O’Leno

a. Lloyd Schroder collection  b. Paleo Enterprises

The O’leno blade was named by Ripley P. Bullen (1968) for the town of  O’Leno, Florida. The town, originally named Keno, was later renamed Leno, then later Old Leno, and finally shortened to O’Leno. The town was eventually moved to High Springs, Florida and the original site of the town is now O’Leno State Park.

The O’Leno is a medium sized triangular blade form measuring between 1.25 and 2 inches in length. The blade is nearly equilateral with slightly convex edges. Blade edges occasionally appeared to be left-side Beveled from resharpening. The basal edge is straight to slightly convex or concave and thinned for  halfting.

The O’Leno blade may be even more difficult to locate than its namesake town. Bullen attributed these blades to the Weeden Island culture dating from A.D. 200 to 1200 (Bullen 1975). He cites to locations, one at Bolen Bluff south of Gainesville, Florida and the Askew site in Citrus County, Florida. Two O’Leno blades and eight Jackson points were collected from the surface of the Evenson site in Alachua County (Robinson 1979). Two examples were also recovered from the Twin Mounds site (8OR459) on Rollins Island located along the Wekiva River basin in Orange County, Florida. One of those examples was recovered from stratum five, a dense St. Johns one shell midden deposit (Wiseman 1993). Total distribution is believed to be from North central Florida to southern Georgia.