I had some time today to upload some current Kirk Project files and do a little re-organization of the pages.  The main page is still located here, but I've split off some of the content that used to be on that page and created separate pages for datasets, a list of 3D models organized by state (so far they're all from South Carolina), embedded links to 3D models organized by ID number, and 2D images. There is nothing on the 2D image page yet, but my plan is to start adding images as I have time.

I've been steadily accumulating 3D models (there are 22 now that I've uploaded to Sketchfab). I still haven't started wrestling with them to extract usable morphometric data, but I've got a plan for a paper that will compare variability in the large, surface collected sample from Allendale County (South Carolina) to the variability present in smaller assemblages from excavated contexts (and shorter windows of time). One of those assemblages will be the Nipper Creek cache. Another (hopefully) will be the Kirk material from G. S. Lewis-East.  Hopefully I'll be able to get one or two more "narrow time window" assemblages.

In terms of data, I've produced an updated GIS map of the current sample (n=905). It now includes several points from Pennsylvania (donated by Bill Wagner). I've also provided a file of the metric data that I have for 699 of those points. As explained on the data page, the sample of points for which metric data are available is smaller than the larger Kirk sample because I did not measure all of the points during my dissertation work (some were too fragmentary) and I have not started generating linear measurements of the points I'm adding now.  

The linear measurements have alphabetic designations (A through I, as defined in this figure). I calculated them by digitizing landmarks using a freeware package, and it was kind of a pain in the butt.  I'm hoping to find a better software package than I used before, and I plan on adding some additional 2D dimensions/angles since I won't also be dealing with lanceolate points.

I did not produce 3D models of any of the points in my dissertation dataset, as I did not have access to the equipment to do that at the time. ​

I plan on adding a "Contributors" page soon. And I hope to start incorporating more data from external sources in the dataset. I've got lines on some data from Ohio, Tennessee, and a few other areas. I would love to start filling in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina.

Today I'll be giving a short presentation at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Society of South Carolina. Being a new transplant to South Carolina, this will be my first time attending the meeting. I'm looking forward to meeting my new colleagues from around the state and hearing about what they're working on.

I decided to talk about the Kirk Project at today's meeting. Although I've been working on it steadily over the last few weeks, my energies so far have been channeled into prepping the database and streamlining the process for producing 3D models.  So, unfortunately, I don't yet have any coherent data or analysis to present. My presentation is an informal discussion of the question of the Kirk Horizon and what we can do to address it.

Here's a pdf of the slides I'll be talking from today.  Unfortunately I ran out of time to provide complete citations for the parenthetical references.  I'll fill those in and provide a complete version later. 

I've been working on laying the groundwork for the Kirk Project.  I've created a new "Kirk Project" page to organize my various blog posts on the subject as well as house a list of the 3D models I've created and the the current distribution map of the sample (I've also created a sub-page just for the models).  I've also prepared some guidelines for submitting data.  Here they are (and here is a pdf file of the same information):

The full database contains some information (such as site-level coordinates and information about personal collections) that will not be made publicly available. 

To make the primary data accessible and usable, I will design a query to produce a dataset containing all the Kirk points in the database by unique ID number. Information for each point will include, minimally, other identifying numbers, county-level provenience (and associated UTM coordinates), raw material information, non-metric attributes, available metric data, and links to 3D models if available. I’ll have to figure out how to store and make accessible online all the images that will accompany a spreadsheet of the data.

How Do I Submit Data?

2D Image submission: Each point submitted must be represented by a good-quality, plan view photograph of the point accompanied by a metric scale. Please name the image files with your last name and unique, sequential numbers (for example, Joan Smith submits images of three Kirk points and labels them “Smith 1,” “Smith 2,” and “Smith 3”). 

3D model submission: Points submitted as 3D models should be numbered the same as images (for example, Joan Smith submits models of three Kirk points that are different than those in the images she submitted and labels them “Smith 4,” “Smith 5,” and “Smith 6”).  Save models in STL format.

