A cache of Clovis points

This entry is prompted by an article in the July 2014 issue of The Mammoth Trumpet (Volume 29, Number 3), the archaeology magazine published quarterly by Texas A&M University, titled Hogeye Secrets. The article opens: "A cache of pristine Clovis bifaces unearthed by a commercial sand-mining operation in central Texas in 2003 drew Texas A&M archaeologists Mike Waters and Tom Jennings into investigating the discovery. It proved to be a godsend, for the 52 unused bifaces, in varying stages of completion, show lithics analysts the sequence of operations Clovis knappers performed as they crafted tools needed for survival at the end of the last Ice Age." In an accompanying picture we see one of the afore-mentioned archaeologists indicating the sand pile wherein the bifaces were discovered.

Sand pile? Reading further we discover that a workman noticed one or more bifaces in a bucket-load of sand which he was hauling from a sand pit. Over the next several months, most of the cache of Clovis points was recovered from a previously excavated pile of sand as it was processed. One of the steps in processing was to heat the sand to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. We are also told that "A few were also found in earlier piles of rejected material, and Jones was given one biface by another employee."

Hmmm. The article continues by informing us that part of the collection (those belonging to Farris) were bought and sold by various collectors, before being returned to the collection in 2005.

Some difficulties come to mind:

• The blades were not recovered in situ. Further, they were processed on a conveyor belt from which they were rejected as (not surprisingly) too big.
• Many if not all were heated to 500 degrees F before being recovered.
• Many passed through the hands of (undocumented?) collectors before being included in the collection.
• Some roaming about the internet reveals the existence of a substantial community of modern day flint knappers, many of whom seem confident that they can make reproductions indistinguishable from genuine artifacts of the various traditions.
• There appears to be some trade in such reproductions, for profit.