Burins from Central Alaska

Abstract

True burins that are directly comparable with a number of Old World types have recently appeared as prominent elements of a number of colleotions from the American arctic. Their areal distribution from Alaska (Giddings 1951) to Greenland (Knuth 1952; Meldgaard 1952) and possibly Labrador (Harp 1951: 215; 1953: 41), in a variety of coastal and inland sites, shows that the trait was not a novelty nor a figment of chance, but an integral part of several North American flint complexes. In certain instances, and particularly at the Alaskan sites, they are accompanied by other implements typologically similar to Old World Paleolithic and Mesolithic forms (Giddings 1951); elsewhere, they are found in complexes that may be more distinctively American (Knuth 1952; Meldgaard 1952; Harp 1951). Oddly enough, basal grinding, parallel flaking, fluted points, and other early American traits such as Oblique and Eden Yuma points, are more conspicuous in the “Mesolithic” Denbigh Flint complex than they are in stages found farther east, for which there is less evidence for close connections with the Old World. However, Harp reports a fluted point in a Newfoundland assemblage (1951: 209).