Pritam Chowdhury (Flat Earth Archeology, LLC)
Artifact of the Month - June 2021
This broken, heavily resharpened Calf Creek projectile point (Figures 1, 2, 3) was recovered during archeological excavations on the Hudson East site (3BE714) in Benton County, Arkansas. It is made of Keokuk chert and has a triangular blade with a slightly expanding stem. The base is slightly concave with the deep narrow notches characteristic of this type. The point is missing a large portion of the blade and one barb and has been partially reworked. The point weighs 11.7 g and has a total length of 53 mm.
Flat Earth Archeology, LLC conducted mitigation work on two archeological sites in Northwest Arkansas, Hudson East (3BE714) and Hudson West (3BE906), under a contract with the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department (now Arkansas Department of Transportation). The sites were discovered during a Phase I archeological survey ahead of a proposed road project in 2008–2009. Phase II testing conducted in 2013–2014 revealed the intact archeological deposits and the significance of the sites. Phase III mitigation excavations were proposed when it was determined that a highway construction project would damage the sites. This fieldwork was conducted and completed in 2015–2016, and the final analysis was completed in 2017. The multiyear, large-scale salvage project determined that these sites possessed an extended record of human occupation spanning the Late Paleoindian through Mississippi periods, ca. 10,500–500 years before present. Of particular importance at the Hudson East site were intact Calf Creek deposits consisting of distinct piles of flint knapping debris, thermal features, and chipped stone tools in various stages of manufacture, use, and discard.
The distinctive Calf Creek points are widely distributed across the Southern Plains and western Ozarks at temporary camps and other special purpose sites, like hunting and butchering stations. Earlier reports associated Calf Creek with the Early Archaic period (Dickson 1970:74; O’Brien 1985:73; O’Brien and Wood 1998:138; Perino 1985:62). While regional use of terms such as “Early Archaic” and “Middle Archaic” may differ, multiple radiocarbon dates from Oklahoma and Texas provide consistent dates for Calf Creek components ca. 5960–5700 cal BP (Lohse et al. 2021). Radiocarbon samples from Calf Creek contexts at the Hudson East site were sent to Beta Analytic for AMS dating and were calibrated using the IntCal20 curve (Reimer et al. 2020). The Hudson East dates range from ca. 5600 to 5800 cal BP, consistent with the established time ranges for Calf Creek found in adjacent regions.
These dates coincide with a climatically benign part of the otherwise hot and dry altithermal or hypsithermal climatic episode (Wyckoff et al. 2009; Wyckoff 2010). Regions such as the Ozarks received more precipitation and the soil conditions improved. Expanding grasslands helped bison to flourish. This, along with abundant lithic raw materials for stone tool production, made the region especially attractive during this period. Calf Creek hunter-gatherers used the Hudson sites in northwest Arkansas in a narrow sliver of time within the Mid-Holocene. The recovery of dozens of exhausted Calf Creek points coupled with numerous heat-treated Reeds Spring chert lithic debitage cache/concentration features suggest that Calf Creek people brought cores of lithic material to the site and left with complete points or preforms. The Hudson sites in Northwest Arkansas offer us a rare and detailed look at Calf Creek occupations in the Interior Highlands region of south-central North America.
For information about this artifact, the archeology of the Hudson sites, and the Calf Creek culture look out for our chapter entitled Calf Creek Hunter-Gatherers in the Southern Ozarks: Mid-Holocene Deposits at Hudson East (3BE714) and Hudson West (3BE906) in Northwest Arkansas, by Pritam Chowdhury, Chris Branam, and Eric Mills in the forthcoming book Calf Creek Horizon: Middle Holocene Hunter-Gatherers on the Southern Plains and Its Margins. edited by Jon Lohse, Don Wyckoff, and Marjorie Duncan and published by Texas A & M Press, College Station, Texas. Expected in 2021.
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