An Avonlea inhumation at Split-Rock Ridge, Big Dry Creek Valley, Eastern Montana High Plains

Side-notched arrowpoints, a knapping tool made of bone, perforated stone beads, Dentalium beads, a probable Olivella bead, and decorated and perforated mollusc shell pendants and scrap were found associated with a Late Precontact Period Native American skeleton. This individual, an adult male about 27–33 years old, had been interred in sand beneath a sandstone caprock near the top of a low ridge in a desiccated, open plains setting in Eastern Montana. The arrowpoints are of the Avonlea side-notched type. A detached 3rd maxillary molar from the weathered, fragmentary skeleton yielded an AMS radiocarbon age of 1,190 ± 40 B.P. The expertly crafted arrowpoints and knapping tool suggest that this individual's stone-tool production skills might have been highly valued by his compatriots. Contemporaneity among the arrowpoints is established by their association with this primary interment, and affords an opportunity to examine intra-assemblage morphology and variation among arrowpoints made by one or a few indiv...