Scottsbluff Projectile Point: Identification, Age & Range

How to identify a Scottsbluff point

Look at the stem and shoulders first. A Scottsbluff has a wide, mostly straight-sided stem — roughly as wide as it is long, 20 to 30 mm across — set off from the blade by weak, sometimes nearly absent shoulders that sit horizontal or angle slightly upward. The stem may expand a little, and the base runs from straight to slightly convex with heavy grinding on both the base and the stem edges. The blade above is excurvate: some examples are parallel-sided and curve in near the tip, others form a more triangular outline.

Flaking quality is a hallmark. These points were finished with well-controlled transverse pressure flaking, producing ribbon-like scars in horizontal to oblique parallel patterns, and the stone was not heat treated. The cross section is elliptical to slightly ridged, 6 to 13 mm thick. Total length runs 50 to 150 mm, with most examples 75 to 102 mm — pen length — and width runs 22 to 36 mm. Two forms are recognized: Type I is longer and thicker with weaker shoulders and a stem defined largely by grinding, while Type II is shorter, wider, and thinner with more distinct shoulders.

The classic confusion is with the Eden point, a fellow Cody Complex type. Eden is narrower, with very weak shoulders and a pronounced median ridge giving it a diamond-shaped cross section that Scottsbluff lacks. Bradley and Stanford found many pieces falling between the two and argued they may represent a single continuum, with resharpening of Scottsbluff points producing the ridge and reduced shoulders seen on Edens.

Age and where it's found

Scottsbluff dates to about 9,250 to 8,850 B.P., in the transition from Paleoindian to Early Archaic times during the early Holocene, as part of the Cody Complex and the Plano Stemmed cluster. Its relatives include Alberta, Eden, Holland, and the Cody Knife.

The type is most common from Wyoming through Colorado and western Nebraska, and along the High Plains from New Mexico north into Canada. It occurs into Texas and as far east as Ontario. The Cody Complex proper has not been documented in the Ohio River basin; superficially similar points found there are generally classified as McConnell Lanceolate, Stringtown, or Ohio Stemmed.

Similar and related types

• Eden — Narrower than Scottsbluff, with a diamond-shaped median-ridge cross section and shoulders so weak they can be hard to see.
• Hardin Stemmed — A Midwestern form with a similar stemmed outline, but it has distinct barbed shoulders and often beveled blade edges.
• Alberta — An earlier Cody Complex relative that is generally larger and thicker with a longer stem and blunter tip.
• Holland — A related stemmed Paleo form whose base is more often concave and whose shoulders are slightly better defined.