Both regular 2D images and 3D models should be accompanied by a spreadsheet or table that lists the images/models by their filenames and provides the following information:

• Image Name: the file name of the image.
• County: The county with two-letter state/province abbreviation appended.
• Site Number: Smithsonian trinomial site designation or Canadian site number.
• Other Numbers: Numbers assigned for museum curation, other analyses, publication, etc.  Knowing these numbers will help us avoid including the same point more than once.
• Curated: Where is the point currently kept?
• Raw Material:  The lithic raw material of the point, if known with a high degree of confidence. If you suspect a certain raw material but have doubts, add a “?” at the end.
• Basal Grinding:  Score the presence of grinding along the basal edge as “present” or “absent.”
• Bevel side: Does the point have beveled blade edges?  If so, indicate if the bevel is visible on the left-hand side (LHB) or right-hand side (RHB) when you look at the point with the tip pointed up. If the point is not beveled, leave blank.
• Bevel class: If the point is beveled, classify the degree of beveling as either “bevel” (there is a strong boundary line between the resharpened edge and the original blade surface that creates a diamond-shaped cross-section) or “twist” (asymmetrically resharpened, but no strong boundary line).

 
Where Do I Send Data?
​
Email your 2D images and spreadsheets to Andy White: [email protected].

To transfer 3D models, use an upload/display/download service like Sketchfab (www.sketchfab.com). Sketchfab lets you upload models < 50 MB for free.

Okay . . . I'm making some headway. Some of my 3D model creation issues are beginning to yield to good old-fashioned trial-and-error, and I've uploaded a test model to Sketchfab.  The original is a Kirk Point from Allendale County, South Carolina.  I didn't do full color capture on it, but I'll try one of those next.  Take a look at the model and see what you think.

Don't worry -- I'm not planning on writing about every Kirk point I look at. I've gained some new readers with the whole "Roman sword" debacle, and I hope to not lose all of them as I transition back into writing more about real archaeology and anthropology. Neither the real science nor the stupid ever stops, but I'll try to mix it up somewhat.

I wanted to write a quick post about a small (n = 6) assemblage of Kirk points from the Nipper Creek site (38-RD-18) in Richland County, South Carolina.  The six points were part of a cache that was exposed during a 1986 archaeological field school directed by Albert Goodyear and Ruth Wetmore. (For those unfamiliar with the archaeological use of the term, a "cache" is a group of objects that were hidden or stored for future use.)  The six points were found within a small horizontal area (about 264 square cm, a little over a quarter of a square foot) and within about 5-10 cm vertically.  It is likely that the points were originally placed in a pit (no outline of a pit was discerned) or on a common surface.

Goodyear et al. described the Nipper Creek cache in a short 2004 paper in Current Research in the Pleistocene (see reference below).  I took the opportunity to take a quick color photo of the points as I was scanning them so I could have a visual record cross-referencing the alphabetic designations used in the Goodyear et al. paper with the numeric designations on the bags and the unique ID numbers assigned to the points in my database. 

One really useful thing about an assemblage like the Nipper Creek cache is that it gives us a "snapshot" view of tools from a narrow window of time. Because these six tools all entered the archaeological record together, transferred from a "dynamic" human behavioral context to a "static" archaeological context in a single act, they can potentially tell us something about synchronic variability in Kirk Points that "broad time" surface assemblages cannot. At least some of the variability in Kirk has to be related to change through time -- how do we pin that down? With the aid of stratified deposits and discrete features that provide context.  "Narrow time" deposits like the Nipper Creek cache are potentially of great utility in interpreting the variability that will be present in a "broad time" assemblage of Kirks from across the Eastern Woodlands.

Goodyear, Albert C., William Radisch, Ruth Wetmore, and V. Ann Tippitt.  2004.  A Kirk Corner-Notched Point Cache from the Nipper Creek Site (38RD18), South Carolina.  Current Research in the Pleistocene 21:42-44.

Update (2/11/2016): 3D model of Biface 3 (5965) completed.
​Update (2/12/2016): 3D model of Biface 2 (5966) completed.
Update (2/15/2016): 3D model of Biface 5 (5964) completed.
Update (2/16/2016): 3D model of Biface 4 (5963) completed.
​Update (2/18/2016): 3D model of Biface 1 (5967) completed.
Update (2/19/2016): 3D model of Biface 6 (5968) completed.

