Culbreath

Photos courtesy of Paleo Enterprises

The Culbreath point was named by Ripley P. Bullen (1975) for examples from the Culbreath Bayou site (Warren 1967).

The Culbreath is a medium-sized blade measuring from 1.5 to 3 inches in length The Culbreath was developed through random percussion flaking with pressure flaking along the blade edges. The blade is broad, thin and bi-convex in cross-section. The excurvate blade edges meet at a broad to acute distal end. Examples from the Blackwater Pond site indicate that the shape of the distal end changes through rejuvenation, becoming very broad and rounded. The blade becomes circular in appearance like a hafted scraper. The barbs of this classic type droop, sometimes to the basal line. The barbs of the Culbreath are always rounded at the end, in contrast to the Citrus basal corner that is sharp. The central tang is straight-sided with a flat basal edge.

The Culbreath Bayou site in Hillsborough County, Florida contains Culbreath examples as well as both the Clay and Lafayette forms. The site consists of an Orange period lithic workstation located beneath a Deptford period midden. The Culbreath was the predominant blade form at the Blackwater Pond site in Hernando County, Florida. The site also contained Clay and Lafayette blades as well as fiber and sand-tempered ceramics of the Orange period (Whitney 1986). Use of the Culbreath blade continued into the Early Woodland period. At the Canton Street site in St. Petersburg, Florida, Culbreath points were the predominant point type and were recovered with Hernando, Citrus and Lafayette examples ranging between 12 and 18 inches in depth. This level also contained Pasco and sand-tempered ceramics (Bullen 1978). An interesting cash of 55 blades was recovered by Mr. Calhoun W. Hendricks along a coastal ridge in southwestern Taylor County. The cash was predominantly made up of Culbreath and Lafayette points (Hardman and Hardman 1994). This demonstrates the strong association of the Clay/Lafayette types with the Culbreath type throughout the Tampa Bay region during the Late Archaic and Early Woodland periods. The oldest reported occurrence of the Culbreath type is the Middle Archaic Gothier site in Brevard County, Florida where a Culbreath point was recovered from human skeletal remains (Calvin Jones 1994).

The distribution of the Culbreath type is not clearly defined. Its heaviest use seems to be limited to the Tampa Bay area and surrounding counties, where it shares a strong association with Clay and Lafayette points. Examples have been recovered at the Gothier site in Brevard County and at the Tick Island site in Volusia County, Florida.