Frontiers in Colorado Paleoindian Archaeology: From the Dent Site to the Rocky Mountains

10. Angostura, Jimmy Allen, Foothills-Mountain: Clarifying Terminology for Late Paleoindian Southern Rocky Mountain Spear Points

311 Bonnie L. Pitblado C h a p t e r t e n Angostura, Jimmy Allen, Foothills-Mountain Clarifying Terminology for Late Paleoindian Southern Rocky Mountain Spear Points In2003,IpublishedabookonmyresearchintolatePaleoindianuseofthesouthern Rocky Mountains. The research was based on detailed, hands-on analyses of 589 late Paleoindian spear points from 414 sites all over Colorado and Utah. The study area included the focal region of the southern Rockies that constitutes a substantial portion of the two states and, for comparative “big picture” purposes, the adjacent Plains and Far West (Colorado Plateau and Great Basin). As I illustrated, photographed, and measured specimen after specimen, it quickly became clear that I would need to develop a projectile point typology that could capture the variability present in Rocky Mountain assemblages. That variability represented an obvious departure from the well-established Plains postFolsom Paleoindian sequence (e.g., Frison 1991; Haynes 1992): Agate Basin, Hell Gap, Alberta, Scottsbluff, and Eden. Following Alex Krieger’s (1944) approach, Bonnie L. Pitblado 312 I proposed two newly conceived (although not strictly new) types: “Angostura” and “Jimmy Allen/Frederick.” Both, as elaborated later, came to play crucial roles in my characterization of late Paleoindian chronology and early human use of the southern Rocky Mountains. Since I published my typology and conclusions, researchers have in at least two cases attempted to apply “Angostura” and “Jimmy Allen/Frederick” as I defined them to new projectile point data sets, only to produce results seemingly contradictory to mine (Brunswig, Chapter 9, this volume; Larson 2005). Other researchers, occasionally publicly (e.g., Jodry 2005) and sometimes in oneon -one conversation, have raised important questions both about my choice of terms and about how those terms relate to others invoked in the Rocky Mountain late Paleoindian literature—especially “Foothills-Mountain” (e.g., Frison 1991). This chapter’s overarching goal is to address these issues and others in an effort to clarify how we all might fruitfully approach the southern Rocky Mountain Paleoindian record. Chapter 10 will (1) define “Angostura” and what I will, as of this writing, call simply “Jimmy Allen” (rather than the longer “Jimmy Allen–Frederick”) to give fieldworkers type descriptions they can apply to late Paleoindian finds in the southern Rockies and to give researchers terms with which to explore new analytical problems; (2) explain why I labeled the types as I did and offer retrospective thoughts about whether the terms are appropriate and, if not, how they should be modified; (3) demonstrate that the two types—however we label them—are morphologically and even mathematically quite different from one another; (4) present results that show why it matters that we distinguish between the two types in the southern Rocky Mountains; (5) compare my term “Angostura” with George Frison’s “Foothills-Mountain” because some have used and continue to perceive them as synonymous when they are not; and (6) offer thoughts on seemingly contradictory results obtained by my colleague Robert Brunswig and reported in Chapter 9 of this volume for the late Paleoindian record in the northcentral Colorado Rockies. ANGOSTURA VERSUS JIMMY ALLEN I want to be clear from the start that Angostura and Jimmy Allen are by no means the only two late Paleoindian point types found in the southern Rockies, nor is either of them found in the Rockies to their complete exclusion elsewhere. Other types that occur in the southern Rockies include components of the traditional Plains late Paleoindian sequence (e.g., Agate Basin, Hell Gap, Eden, and Scottsbluff) and its Great Basin counterpart (Great Basin Stemmed series). However, these point types (and a few others) are rarer in the southern Rockies than either of the two that are the focus of this manuscript, and they all play a comparatively minor role in my interpretation of what people were doing in those mountains ca. 10,000–7,500 radiocarbon years before present (rcybp). For details on late Paleoindian projectile points from the southern Rockies other Angostura, Jimmy Allen, Foothills-Mountain 313 than Angostura and Jimmy Allen, I refer readers to my dissertation (1999) and book (2003). Both my proposed “Angostura” and “Jimmy Allen” late Paleoindian types describe specimens with a lanceolate form and a typically parallel-oblique (but sometimes collateral or irregular) flaking pattern. They are therefore as similar to one another as are, say, Clovis and Folsom points, which share a lanceolate form, concave base, parallel to collateral flaking patterns, and flutes up one or both faces...