It is not often someone can say that a point they have in their case is one that can only be found in their area of the state. I, however, can make such a claim about New York’s Vestal Notched Point type (fig.1). The Vestal Notched Point or Vestal Point is reported to be mainly distributed and originating in the Broome County area, with its highest concentration near Vestal, New York. Vestal is a small town located along the Susquehanna River Valley that is a few miles west of Binghamton, New York. The Vestal Point was long thought to be a Late Archaic projectile dating to between 1,800 BC and 1,900 BC. It also has been the rule since the 1960’s or so that Vestal Notched points were younger and came after the famed Lamoka Point which dates around 2,500 BC and has a wide distribution throughout Central and Western New York. Most publications and time-lines I’ve reviewed support this line of thought. The Vestal Point is a thin, narrow- bladed, and finely flaked point that typically ranges in length from approximately .5 inches to 1.8 inches in length, and .47 inches to 1.26 inches in width. The base width ranges from .47 inches to 1.10 inches with an average notch depth of .11 inches (2.7mm). I personally have not found many representatives of the larger wider variety, but my wife found two that may fit into the larger end of the scale (fig.2). Local sites where professional archaeologists have reported finding this point type include Castle Gardens (Vestal, NY), Temple Concord, and Roberson (Binghamton NY).
The Late Archaic period in South Central New York is known for its emergence of pre-cermic steatite (soapstone) cooking vessels and for point types such as Otter Creek, Brewerton, Lamoka, Vestal Notched, Normanskill, Snook Kill and occasionally Perkiomen. Figure 3 is a photo time-line I created of all of these point types. Please take note that I did not have examples in my personal collection of all these points so I knapped the Otter Creek, the larger Perkiomen on top, the Snook Kill, and the Normanskill of New York’s native Onondaga Chert that I purchased from Dan Long, who is another knapper that lives in Ontario, Canada. Though these recreated points are not real artifacts, they accurately represent the point types for the purposes of this article. Steatite pottery (fig. 4) has also been known to show up on occasion in Late Archaic sites, but mostly is credited with making it’s strong appearance during the Transitional Archaic period. The incised and lined piece of steatite on the left was found in Chenango County, NY in association with a site that consistently produces Susquehanna Points and Perkiomen points. The example on the right was found in Cortland County, NY and is associated with a site that was heavily dominated with Lamoka culture artifacts but showed approximately a 25% presence of Vestal Notched Points. This heavy Lamoka site produced few Susquehanna points and one Perkiomen point.
Officially, the professionals claim that the Vestal Point is exclusive to Broome County, however I have made surface recoveries in Cortland and Chenango Counties (fig.1). I would also surmise that Vestal Points would appear in neighboring Tioga County and Northern Pennsylvania surface collections as well. Personal surface collecting experience has revealed that Lamoka points and Vestal Points show up in near equal proportions on the same sites. However, some of the sites I have surface collected that contain both Lamoka & Vestal Points are dominated by the presence of Lamoka points and Lamoka type artifacts such as the beveled adz (which I’ve only found fragments of currently). Personal investigations of surface sites outside Broome County reflect this trend of the dominant Lamoka culture with hints of the Vestal Points. Some of these sites are nearly a 50/50 split, while others are more of a 75/25 split in favor of Lamoka points. While finding two different point types together in agriculturally disturbed surface soil is not uncommon, what the professionals found at the Castle Gardens site in Vestal, New York was interesting.
The Castle Gardens site is located on the banks of the Susquehanna River in Vestal, New York. If you travel west out of Vestal on Route 434 you will drive right past the general area where this site is located. Much of the area is developed, but a small section remains undisturbed (except for the former plow zone when the area was under farming cultivation). This undisturbed section has been the focus of recent excavations that have turned up artifacts from the Late Archaic period into the Woodland period. The most significant find would have to be that archaeologists discovered a Lamoka Point and a Vestal Point in the same level of an undisturbed stratified fire pit. All subsequent radiocarbon dating tests confirm that these two points are the same age. While this was a significant find for the professionals, avocationals like me are really not all that surprised. We have been finding these two point types together for a long time and have suspected an overlap or some association between the two. If anything, this important discovery serves to solidify what we already assumed to be true. This find does not serve to prove that the Vestal Point is as old as the Lamoka, but does lend credibility that for a time both the point types were used by ancient Castle Garden aboriginals during the same cultural period. I personally would like to see more finds to support this before I would move the Vestal Point back into the same approximate time period as the Lamoka Point. I also offer up the idea that perhaps an older aboriginal knapper residing at the Castle Gardens site was still making the Lamoka Point while younger up-with-the-times knappers were starting to produce the Vestal Point. This is pure logical conjecture on my part, but it may simple explain why the two points happened to be in the same fire pit. We may never know the answer as to why the points came to be together, but in the absence of additional finds of a similar nature we all must use our imagination.
In August, 2005, I had the chance to examine the Vestal Points recovered at the Castle Gardens site and found them identical to the ones I’ve found on surface sites in Cortland and Chenango Counties. There was even a long specimen that showed evidence of re-sharpening that was comparable to the two longer points my wife found and were discussed earlier. After a long conversation with the archaeologist in charge of the excavation, we mutually agreed that it is very possible that the typical Vestal Point usually found may be the result of many re-sharpenings. The archaeologist surmised that maybe the Vestal Point was a specialized point for a specific task such as fishing. Being a flint knapper I would be hard pressed to believe that time would be invested to knap a thin point only to haft it and throw it into water filled with rocks. They plan to test this hypothesis, and I will await their findings with great interest as I would think logically that a bone or wooden fishing spear would be a much more effective and sensible tool rather than a knapped point. I would be more inclined to lean toward it being a more effective hunting point for a particular animal that was prevalent in this area during the time of the Castle Gardens people.
In conclusion, I believe this is a perfect example of how the avocational and the professional archaeologist can build on each others findings. Some professionals (not the head archaeologist I spoke with) will rarely admit that they need avocationals to ferret out and document important sites they do not have time to find (or desire to find), and us avocationals are also sometimes slow to admit that we have assumptions, hunches, and hypotheses that need the support of the professional who excavates stratified sites and finds artifacts in their original context. Sadly it is a rare occasion that this teamwork develops, but when it does it works well and everyone benefits. This cooperative spirit and teamwork type attitude was my experience with the archaeologist who excavated Castle Gardens, and it is my hope that this type of sharing will continue and even spread in the years to come.
References: The Archaeology of New York State, by William A. Ritchie
Quick Guide to Southern Tier Prehistory, NYSAA-TCC 2003
Major Aboriginal Projectile Points in New York State, Office of the State Archaeologist
Two Sites Yield Peeks Into Our Past, by April Flores, Press & Sun-Bulletin 6/29/05
Point, 1993-2005 created by Tara Prindle |
