El Gigante Rock Shelter: Archaic Mesoamerica and Transitions to Settled Life

Flaked Lithic Material

14,803 flakes were collected. The quantity of flaked stone recovered was significant even below the stratigraphic position of the unpublished 9,000 B.C. dates (strata V). There are some dense clusters of lithic material that will be grouped together temporally to form diagnostic assemblages for each archaeological component. The raw material employed varies from tabular chert, to fine grained volcanic andesites and rhyolites, to cobble obsidian. The technological character of the flakes ranged from initial stages of bifacial and unifacial reduction forms, to finished bifacial and unifacial tools. However, it seems on cursory examination that expedient utilized flakes dominate the assemblage and formal tools are relatively few. Basic bifacial reduction sequences seem to have been relatively stable with respect to time. This pattern of simple, yet extremely flexible and versatile lithic technology fits a model of a generalized foragers toolkit.

The pattern of use seems to differ by raw material type as well. Most of the obsidian seems to exhibit characteristics such as cortex that indicate the initial stages of tool manufacture, while the chert and other flaked material waste seem to be the later stages of unifacial traditions, flake-based technologies, and more expedient forms. Not a single prismatic blade belonging to the typical later Mesoamerican core-blade reduction tradition was found.

Six complete or nearly complete projectile points were recovered from secure contexts in the 2001 investigations. These points have bifurcate and notched stems, they are 4-5 cm in length and are all about 3.5 cm at their broadest point (at the tip of the barbs). Most seem to have been extensively retouched and while not obtuse in tip angle, quite stubby. These points are consistently from contexts pre-dating 5-6,000 B.C. radiocarbon determinations and in strata of the 9,000 B.C. age or earlier, but are not fluted.

Bullen and Plowden (1965) have reported on possible Paleoindian era lithics collected on the surface from rock shelter sites on the Highland Plateau to the north of our study area. These tools have not been seen by the author other than in photographs presented in the article, however, the projectile point types differ markedly from those recovered in the current excavations.

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