TABLE
ROCK
POINTS
LATE ARCHAIC
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TABLE ROCK POINT
CALHOUN
COUNTY, ILLINOIS
PETE BOSTROM COLLECTION
Table Rock points were named by Robert T. Bray in 1956 for examples
found on the Rice site in the Table Rock Reservoir in southeast
Missouri. He called them Table Rock Stemmed but most people use the
shortened name, Table Rock, to describe them.
Table Rock points date to the Late Archaic period
sometime between 3,000 to 5,000 years ago (N. Justice 1987:124).
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TABLE ROCK POINTS
ILLINOIS
AND MISSOURI
PETE BOSTROM COLLECTION
Table
Rock points are found over a wide area in the eastern United States.
They have been found within an area from eastern Oklahoma and most
of Arkansas extending northeast to the southern edges of Wisconsin
and Michigan to eastern Ohio. Their sites tend to be thin which
suggests that these people were moving around a lot (G. Perino
1985:371).
Table Rock points are generally very well made with
percussion and fine pressure flaking. They were also a successful
design as far as breakage is concerned. A good percentage of them
are found unbroken. These points were bifacially resharpened and one
interesting trait is that the stem edges are usually very heavily
ground. Some of these points were made with heat treated chert and
are quite colorful. They can range in size from 1 ¼ to over 4 ½
inches long. |