Functional Attributes and the Differential Persistence of Great Basin Dart Forms

Since the early 1970s, Great Basin archaeologists have debated projectile point chronology, most specifically focusing on the duration of certain types in different parts of the Basin. Large corner-notched types play a central role in this debate, since in some areas they appear during the Early Holocene and persist until recent times, while in other areas they represent much shorter time spans. Further, the occurrence of large side-notched types is limited primarily to those areas in which the large corner-notched types have long temporal distributions. This paper examines the component attributes of large side-notched and corner-notched point types and offers a functional explanation for their differential distribution in time and space