Another Fine and Ancient Point
Folsom man and his spear point had only just begun to worry conservative anthropologists when A. E. Jenks—who was to champion skeletons of early man in Minnesota—noted, in 1928, a still finer type of flint in the collection of Perry and Harold Anderson, of Yuma County, Colorado. It was long and narrow, with parallel sides and a triangular point, and looked rather like a half-bayonet without its Folsom flute. It was consummately chipped by pressure over its whole surface. These artifacts were at first known as Yuma, but now they are called Eden, after a site in Eden Valley, Wyoming, where they were found in situ.[22] They are easily the finest job of flint knapping in the New World, equaled only by the later neolithic daggers of Egypt and Scandinavia (see illustrations, [page 158]). This might be a good argument for Eden points’ being neolithic, if artifacts with Eden chipping had not been discovered in association with Folsom tools and also with the fossils of extinct mammals. Evidence from a site near Cody, Wyoming, indicates that the Eden industry as a whole is younger than the Folsom. The Eden points found there are nearer 7,000 than 11,000 years old,[23] for the soil in which they lay was formed during a moist period late in that interval of time. Eden and similar points are fairly widespread; some have been found in Canada and in Alaska.[24]
Anthropologists now recognize two chief varieties of Eden points. One of these is beautifully patterned by long, parallel pressure flakes that cross the blade obliquely on a low diagonal. In the other, parallel flakes meet on a center line. The base and lower edges are usually ground. There is often a single or a double shoulder for hafting. Many anthropologists list another type, the Scottsbluff; it is flaked like the Eden, but shorter and wider, and it has a definite stem with right-angle notches.
THE FINEST FLINT WORK OF EARLY MAN
Two varieties of Folsom and Eden points, and the Plainview type, which has been called unfluted Folsom or Yuma-like. The Plainview was found in Texas. (Upper left, after a cast from the Laboratory of Anthropology, Santa Fe, New Mexico; upper right, after Wormington, 1944; the Eden point, after Howard, 1935; the Plainview, after Krieger, 1947; the second Eden, after Wormington, 1944.)