PREFACE

Folsom is also reasonably well dated on the Southern High Plains, with radiocarbon dates fromBlackwater Locality No. 1 and Lubbock Lake indicating an age range between 10,800 and 10,200 rcy BP(Holliday 1997:182). For the Plains and Southwest as a whole, the range is slightly larger, ca. 10,950 to10,250 rcy BP (Haynes 1993, Haynes et al. 1992) with the oldest Folsom dates overlapping the youngestClovis dates.Dating of the unfluted point styles is less secure, and Holliday (1997:185–186) identifies three significantchronological issues:• the dating of Midland and its relationship to Folsom,• the age of Plainview and its relationship to Folsom, and• the age and typological relationships among Plainview and the other unfluted point series.Midland points are relatively small, thin lanceolate points with a concave base and straight to slightlyconvex lateral edges. Both faces exhibit flat, regular scars from lateral thinning parallel or sub-parallel tothe fine marginal retouch, but remnants of the ventral surface of the flake perform are commonly evident.The basal concavity is generally less pronounced than Folsom, but some specimens exhibit the deep basalconcavity and attenuated ears that are characteristic of the Folsom fluting process. A few examples alsohave a basal nubbin that on Folsom preforms serves as the striking platform for fluting. On average, thepoints are smaller and thinner than Plainview and, except for the absence of fluting, they resemble Folsomin size and overall form.Midland points are not well dated. The solid carbon dates from the Midland (Scharbauer) type site appearunreliable (Wendorf and Krieger 1959), although a reanalysis of the site stratigraphy by Holliday andMeltzer (1996) suggests that the Midland points associated with the human remains may be younger than10,000 rcy BP. Judge (n.d.:35) lists two radiocarbon dates, 10,000±200 rcy BP (A-499) and 10,600±500rcy BP (A-504), as being associated with the Midland level at the Hell Gap site in southeastern Wyoming.These are two of four radiocarbon dates obtained from the lower portion of geological Unit E (Haynes1993:Figure 8; Irwin-Williams et al. 1973:Figure 3), but their relationship to the Midland materials isuncertain. As described in the preliminary report of the excavations, a small Goshen camp and a Folsomcamp were found at the base of geological Unit E in Locality 1. “Although vertical separation betweenthe two occupations was slight, their horizontal distribution was distinct. … Very slightly above theFolsom remains were a few artifacts assignable to the Midland Complex” (Irwin-Williams et al. 1973:44).Given the minimal separation of the three components and the large standard errors for the radiocarbondates, Haynes (1993:Table 1) rejects A-499 as unreliable and combines the other three dates to obtain anaverage age of 10,290±500 rcy BP for an undifferentiated Goshen-Folsom-Midland level. Based on theavailable evidence, then, Midland points can be tentatively dated between 10,300 and 10,000 rcy BP, butthey may have appeared earlier and persisted later.Despite the dearth of chronological evidence, there is general acceptance that the date range for Midlandpoints overlaps that of Folsom points. Apart from the overall similarity of the two point styles, Midlandand Folsom points have been found eroding from the same eolian unit at sites on the Llano Estacado,most notably at Midland and Shifting Sands (Amick 1995:2425; Holliday 1997:187). Further, althoughthe Folsom archetype is fluted on both faces, the artifacts recovered from Folsom components at anumber of sites also include points fluted only on one side, as well as “pseudo-fluted” and unfluted forms.It therefore seems likely that Midland is not a distinct point type but an unfluted variant of Folsom(Amick 1995; Frison 1991:51; Hofman 1992). Although Judge (1970) has demonstrated that themanufacturing trajectories of the two point styles are distinct, the primary difference is that the basalthinning of Folsom points is accomplished by fluting, whereas Midland point bases are thinned by lateralflaking. Since controlled lateral thinning is also characteristic of Folsom point performs, the Midlandmanufacturing trajectory can be viewed as an attenuated version of the Folsom trajectory. That someMidland points have characteristics associated with the Folsom fluting technique further suggests that thetwo trajectories may be part of a single technological tradition.4-4