PAGE 1
THE PHIL STRATTON CUMBERLAND SITE

PALEO-INDIAN
LOGAN COUNTY, KENTUCKY

EST. SOMETIME BETWEEN 14,200 TO 11,530 BEFORE PRESENT
PAGE 1 OF 2 PAGES
COPYRIGHT AUGUST 31, 2005 PETER A. BOSTROM
EDITED BY RICHARD MICHAEL GRAMLY


GRAVER / SIDE-SCRAPER
PHIL STRATTON SITE--SOUTHWESTERN KENTUCKY

A Cumberland point from the Phil Stratton site.

abstract
THE PHIL STRATTON SITE
A PALEO-INDIAN CUMBERLAND SITE
LOGAN COUNTY, KENTUCKY

    The first investigation of the Phil Stratton site began in 1999 under the direction of Richard Michael Gramly, PhD. and the project is still ongoing. This site is located on a bluff above the Red River in Logan County in southwestern Kentucky.  The Phil Stratton site dates to the Paleo-Indian period. A Cumberland / Barnes component is buried 30 to 40 cm beneath a layer of undisturbed loess. Two hundred Cumberland / Barnes related tools have been discovered to date, including 4 Cumberland points. Of particular interest is the fact that only one "normal" end-scraper has been found. Unlike Clovis sites where end-scrapers are commonly found, the most common tool form discovered so far on the Phil Stratton site, with the exception of utilized flakes, are side-scrapers made from core blades.

    "---we are uncertain if Cumberland / Barnes is older, younger or the same age as Clovis, /Crowfield, Folsom, etc."---Archaeological Investigations of the Phil Stratton Site, 1999-2004: A Component of the Cumberland / Barnes Tradition.
    "Since both Cumberland and Barnes types are present in Kentucky and Tennessee--but only Barnes points (are found) farther north in the formerly glaciated great Lakes region--one is inclined to believe that evolution from one form to the other occurred within the Cumberland "core area" of the mid-South."
---2005, Richard Michael Gramly, Archaeological Investigations of the Phil Stratton Site, 1999-2004: A Component of the Cumberland / Barnes Tradition.

Repeated images of a Cumberland point--Phil Stratton.

PHIL STRATTON CUMBERLAND SITE
LOGAN COUNTY, KENTUCKY

    The Phil Stratton site is located in Logan County, in southwestern Kentucky. It is situated on top of a bluff above the meandering Red River. At present, the Phil Stratton site is the only deeply buried  undisturbed Cumberland site under excavation. If fact, it appears to be the only intact undisturbed single-component Cumberland site so far excavated to date. The site was discovered by Phil Stratton when expanding a driveway to a greenhouse.

Excavation of the Phil Stratton site, 2003.
PHOTO CREDIT RICHARD M. GRAMLY
CLICK ON PICTURE FOR LARGER IMAGE
EXCAVATIONS AT THE PHIL STRATTON SITE, 2003
PHIL STRATTON CUMBERLAND SITE
LOGAN COUNTY, KENTUCKY

     This picture shows the excavation in progress on the Phil Stratton Cumberland site in 2003. The Cumberland component is buried beneath 12 to 16 inches (30 to 40 cm) of an undisturbed layer of loess. Approximately 50 2-meter squares have been excavated since 1999.

    Mike Gramly is the research investigator in charge of the Phil Stratton site. He writes that "Despite over 40 years of archaeological research, neither Cumberland nor Barnes points have been dated by absolute means (radiocarbon, etc.) to the satisfaction of most archaeologists" (Gramly, Richard M., 2005). The best estimates for the age of Cumberland or Barnes points have come from a Cumberland point found in association with caribou bones at the Dutchess Quarry Cave #1 site in eastern New York. A radiocarbon test of bone collagen produced a date of 12,530 +/- 370 years.

Phil Stratton discovers a fragment of a Cumberland point.
PHOTO CREDIT RICHARD M. GRAMLY
PHIL STRATTON CONTEMPLATING NEW FIND
PHIL STRATTON CUMBERLAND SITE
LOGAN COUNTY, KENTUCKY

     Phil Stratton pauses at unit S8E12 while a picture is taken of a, just discovered, basal fragment of a Cumberland point. Four Cumberland points have been found on the Phil Stratton site since 1999.

    The Phil Stratton site is situated at a location where there is a ford across the Red River. This geological formation may have been an opportune place to intercept game when Cumberland people were camping there. Paleo-Indian sites were often located on elevated sites where game animals could be observed moving nearby across waterways or valleys.

CONTINUE ON TO PAGE TWO

"REFERENCES"

1985, Gregory Perino, "Selected Preforms, Points and Knives of the North American Indians, Vol. 1," p. 94.
2005
, Richard Michael Gramly, "Archaeological Investigations of the Phil Stratton site, 1999-2004: A component of the Cumberland / Barnes tradition," The Amateur Archaeologist, pp. 39-60.
Personal communications with Mike Gramly.

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