My Bittersweet, Broken Daltons

It was five years ago this month I found my first Native American artifact, a four-inch long point with a missing base. That accidental find has led to a hobby that is almost an addiction for me: searching for artifacts. I couldn�t care less if a point has monetary value. My thrill comes from learning about the point�s history in our local timeline and never knowing what I might find next.

There is one particular artifact that interests me: the Dalton. The Dalton derives its name from Judge Sidna Poage Dalton, who by 1948 had discovered several sites in Missouri that had this Transitional-Paleo Indian point type. Judge Dalton was prosecuting attorney in Cape Girardeau County for several years in the 1930s and 1940s and held several other prominent career titles thereafter.

The Dalton is a unique artifact in that it was, perhaps, the first point-type modification that came out of the Clovis Era generations before. According to archaeologists, Dalton point usage existed throughout the Midwest and lasted from about 10,500 to 10,000 years ago. The Clovis people first entered what became North America some 12,500-plus years ago and are considered the first inhabitants of this land. (Yes, there are other hypotheses, but that�s another story.)

Over the last four years I have found 15 pieces of artifacts that are Dalton, or that so closely resemble Daltons that I don�t know what else they would be. The bittersweet part is, though they add to an archeological record, not one of them is intact. Each piece is either the base, the mid-section or the tip. I keep joking the day I find a complete Dalton, I�m going to go to town and celebrate.

Even fragments of whole points can tell us something about how the land was used 10,000 years ago. Eight of the 15 artifacts pictured here came from one Cape County field in March 2018. It took me quite a few hours over several days to find them, but when eight potential Daltons appear in one field at the same time, well, it�s exciting. They were in association also with a Hardin base, two Adenas and an Archaic blade.

Submitted photo

So where do the Dalton bases and fragments strewn over today�s fields come from? Some 10,500 years ago a deer hunter would have been using the atlatl more frequently. The hunter would have launched a shaft from its thrower (the atlatl) with a Dalton point on the opposing end, hopefully sending it crushing through rib bones into a deer�s vital cavity.

After the hunter followed a blood trail, recovered his deer, returned to camp and shared the meat with his family and clan, he would have removed himself to the hillside and prepared for another day. There he would have cut the lashing from his dart shaft, tossed aside a used but effective Dalton point base and tied on recently knapped Burlington chert Dalton projectile point. Tomorrow would be another day, and his pristine Dalton point would be ready to bring down another animal.

Just because every one of my Daltons is broken doesn�t mean their stories are, too. Each piece can tell its own story, whether it�s my Dalton drill with a broken tip, or the bases of two fluted Daltons found just a few miles apart, both of which I initially thought were Clovis, but later realized might not be. (See photo top row, second and third from left.)

Yes, it will be nice when one day I find a four-inch long Classic Dalton with parallel, oblique flaking and basal grinding, all intact. But until then I can still think of the joy each of my broken Daltons has given me so far.