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Studying Crescentics: Form Or Function? a Distinctive Use-Wear Pattern Unlike Anything Seen on Crescents

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Studying Crescentics: Form Or Function? a Distinctive Use-Wear Pattern Unlike Anything Seen on Crescents Volume 25, Number 3 Center for the Study of the First Americans Department of Anthropology July, 2010 Texas A&M University, 4352 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-4352 ISSN 8755-6898 World Wide Web site http://centerfirstamericans.org and http://anthropology.tamu.edu Studying Crescentics: 8 A Yukon site where cultural evidence dates from 14,000 years ago to yesterday Form or Function? Today’s occupants of the Little John site, one of the oldest sites in eastern Beringia, share their culture with archaeologist Norman Easton’s students and connect with their own heritage. 13 The dog becomes firmly rooted in the New World In part II of our series, we find that the domestic dog appeared at least 9,500 calendar years ago, perhaps even as early as Clovis. There was human-dog bonding, The Black Rock Desert, where but the dog had to earn its keep. many sites have yielded crescentics. Microblades that appear and BETH SMITH 15 disappear, fluted points that RESCENTICS, also known as trans- rials used to make crescents, discard sites, defy classifying—what was verse points or simply crescents, and evidence of possible retooling in pro- going on in Alaska? are a class of pre-Archaic lithic arti- duction and post-production stages can tell CSFA archaeology teams are busy Cfacts shrouded in mystery. They’re rare archaeologists a great deal about how this summer at the Owl Ridge and and highly variable in form, there aren’t early Americans waged their fight for sur- Serpentine Hot Springs sites. Their many accurately dated sites where they vival in an unfamiliar landscape. goal: to find how Paleoamericans have been found, and there are no modern- dispersed in eastern Beringia after separating from their Siberian day examples to give us clues about how Crescentics 101 forebears. they might have been used. Found mostly in western North America Use-wear and residue studies have (the Great Basin area, Southern Califor- 4 Remembering Alan Bryan yielded inconclusive results. Conse- nia, and the Channel Islands), crescents quently we still aren’t sure what role cres- make up fewer than 5% of the artifacts at cents played in the pre-Archaic toolkit. most sites. They have been found in the thought to predate or overlap Some scientists feel, however, that func- context of the pre-Archaic Stemmed Point stemmed points. The intriguing as- tion is secondary in the study of tradition of highly mobile hunter-gather- pect about crescentics is that they crescentics. Such considerations as mate- ers and with fluted points, which are are almost invariably associated with 2 Volume 25 ■ Number 3 water (pluvial lakes, rivers, waterways). nately a paucity of datable material anything else, the material usually In fact, Eugene Hattori of the Nevada means we may never know just how matches that of other lithic artifacts at State Museum cites only one exception, much older it may be. that site. a crescent from Humboldt County in Thought to be contemporaneous The term crescent covers a wide as- with stemmed and fluted points, cres- sortment of irregular artifacts. Even cents are made of similarly tough mate- among the three subgroups (lunate, rials like cryptocrystalline silicates winged, and eccentric) there is consid- (chert, chalcedony), fine-grained erable variability in size, craftsmanship, basalts, and obsidian. Chert is the most materials, wear patterns, and shape. common. Archaeologist Beth Smith, The average size of crescents is 4–6 cm, with the Nevada Department of Trans- but specimens exist as small as 3 cm and portation, says when they’re made of as large as 10 cm. Their shape ranges The Mammoth Trumpet (ISSN 8755-6898) is published quarterly by the Center for DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION PHOTOGRAPHER:JULIE DUEWEL the Study of the First Americans, Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University, Beth Smith. College Station, TX 77843-4352. Phone (979) 845-4046; fax (979) 845-4070; e-mail [email protected]. Periodical postage paid at College Station, TX 77843-4352 and at Nevada, which was recovered from an additional mailing offices. upland context. