The Impact of Stone Supply Stress on the Innovation of a Cultural Variant: The Relationship of Folsom and Midland

Abstract

Multiple hypotheses have been proposed to explain the relationship between fully fluted Folsom points and unfluted Midland points. One hypothesis, proposed by Hofman (1992, “Recognition and interpretation of Folsom technological variability on the southern plains.” In Ice Age Hunters of the Rockies, edited by D. J. Stanford, and J. S. Day, 193–229. Boulder: University Press of Colorado), is that mobile Folsom bands shifted from making Folsom points, which often fatally broke during the production process, to less risky Midland points as stone supplies dwindled. In cultural evolutionary terms, this hypothesis proposes that an increase in local, site-scale functional controls, specifically stone supply stress, resulted in the modification of the existing Folsom point production recipe and led to the adoption of a new cultural variant, the Midland point. After testing archaeological implications of Hofman's hypothesis, I conclude that it is empirically supported and does explain the innovation of the Midland cultural variant. I then use assemblage-scale measures to reconstruct Folsom/Midland mobility patterns in the southern Plains.