Heat Treatment and Knife River Flint Folsom Point Manufacture
Matthew J. Root · 2021
Heat treatment is a technological option, and the decision to heat treat may change with changing circumstances. Determining whether heat treatment was a part of Folsom point production has long been considered an important problem in evaluating techniques of fluting. Heat treatment should be explicitly accounted for in any descriptive model of Folsom point production, whether present or absent. Folsom stone-workers may have heated preforms prior to fluting, but the attributes used to identify heat treatment in specific raw materials need to be explicitly described. Neither the presence nor the absence of heat treatment should be assumed; it should be empirically demonstrated by the analysis of Folsom points and related debitage. Heat treatment is the heating of stone in a controlled manner to bring about desired changes in flaking characteristics as a part of stone tool manufacture. The apparent lack of heat treatment of Folsom points and preforms at Bobtail Wolf contrasts with the situation reported for Lindenmeier.