Early Projectile Points and Pleistocene Fauna from Sandpits near Wichita, Kansas

Abstract

Human artifacts and Pleistocene fossils have been recovered from sandpits in the Wichita, Kansas area. The artifacts suggest that man was living in the vicinity of Wichita, Kansas during the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene. The Pleistocene fauna indicates that the Wichita, Kansas area was in the Camelops-Navahoceros faunal province. A wide sandy floodplain having a very shallow water table exists at the junction of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas rivers in the vicinity of Wichita, Sedgewick County, Kansas. Sand removal from sandpits in this area has resulted in the discovery of Pleistocene fossils and several early projectile points. Sand is pumped from below the water table onto a screen that separates the economically unwanted coarse fraction from the valuable finer fraction of sediment. The discarded coarse fraction of sediment contains mud balls, water rolled cobbles, fossil bones and human artifacts. The material discussed in this paper comes from the coarse fraction of four sandpits. The projectile points recovered from two of these sandpits are important because evidence for early man in Kansas is sparse. The only published, buried Paleo-Indian site found in the state is the 12 Mile Creek Site. Additional information on the earliest inhabitants of the State of Kansas is needed. A sandpit, operated by the Associated Material and Supply Company Incorporated, Sec. 23, T26S, R1W, yielded two Scottsbluff projectile points. One of these Scottsbluff projectile points (Fig. lA) had the base broken away. The flint appears to be from the Flint Hills and shows evidence of heat treatment. The artifact was parallel flaked on one side, but not on the other. The side that had not been parallel flaked had a quality, suggesting that it was nearer the chalky cortex of the flint nodule. This suggests that