Paleocoastal Flaked Stone Heat Treatment Practices on Alta California's Northern Channel Islands

Bibliographic Data

ID9378652
AuthorsNicholas P Jew (University of Oregon, corresponding author), Jon M Erlandson, Jon Erlandson (0000-0002-4705-4319, University of Oregon)
Year2013
Volume5
Issue1
Pages79-104
Publication date2013-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCalifornia Archaeology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1947-461X • E-ISSN: 1947-4628
PublisherManey Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1179/1947461x13z.0000000007
OpenAlexW1964411272
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited38

On California's Northern Channel Islands, Paleocoastal peoples produced extraordinarily delicate stemmed, barbed, and serrated projectile points between about 12,000 and 8,000 years ago. We analyzed several Paleocoastal lithic assemblages to explore whether intentional heat treatment was used to facilitate the production of these artifacts. We experimentally heat treated samples of three types of island chert (Tuqan, Cico, and Wima) to document the changes in the physical signatures of lithic heat treatment, then analyzed 1,453 lithic artifacts from Paleocoastal assemblages on San Miguel and Santa Rosa islands. We found that about 29 percent of the artifacts exhibited visible heat fractures and a large percentage of sampled artifacts had quantitative gloss scores characteristic of heat-treated control samples. Our results suggest that heat treatment was an important step used by Paleocoastal peoples to produce finely crafted bifaces on the Northern Channel Islands

Archaeology · Channel (broadcasting · Geography · Lithic technology · Projectile point · Telecommunications · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Engineering · Geology and Paleoclimatology Research · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology · Geology

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