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Atlatl Weights from Certain Sites on the Northern and Central Great Plains*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Robert W. Neuman
Robert W. Neuman*
Affiliation:
River Basin Surveys, Lincoln, Nebraska
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Abstract

This paper begins with a discussion concerning the development of the term "atlatl weight" in archaeological literature. It then proceeds to analyze in detail data relative to 60 atlatl weights from 39 locations on the Plains area of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa. Although most of the specimens are surface finds, a number are from systematically excavated, radiocarbon-dated occupations.

Differentiated primarily on their general shapes, five groups of atlatl weights seem apparent: Class I, loaf-shaped; Class II, end-ridged; Class III, long ellipsoidal; Class IV, zoomorphic; and a miscellaneous category.

Available evidence suggests that atlatl weights were being made, in the area under consideration, from about 2500 B.C. until A.D. 800.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , January 1967 , pp. 36 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1967

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Footnotes

*

Submitted with the permission of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

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