An Exceptional Lost Lake	by Tim Guyse
Central States Archaeological Societies 2009 April Journal	Decatur, Alabama

 

Pictured below is a truly exceptional Lost Lake point from Lawrence County, Alabama. It was found about 10 miles southeast of Florence, Alabama near the small city of Town Creek by a farmhand in 1981. He immediately took it to a local restaurant known as the “Arrowhead Den,” which had frames of artifacts
displayed on the walls. He exchanged the point for that days lunch and twenty dollars. It is made of a Fort Payne chert, and exhibits a different color of patination on each side.

The average length of the Lost Lake poinstyle ranges from 2- 3 ¼ inches, making this point all the more extraordinary. These points were named by James Cambron and David Hulse after the Lost Lake area in Limestone County, Alabama, where many have been found. They are all found on pre-shell mound sites, associating them with the Early Archaic Period. They are part of what has been called the Kirk Corner notch cluster, a group of Early Archaic points that range throughout the Southeast and Carolina Piedmont regions.