McINTIRE, Hulse (This Paper): A-106
GENERAL DESCRIPTION: The McIntire point is a medium sized, expanded stem point with straight base and excurvate blade edges.
MEASUREMENTS: Eleven cotypes, including the illustrated example, provided the following measurements and features: length—maximum, 68 mm.; minimum, 50 mm.; average, 57 mm.: shoulder width—maximum, 39 mm.; minimum, 31 mm.; average, 34 mm.: stem width—maximum, 21 mm.; minimum, 18 mm.; average, 20 mm.: stem length—maximum, 13 mm.; minimum, 11 mm.; average, 13 mm.: thickness—maximum, 10 mm.; minimum, 8 mm.; average, 9 mm.
FORM: The cross-section is biconvex. Shoulders are usually horizontal, but may be tapered or inversely tapered with short barbs. Blade edges are usually excurvate. Some examples may have one straight blade edge. The distal end is acute. The hafting area consists of an expanded stem with incurvate side edges. The basal edge is straight, rarely slightly incurvate, and thinned.
FLAKING: Broad, shallow, random flaking was employed to shape the blade and stem with short, sometimes deep, retouch along the blade edges. Broad deep flakes were removed by indirect percussion to form the stem. All stem edges were then retouched. Local materials were used and remnants of patinated rind remain on the base of most examples. This indicates manufacture from nodular materials, mostly Bangor flint in the area of the type site.
COMMENTS: The point is named for sites near McIntire ditch on the north bank of the Tennessee River near Decatur in Limestone County, Alabama. The illustrated example is from Cambron Site 28, one of the shellmound type sites in Limestone County, Alabama. In North Alabama this type is associated with Archaic shellmounds along the Tennessee River. Most expanded stem examples illustrated as Type 7 by Webb and DeJarnette (1942) from Pickwick Basin are probable McIntire points, especially Numbers 1, 3 and 5 in the bottom row of top half of Plate 93. At least one example is included in Type L (Webb and Wilder, 1951) from Guntersville Basin shellmounds, and a few probable examples are illustrated from Wheeler Basin (Webb, 1939). The type may be coeval with Limestone Stemmed points. Associations in surface collections indicate a middle to late Archaic placement. Before recognition of the type some examples may have been classified as Provisional Type 2, expanded stem.