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NAME: James Cambron named these points from examples found on the Stone Pipe site located in the Wheeler Basin of the Tennessee River in Limestone County, Alabama.Cambron initially named three variants; the Wheeler Excurvate, the Wheeler Recurvate, and the Wheeler Triangular.It is uncertain who named the much rarer Wheeler Expanded variant.
AGE: Examples of the Wheeler Excurvate variant were recovered with transitional Paleoindian materials at the Quad site and with the other Wheeler variants on pre-shell mound sites in northern Alabama.T.M.N. Lewis illustrated a fluted example of the Wheeler Excurvate point from the collection of Aaron Clement in the 1960 issue of the Tennessee Archaeologist, Vol.XVI, No.1.A reworked example of the type was also recovered from level 11 at the University of Alabama site MS201 in Marshall County.All of this led Cambron to assign the type to a transitional Paleo association.
DESCRIPTION: The Wheeler Excurvate is a small to medium sized auriculate point with an incurvate basal edge, steeply worked basal edge and excurvate blade edges. The 20 examples recovered from 14 sites along the Tennessee River Valley ranged between 67mm and 27mm in length with an average of 48mm.The cross-section is usually lenticular, but may be plano-convex.The distal end is acute.The blade is developed with random flaking.Larger, broad flakes were used to develop the basal concavity.Shorter, narrow flakes were used to form the steeply flaked basal edge.The hafting area is parallel pointed with a deeply incurvate and steeply flaked basal edge.Some examples are fluted and occasionally ground along the blade and hafting area edges.
DISTRIBUTION: Wheeler points seem to be fairly localized in the Tennessee River Valley area of Alabama and Tennessee.
These examples are from Overtreet’s guide (1989)
DESCRIPTION: The Wheeler Recurvate is a small to medium sized auriculate point with an incurvate basal edge, steeply worked basal edge and excurvate blade edges. The 9 examples recovered from 6 sites along the Tennessee River Valley ranged between 67mm and 27mm in length with an average of 55mm.The cross-section is usually lenticular, but may be plano-convex.The distal end is acute.The blade is developed with random flaking with fine secondary pressure flaking along the blade edges.Larger, broad flakes were used to develop the basal concavity.The blade edges are excurvate above the hafting area.Shorter, narrow flakes were used to form the steeply flaked basal edge.The hafting area is expanded and pointed with a deeply incurvate and steeply flaked basal edge.No fluting or basal smoothing was mentioned in Cambron’s description.Local materials were used, but Ft. Payne chert seemed to be a favorite.
Similar points were found at the Scharbauer site near Midland, Texas.These points were associated with Folsom materials.These points are similar to McKean points, but seem to be much older.
This is Cambron’s illustrated example.
DESCRIPTION: The Wheeler Triangular is also a small to medium sized auriculate point with an incurvate basal edge, steeply worked basal edge, but with straight blade edges.Cambron’s illustrated example, recovered from the same Stone Pipe site along the Tennessee River Valley measured 81mm in length.The cross-section is lenticular, but examples may also be plano-convex.The distal end is acute.The blade is developed with shallow random flaking with fine secondary pressure flaking along the blade edges.Larger, broad flakes were used to develop the basal concavity.The blade edges are straight.Shorter, narrow flakes were used to form the steeply flaked basal edge.The hafting area is parallel and pointed with a deeply incurvate and steeply flaked basal edge.No fluting or basal smoothing was mentioned in Cambron’s description.Local materials were used, but Ft. Payne chert seemed to be a favorite.
DESCRIPTION: The Wheeler Expanded is a small to medium sized auriculate point with expanding, squared basal ears.The basal edge forms a deep, V-shaped notch.The blade edges are straight and the distal end is acute.Most examples have narrow collateral flaking.Examples have been recovered from sites containing other Wheeler types in the Tennessee River Valley.The cross-section is lenticular.There is little to no secondary flaking along the blade edge.The hafting area is expanding and finished with smaller, but collateral flaking.No basal smoothing is evident.
