A 4,500-year-old stone point from Fort Stanwix and the people who made it

Fort Stanwix is known for its role in the American Revolutionary War, but the hill it stands on was visited by American Indians long before Europeans arrived. They left no written evidence, only artifacts beneath the ground. When archaeologists excavated the fort in the 1970s they found those sparse clues alongside the historic fort: 444 prehistoric artifacts, against about half a million British and American ones from the 18th through 20th centuries. A National Park Service article uses one of them, a stone point, to look at nearly 5,000 years of life in pre-colonial New York.

Archaic Lamoka projectile point, Fort Stanwix National Monument Museum Collection. NPS photo.

Who made it

The point belongs to the Lamoka culture of the Archaic Period. There are no written records of prehistoric peoples, so archaeologists name a "culture" when they find a group of similar artifacts from one time and place. The Lamoka are named for the largest known settlement, found near Lamoka Lake in New York, and the article says they are fairly likely to be ancestors of the modern Six Nations. They were active across New York and Pennsylvania for a few centuries centered on 2500 BC, which makes the point about 4,500 years old. It turned up in the remains of a prehistoric firepit that had survived the building of the fort and of the city of Rome.

How they lived

The Lamoka were hunter-gatherers who foraged and hunted instead of farming. Food remains show they relied heavily on white-tailed deer, black bear and passenger pigeons, and on fish such as bass, perch and sunfish caught by cast-net fishing. They also ate large amounts of acorns. The article says cavities were very rare among them, citing William Ritchie's The Archaeology of New York State, which notes that dental problems existed but came from stone dust abrasion. They moved between seasonal camps, and they buried their hunting dogs.

Projectile point or arrowhead?

A park ranger demonstrates a replica atlatl. NPS photo.

"Arrowhead" is the common name for any small pointed stone tool, but over thousands of years such points tipped spears, javelins, darts and arrows, and the shape alone rarely says which. The article reasons that this point's age makes it older than the bow and arrow in Eastern North America, which became popular in 600 to 700 AD, and that it is smaller than a hand-held spear point, so it was probably fixed to something thrown. An atlatl, or spear-thrower, extends the thrower's arm for more leverage and power.

Chert and knapping

The parts of a projectile point; the curved cut in the stem makes this a side-notched point. NPS image.

Most surviving sharp stone tools from prehistoric North America are chert, a rock some types of which are called flint, with obsidian, argillite and quartzite rarer. Chert breaks in cones or at angles of 45 degrees when struck, which is called conchoidal fracture, so it can be shaped into many forms. Making tools this way is called knapping. Onondaga chert, from the Onondaga Limestone that runs through New York, was used to make the Lamoka point and many other stone tools.

One piece of a longer story

The article says the history of Fort Stanwix is often thought to begin in the 18th century, but the area has mattered to many people for thousands of years, and artifacts are often the only evidence of those times. This point, found after 4,500 years underground, is one piece of the puzzle about the people who lived at the Oneida Carry before Europeans.

Sources

• National Park Service, "Archaic Lamoka Projectile Point", part of the series Curious Collections of Fort Stanwix, The Oneida Carry Era (https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/archaic-lamoka-projectile-point.htm). The page's map of the Onondaga formation, which draws on data from other governments' agencies, is left out. Rewritten in hubnx's own words.