Roads, Rails, and Trails - Secretary of the Commonwealth

But what kinds of tools were being resharpened here,
and when did this happen? When was this living surface—
well—lived on? And could the archaeologists answer these
questions, or was the site going to contain a mix of artifacts
spanning thousands of years so that the living floor and hearth
could not even be connected? Or, was the Oak Knoll site an
example of the elusive single-component site?
The artifacts from the site strongly suggested the latter.
The archaeologists excavated more than 3,000 artifacts from
this area, nearly all of which were the stone flakes that are the
by-product of making or resharpening stone tools. More than
99% of these were of a single type of stone, known as a grey
porphorytic rhyolite. It is dark grey to purple in color with tiny
white crystals scattered throughout. Tools made from this kind
of stone have been found at many sites in northeastern
Massachusetts, and outcrops of stone identical in appearance
have been found in the area. So it is a material that was readily
available. Even so, to find a site where more than ninety-nine
out of a hundred flakes are of the same type of stone is almost
unheard of, and strongly suggested that the Oak Knoll site
represents a single occupation.
.Of the stone tools themselves, there were eleven that
could be classified. All of these were of the same variety,
identified as “Orient Fishtail points." This type of tool gets its
name from Orient Point, at the outermost tip of Long Island,
where it was first described. It looks something like a graceful,
streamlined fish. Orient Fishtail points have been found
throughout southern New England. In addition to the eleven
Orient Fishtail points, the archaeologists found some other
tools and tool fragments, a few of which were almost certainly
fragments of Orient Fishtail points. Every one of these was
made of the same dark grey porphorytic rhyolite.
12
Orient Fishtail Points and Point Fragments from the Oak
Knoll Site. You can see how they got their name. You can
also see that most of them were broken in the same way.