 

Material: 

MoST ID: 2855

Pedestal Link: https://une.pedestal3d.com/r/8GXWucayNh

Model Author:  Emma Watt

This chert Kanawha point is from Indiana.  Kanawha points date to the Early Archaic period and were used between ca. 7800-8300 BP.



Kanawha points are within the LeCroy family of bifurcated points, which also includes LeCroy, Lake Erie, and Fox Valley variants.  Although these points are often very small—within the size range of arrowheads—they are thought to predate the use of the bow-and-arrow in North America.  If so, they were likely used as armatures on darts thrown with spearthrowers.



The profound cultural and subsistence changes from the Paleoindian to the Early Archaic in North America was matched by a dramatic shift in the stone technology.  The fluted lanceolate points of the Paleoindian period, such as Clovis, transitioned to exotically-fluted types such as Cumberland points in southeastern North America, and Folsom on the Great Plains.  Eventually fluting was abandoned for less dramatic basal thinning, like that seen on Dalton points, and, eventually, lanceolate points were supplemented or replaced by an explosion of notched point styles in the Early Archaic period, after about 10,000 BP.  The earliest notched points in the Early Archaic are side-notched (e.g., Graham Cave, Big Sandy, Hardaway, Bolen), followed by corner-notched points (e.g., Kirk, Palmer, Lost Lake), with ‘bifurcated’ points (corner-notched or stemmed points with a notched base, like LeCroy, Kanawha, MacCorkle, and St Albans) emerging towards the end of the Early Archaic period.  Side-notched (e.g., Thebes, St Charles), basal-notched (e.g., Calf Creek), and stemmed (e.g., Hardin, Kirk Stemmed) point variants co-occurred with corner-notched points in complex patterns through most of the Early Archaic period, reflecting considerable regional and chronological diversity in point styles, driven by population growth and intensified trends towards differing cultural expression in circumscribed regions.  These point styles—all of them manufactured by bifacial flaking—functioned variously as dart points and hafted knives.