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A Clovis Camp At The Martens Site |
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raise
money to pay for gas, supplies and equipment for the excavation. Organizations who have helped financially included
the Missouri Archaeological Society and the Nooning Partnership. The Greater St. Louis Archaeological Society gave
us the funds to pay for a detailed analysis of wear traces on selected Clovis artifacts from the excavation. Dr.
Stanley Ahler (Paleo Cultural Research Group, Flagstaff Arizona) completed this analysis in May, 1999 (Ahler 1999).
A possible residue is present on one of the Clovis points excavated from Martens. At the Collinsville artifact
show in March, 1999, Illinois State Archaeological Society, a chapter of the CSAS, generously gave additional funds
to help pay for photographs for the final site report and residue analysis of the complete Clovis point. I
selected 25 artifacts from the site to be analyzed for wear traces. Among these were 13 flakes and blades, 3 gravers,
1 end scraper, 4 side scrapers, 3 beaks (heavy duty gravers), 1 Clovis point, and 1 biface fragment. Many of the
tools were manufactured from locally available Burlington chert. The Clovis point was manufactured from Salem chert,
which is also locally available. It did not exhibit wear traces. Twenty-three of the 25 artifacts did exhibit wear
traces. Flakes and blades were used to cut, scrape, plane and wedge. One flake also had a spur that was used for
engraving/incising. Three large flakes were identified as precision cutting tools because of the even, fine retouch
over their convex margins and very low intensity use wear. According to Dr. Ahler, these tools were probably used
for butchering and meat cutting. The end scraper was used to scrape wet hide. The gravers were used for incising/engraving
and perforating. The beaks were used for slotting and grooving medium to hard materials. Bone, antler, ivory and
wood are good candidates. I think these steep-edged beaks were manufactured on the end of a blade or blade-like
flake. Seeing a similar tool made of Knife River Flint from a Paleo site in North Dakota and at the Folsom conference
in Austin, Texas, last March lent support to this idea. In
our spare time, Toby Morrow and I have managed to wash, label and analyze all of the 5000 stone artifacts recovered
during the Martens site excavation. This took about two and a half years, during which time we also excavated several
late prehistoric villages sites, a mastodon, and an Archaic cemetery; recorded additional fluted point |
Lower left and above: Paleo/Clovis points and tools found at the Martens Site in Chesterfield, Missouri. One point was found in fragments at different times but at the same location. The artifacts are shown approximately actual size. From the collection of Richard Martens.
finds;
wrote reports, book chapters, and articles. We could not have gone this far without the individuals and organizations
that have supported the Martens site project, especially the CSAS affiliates. We are extremely grateful for all
of the financial support received thus far and we hope to finish the report and search for a publisher this year.
The Martens site project is a good example of how avocational and professional archaeologists can pull together
to learn about the past and help save a portion of the archaeological record for future generations. For those
interested in Clovis technology, I will be bringing Martens Clovis posters to the Collinsville show in 2000 and
will be looking forward to recording additional Clovis and related tools there. Thanks again for your support. REFERENCES Miller, Stanley A. Morrow, Juliet E. Morrow,
Juliet E. and Toby Morrow
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