Clovis Caches

STONE DAGGER PUBLICATIONS

CLOVIS CACHES

This page is provided in an attempt to make sense of the rare and special collections recovered from caches. Articles found in caches represent the full range of normal production activities and beyond. Interpretations range from lost “everyday” tool kits, to fail-safe provision caches, to spiritual offerings.

Links to generalized discussions of Clovis caches:

An investigation of Clovis caches: Content, function, and technological organization by David Kilby

A Comparison of Clovis Caches by Robert Lassen

There are many more Clovis era caches than listed here, and I report the Watts cache for the first time in this web page. Click on the site name for a discussion of each cache.

Discovery year	Cache name	State	Quantity	Bone rods	Platter bifaces
1968	Drake	CO	14 artifacts	0	0
2009	Mahaffy	CO	80+ tools	0	yes
Pre-1941	Watts	CO	7 artifacts	0	yes
	Carlisle	IA	38 tools	0	0
1996	McKinnis	IA	23 artifacts	0	0
	Runnell-Maske	IA	11 pts	0	0
1961	Simon	ID	35 artifacts	0	yes
1968	Busse	KS	78 artifacts, 24 lbs	0	yes
1968	Anzick	MT	112 artifacts	6	42
2004	Bastrop County	TX	13 artifacts	0	0
Ore-1950's	DeGraffenried	TX	5 artifacts	0	0
1987	Richey-Roberts	WA	58 artifacts	yes	yes
1978	Crook County	WY	9 artifacts	0	yes
1902?	Fenn	WY	56 artifacts, 20 lbs	yes	yes

Bibliography

As a group, the known Clovis caches provide a useful pattern of how tool kits were assembled and maintained. Apparently equilibrium was established by leaving stone in an unfinished state until tools had to be replaced or flakes were needed for camp tasks. By attending to what intermediate states of reduction were favored, we learn the importance of each phase of activity. Relative numbers of components in the tool kits show us the proportional requirements of various tool categories.

Ochre is usually evident on cached material unless weathering has been severe.
Comparable large artifacts are known from isolated finds in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah.
The author has been privileged to examine items from all but the Simon Cache.

Weaponry from Clovis caches is usually very different from that found in camp or kill context. A possible defensive use is indicated by:

Lack of repair
Exotic, highly aesthetic material
Large size
Aesthetic flake scars
Cache habit

At the time, very large and dangerous predators like the American Lion, Short Faced Bear, and Dire Wolf were in the habit of eating whatever they wanted. Special weapons were used in Africa by Massai cattle herders to deter lions. In the Philippines, jungle people carried short spears with impressive tips to ward off Tigers. People at the end of the Pleistocene had just as good reasons to develop and carry personal defensive weaponry. Implements that served for a lifetime are likely candidates for caches. Pointed ivory rods, also found in caches, may have been foreshafts, but they could have worked to deter predators as well.

Large platter-like bifaces are also seldom seen except in caches. Use as a core or blank is indicated by:

Great distance from the source of stone
Thickness too small for camp flakes, but good for projectiles
Snapped bifaces were obviously converted to projectile points
Caches seldom include camp tools

Hunters at the end of the Pleistocene had their choice of many prey species, but none of them dominated the landscape. Consequently, a Clovis hunter had to be prepared to deal with quite a range of potential meat sources. If Mammoth were taken, he needed to have large choppers and flensers. The large bifaces would have performed admirably. If he was successful with smaller prey, there could be a surplus of the large tool kit components after camp flakes were exhausted. Instead of carrying the extra load back to a quarry, it would have made sense to build a cache that could be returned to if a future hunt found them short. The surplus might easily include projectile points.

Wilke, et al (1991) make a good case for the practice of deliberately breaking large bifaces and converting them into projectile preforms. Evidence includes:

Broken biface remnants in cache
Incomplete preforms with remnants of squared edges
Asymmetry of small preforms
Bias of flake initiations from sharp edge.

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