Late Paleoindian–Early Archaic Dart Points from the Wolfshead Site (41SA117) in the Angelina River Basin in East Texas

Timothy K Perttula,Mark Walters

doi:10.21112/.ita.2016.1.70

Abstract

The Wolfshead site (41SA117) was excavated by the Texas Archeological Salvage Project at The University of Texas in 1960 prior to the inundation of the site by the waters of Lake Sam Rayburn in the Angelina River basin in East Texas. The site was located on a sandy terrace and covered ca. 1 acre in size; the sandy deposits were a maximum of ca. 60 cm in thickness below an historic plow zone. The excavations in the northern and southern parts of the site indicated that the Wolfshead site had an extensive Late Paleoindian–Early Archaic San Patrice culture occupation estimated to date between ca. 10,500–9800 years B.P. based on the radiocarbon dating of archaeological deposits with San Patrice points in sites in the Woodland and Southern Plains in south central North America. San Patrice components cluster “in the eastern half of Texas, where prairies and woodlands would have predominated." The component at the Wolfshead site is marked by a number of distinctive dart points, as discussed in the next section, as well as scraping tools, and Albany scrapers. The Albany scrapers were made on local petrified wood, while the unifacial side and end scrapers were manufactured on both petrified wood and pebble cherts.

Highlights

The Wolfshead site (41SA117) was excavated by the Texas Archeological Salvage Project at The University of Texas in 1960 prior to the inundation of the site by the waters of Lake Sam Rayburn in the Angelina River basin in (ast Texas ('uf¿eld 196) The site was located on a sandy terrace and covered ca 1 acre in size; the sandy deposits were a maximum of ca. 60 cm in thickness below an historic plow zone ('uf¿eld 196)igure )
The excavations in the northern and southern parts of the siteigure ) indicated that the Wolfshead site had an extensive Late Paleoindian–Early Archaic San Patrice culture occupation estimated to date between ca. 10,500–9800 years B.P. based on the radiocarbon dating of archaeological deposits with San Patrice points in sites in the Woodland and Southern Plains in south central North America
The excavations disclosed that the site had important and substantial Late Paleoindian–Early Archaic period deposits marked by a number of San Patrice dart points and other chipped stone tools; the occupation here likely dates from ca. 10,500–9800 years B.P

Summary

Introduction

The Wolfshead site (41SA117) was excavated by the Texas Archeological Salvage Project at The University of Texas in 1960 prior to the inundation of the site by the waters of Lake Sam Rayburn in the Angelina River basin in (ast Texas ('uf¿eld 196) The site was located on a sandy terrace and covered ca 1 acre in size; the sandy deposits were a maximum of ca. 60 cm in thickness below an historic plow zone ('uf¿eld 196)igure ).The excavations in the northern and southern parts of the site (see 'uf¿eld 196)igure ) indicated that the Wolfshead site had an extensive Late Paleoindian–Early Archaic San Patrice culture occupation estimated to date between ca. 10,500–9800 years B.P. based on the radiocarbon dating of archaeological deposits with San Patrice points in sites in the Woodland and Southern Plains in south central North America (see Jennings 2008a, 2008b). Late Paleoindian–Early Archaic Dart Points from the Wolfshead Site (41SA117) in the Angelina River Basin in East Texas Cite this Record Perttula, Timothy K. and Walters, Mark (2016) "Late Paleoindian–Early Archaic Dart Points from the Wolfshead Site (41SA117) in the Angelina River Basin in East Texas," Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State: Vol 2016, Article 70.

Results

Conclusion