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Many sites in the Great Basin are de- Mammoth Trumpet flated and lack organic materials, which Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University makes it difficult to date crescents. The 4352 TAMU College Station, TX 77843-4352 Lind Coulee site in north-central Wash- Copyright © 2010 Center for the Study of the First Americans. Permission is hereby ington gives a minimum date of 7000 given to any non-profit or educational organization or institution to reproduce without CALYBP for crescents found beneath the cost any materials from the Mammoth Trumpet so long as they are then distributed at Mount Mazama ash layer. At the Sun- no more than actual cost. The Center further requests that notification of reproduction of materials under these conditions be sent to the Center. Address correspondence to the editor of Mammoth Trumpet, 2122 Scout Road, Lenoir, NC 28645. Michael R. Waters Director and General Editor e-mail: [email protected] Ted Goebel Associate Director and Editor, Current Research in the Pleistocene e-mail: [email protected] James M. Chandler Editor, Mammoth Trumpet e-mail: [email protected] Laurie Lind Office Manager C & C Wordsmiths Layout and Design Tops Printing, Inc. Printing and mailing Web site: www.topsprinting.com World Wide Web site http://centerfirstamericans.com The Center for the Study of the First Americans is a non-profit organization. Sub- scription to the Mammoth Trumpet is by membership in the Center. Mammoth Trumpet, Statement of Our Policy Many years may pass between the time an important discovery is made and the acceptance of research results by the scientific community. To facilitate communication among all parties interested in staying NEVADA STATE MUSEUM abreast of breaking news in First Americans studies, the Mammoth Trumpet, a science news magazine, Eugene Hattori. provides a forum for reporting and discussing new and potentially controversial information important to understanding the peopling of the Americas. We encourage submission of articles to the Managing shine locality in Nevada, a crescent was Editor and letters to the Editor. Views published in the Mammoth Trumpet are the views of excavated from beneath a layer with a contributors, and do not reflect the views of the editor or Center personnel. –Michael R. Waters, Director minimal age of 10,500 CALYBP; unfortu- July ■ 2010 3 from crude lozenge-like shapes, to lunate forms, to stylized To haft or not to haft shapes that appear to bear nodules or even legs. Dr. Hattori Whether crescents served as projectile points or side blades, points out that the variety of crescent shapes can be organized Hattori has seen enough evidence to convince him they were into a neat continuum linking the primitive lunate versions to hafted. Breakage patterns on crescentics suggest hafting in the the more stylized versions, called eccentrics. He admits that center because the ends often break at the juncture between without chronological controls there’s no way to know what the haft and unsupported edge. He also observed a curious accounts for the changes in shape. “We don’t have a good concave break on the convex surface of some crescents, indi- understanding of the changes in style,” says Hattori. “Is it cating the haft may have chipped the edge when broken by a change over time or a change in function?” twisting motion. Hattori describes it as “a really curious little In this article we’ll discuss the form and function of lunate break, like you took a bite out of it.” and winged crescentics of the Great Basin. Hattori also notes what appears to be intentional dulling on the center portion of many crescents, in some instances by grinding Bet you can’t guess what this is: the central edges. Edge dulling was also apparently achieved, he Theories regarding use notes, by intentional steep-angled flaking in a manner similar to Archaeologists have known of crescents since the turn of the platform preparation. He feels strongly that both methods were century, when crescents found on San Miguel Island, one of used to prepare crescents for hafting. Early projectile points the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California, were exhibit similar dulled areas along the basal edges to prevent reported as “implements damage to binding sinew. of surgery” by American Hattori and other au- Anthropologist. Hattori thorities have also ob- has heard scads of theo- served striations between ries on the function of what he believes to be the the lunate crescents of central hafted area and the the Great Basin. Perhaps B winged area. He attributes the most well known is B the diagonal grooves to that they were blunt pro- A 03haft wear. Other research- cm jectile points (hence the A 03 name transverse point) cm A, winged crescent from for hunting water birds. Humboldt County, “You need a blunt tip to Nevada; B–D, lunate stun the birds rather crescents from Long Valley than to pierce their in central Nevada. skin,” he says. “Seems C D C D every winter there is a ALL: GENE HATTORI photo of a goose on a golf course with an arrow through its ers identify them as use wear and suggest crescents were used neck. They can survive an arrow. It is more effective to stun as scrapers. “Despite archaeology being a science, it can be very them with a rock.” Native Americans had blunt-ended arrows subjective,” Hattori warns. “People looking at the same evidence for this purpose. Beth Smith, however, says there’s no way are coming up with different conclusions. There’s a lot that has to crescents could have been projectile points.
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