CAST #P-111

GOSHEN POINT
MILL IRON SITE
CARTER COUNTY, MONTANA

Cast of a Goshen point from the Mill Iron site, Montana.
CAST ILLUSTRATED
CAST #P-111
GOSHEN POINT
MILL IRON SITE

CARTER COUNTY, MONTANA

   This Goshen point is one of the more skillfully made points from the Mill Iron site. Both sides have fairly uniform parallel pressure flaking. The fact that one side is flat may indicate that it was made from a flake blank. The sides are parallel and the edges were sharpened and straightened with fine retouch pressure flaking between the flake scars. The basal concavity is uniformly curved and the ears are squared. Basal thinning was accomplished with the removal of several pressure flakes on both sides. This point was broken in the middle with a bend-break type of fracture that probably happened during use, rather than during manufacture. This point measures 2 15/16 inches (7.5 cm) long.
  
  Thirty-one projectile points were found on the Mill Iron site. Eleven were found in the camp area, twelve in the bone bed meat processing area and seven points were found on the surface. These points exhibit a fairly wide range of style and flaking technique. Some of the bases are almost straight, while others vary from slightly to fairly deeply concave. Also, some of the basal edges are concave but they are straight at the base of the concavity, similar to some Folsom points. The sides are straight to slightly convex and one example appears to be slightly fish-tailed.

MILL IRON SITE

   The Mill iron site is located in Carter County, Montana in the southeastern part of the state. It's now believed that it represents the Goshen Cultural Complex as it was described at the Hell Gap site in southeastern Wyoming. There are now five accelerator dates on the site that average over 11,000 years before present. It remains to be proven if Goshen is a Clovis variant or if it should be placed somewhere between Clovis and Folsom.
   The Mill Iron site contains a single component and is buried under 1.5 to 1.8 meters of sterile deposits. One area is a camp site meat processing area and a short distance away is a bison bone bed that appears to be a deliberate piling of articulated and disarticulated bones and is not an actual kill area. Goshen projectile points demonstrate a wide range of variation, much of which results from reworking of broken specimens. (Frison, George C., 1991 pp 133-150)

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