Early microblade assemblages in greater Beringia have been the focus of intense scrutiny because of their relevance to the problem of the peopling of the Americas. Although microblades have been produced in northeast Asia for more than 20,000 years, their manufacture is intensified in the terminal Pleistocene, coincident with the earliest definitive peopling of Beringia. In Alaska, where their manufacture was concentrated in the earliest Holocene period, microblades have often been viewed as diagnostic tools left by discrete ethnic groups (Na‐Dene?) who followed the original (proto‐Paleoindian?) migration. Alternatively, they have been viewed as a technology adapted for hunting in cold, northern environments, where lithics were relatively scarce, particularly in winter. A compromise view would suggest that such technologies were utilized in low frequencies by earlier populations, but became more prevalent as mammalian megafaunal extinctions took place, when caribou became of prime importance. The absence of such taxa to the south of the ice sheets might offer an alternative to ethnic arguments as an explanation of the limitations of expansion of microblade technologies into continental North America.

ABSTRACT. Early investigations at the Moose Creek site in 1979 and 1984 recovered stone tools within and below paleosol stringers dated between 8160 ± 260 14 C yr BP and 11 730 ± 250 14 C yr BP. Although questions remained regarding the absence of diagnostic artifacts and the validity of the radiocarbon dates obtained from soil organics, this assemblage was tentatively assigned to the Nenana complex. Excavations at the site were resumed in 1996 in hopes of solving persisting problems associated with the culture-historical positions of its components. Microstratigraphic excavation techniques identified two superimposed microblade components associated with the Denali complex. Hearth charcoal dated the deepest microblade occupation at 10 500 ± 60 14 C yr BP, while a geological sample dated the second at 5680 ± 50 14 C yr BP. The oldest microblades lay 15 cm above a Nenana complex occupation that contained a hearth dated at 11 190 ± 60 14 C yr BP. Artifacts associated with this feature included a large scraper-plane, two side scrapers, a biface, an exhausted flake core, a hammerstone, and anvil stones, as well as a subtriangular point and a teardrop-shaped Chindadn point. The majority of these tools were manufactured from a large basalt cobble reduced using a bipolar technique. Subsurface testing at several localities around the site did not uncover new late Pleistocene occupations. The chronostratigraphic positions of the diagnostic artifacts found during the re-excavation support previous culturehistorical sequences observed for Nenana and Denali complexes in the region. Results from this latest research confirm that the Nenana and Denali complexes are chronologically, stratigraphically, and technologically distinct in the Nenana Valley.

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This article gives an inventory of North American Paleoindian osseous points and bi-beveled rods. Quantitative and qualitative information is gathered and compared. Present and past hypotheses on the possible uses of bi-beveled rods are reviewed and individually critiqued. The particular physical characteristics of bi-beveled rods are then used to interpret their function. Based on the compiled information, a new hafting method for Clovis points is put forth that links the attributes of bi-beveled rods to a specific role within this system. This new hypothesis suggests that bi-beveled rods were tied facing each other around a Clovis point and a main shaft as part of composite clothes pin-like foreshafts.

FIGURE 3 (top).