GENERAL DESCRIPTION: This is a small, thin, triangular, side notched point.
MEASUREMENTS: Bell (1958) lists length as 27 mm. to 19 mm. with the majority averaging slightly less than 25 mm. Suhm and Krieger (1954) give the width as 20 mm. to 12 mm. and state that the notches are usually 2 mm. to 3 mm. deep.
FORM: The cross-section appears to be flattened. Blade edges may be straight or excurvate. The distal end is acute. Side notches forming the hafting area "are cut in from the edge perhaps ¼ to ⅓ of the distance from the base to the tip (distal end)." (Bell, 1958.) The base is straight or slightly incurvate and thinned.
FLAKING: Fairly broad, shallow, random flaking appears to have been used to shape the faces, with a minimum of retouch along the edges.
COMMENTS: The type was named for the Washita River Focus of Oklahoma. The illustrated example is after Bell (1958). The Washita was included in the Harrell type by Suhm, Krieger and Jelks (1954). The only appreciable difference between the two types is the notched basal edge of the Harrell points. According to Bell (1958), "the Washita point is found in Oklahoma, parts of the Great Plains, Mississippi Valley and in the Southwest. It is commonly associated with the Harrell point, pottery and agriculture." He estimates the age from 1100 or 1200 A. D. up to 1500 or 1600 A. D. Twenty-one examples were in a cache found with a burial in a truncated mound in Elmore County, Alabama (Fundaburk and Foreman, 1957). Also in the cache were points similar to Alba, Bassett, Harrell, and Scallorn types as described and illustrated by Suhm, Krieger and Jelks (1954). Along with these were other small points (Plate 15, p. 36), two of which were made of obsidian. Since the type is associated with Harrell points, it is probably associated with early Mississippi Culture of the Mississippi and Missouri Valleys (Bennett, 1948 and Chapman, 1948).
WHEELER EXCURVATE, Cambron (Cambron, 1955a and 1957): A-85
GENERAL DESCRIPTION: This is a small to medium sized auriculate point with incurvate base, steeply worked basal edge, and excurvate blade edges.
MEASUREMENTS: Twenty points from 14 sites in the Tennessee River Valley (Soday and Cambron, n. d.) provided the following measurements: length—maximum, 67 mm.; minimum, 27 mm.; average, 48 mm.: width—average, 21 mm.: thickness—average, 6 mm. The illustrated example provided the following measurements: length, 46 mm.; width of blade, 20 mm.; width at base, 17 mm.; thickness, 5 mm.; depth of basal concavity, 6 mm.