Last Thanksgiving break, I wrote this post about the Early Archaic corner-notched point horizon in the Eastern Woodlands, discussing some of the things we know and pondering some of the questions we can't currently answer. As a refresher, the “Kirk Horizon” (dating to about 8,800-6,600 BC) is marked by a distribution of Kirk Corner Notched points that extends across a huge area, from the lower Great Lakes to the Florida Keys. Its existence has been noted for over four decades (i.e., at least since James Tuck’s 1974 paper “Early Archaic Horizons in Eastern North America”).  

Although many authors have remarked on the striking similarity of Kirk Corner Notched projectile points from across the east, as far as I know there has never been a concerted effort to assemble a dataset of sufficient detail and spatial scope to allow us to characterize and analyze the kinds, amounts, and spatial components of variability among these points. Given how widespread Kirk is, that's a big job.

I assembled a relatively large dataset of Kirk points from the Midwest as part of my dissertation work, and have used that information in a couple of publications (e.g., this one and this one).  I've now started the process of adding to that dataset, beginning with information from Kirk points in large collection from Allendale County, South Carolina, that was donated to SCIAA in the 1990's.  I'm working my way through the Kirk Cluster points in that collection, adding them to my existing database and producing 3D digital models. 

The Eastern Woodlands is big. It took me years of intermittent work with both private and institutional collections to assemble my Kirk dataset from the Midwest.  It's going to take me a while to build a dataset of similar size in the South Carolina and the adjacent Atlantic Coast states.  As you can see from the map, I have no data from the deep south or the Northeast.  

If you're like me and are interested in questions about Kirk (including where it comes from and what it can tell us about the Early Archaic societies of the Eastern Woodlands), I ask you to think about the idea of producing the largest-ever Kirk dataset ever assembled. How similar are Kirks, really, across this large area? How does variability within Kirk break down according to space? Can we identify regional differences in "stylistic" variation?  Are there discontinuities or is variability clinal? What about regional differences in the scales of raw material transport? Is morphometric variability isomorphic with lithic raw materials? Can we identify regional variation in "functional" attributes such as resharpening patterns, haft size, blade configuration, etc.?  Just from looking about the first 30-40 Kirk points I've examined from South Carolina, I'm guessing there might be a higher incidence of beveling (all left hand beveling so far) here than in the Midwest.

Anyway, this post isn't supposed to be high pressure. I won't necessarily be able to devote a great deal of time to this on any given day. I'm just letting you know that if you're interested in Kirk and want to think big, I'm right there with you. Let me know if you want to participate in an effort to create a massive Kirk dataset that we can use to address all kind of potentially interesting questions about early Holocene hunter-gatherers in the Eastern Woodlands. Please pass it on to anyone you think might be interested.

Update (2/12/2016): Guidelines for contributing data to the Kirk Project.

If you’re like me, there’s always some part of your brain that is thinking about hunter-gatherers.  Sometimes when I’m at work the percentage can get as high as 95 percent.  Most of the time it’s lower, of course, but it never gets down to zero. I’m always on duty.

Yes, I just said that with a straight face. And yet I'm a surprisingly poor poker player.

And not only does this initial "horizon" emerge in the context of what by all appearances are very thinly distributed, highly mobile hunter-gatherer populations, but projectile points styles seem to change in lockstep across this same region of North America for at least some time after.  How can we explain this?  Although lithic raw material data suggest that Kirk groups were highly mobile (e.g., see this paper) the area of the "horizon" is much too large for it to be the product of a single group of people: the hunter-gatherers discarding Kirk points in Ontario are not the same individuals as those discarding Kirk points in Florida.

But that doesn't mean they weren't part of the same society.  We can define a "society" as a population defined by the existence of social ties among and between groups and individuals.  Ethnographic hunter-gatherers have numerous mechanisms for creating and maintaining social ties (e.g., marriage, exchange, group flux, periodic aggregation), and there is no reason to suspect that all of those same behaviors were not utilized to knit together the social fabric of early Holocene hunter-gatherers in the Eastern Woodlands.  Maintaining social ties that extend beyond "over the horizon" may be especially important to high mobility hunter-gatherers operating at low population densities, as such ties allow local populations to gather information about large areas of the landscape.