In my 30-plus years in archaeology in B.C., I had never knowingly come across a metal projectile point until working on the Big Bar Slide project.
Until then, I had never really thought much about it and assumed, when I thought about it at all, that I was just working in the wrong spots.
At Big Bar, we have been working at a site on a prominent bedrock “fin” overlooking the steep-sided narrow canyon just downstream from the slide location.
At this site, we found lots of crushed and burned deer bone, fish bone and many stone artifacts, including scrapers, spall tools, knives, utilized flakes and projectile points, with styles dating from 200 to 2,400 years before present.
All of this made complete sense.
Then we found the iron projectile point. We were, of course, very excited and were looking forward to nerding out in the typical archaeologist’s deep dive into the literature to find out as much as we could about these artifacts.
After all, everyone knows these were made in large number, both by blacksmiths and First Nations craftsmen and in factories for the fur trade.
Of course, there would be numerous articles and mentions in site forms for us to research.
Early this spring, one of the archaeologists working on the Big Bar Project started researching metal projectile points and found — nothing. We were all a bit taken aback and started asking around.
It ends up that “everyone knows that …” means that no one actually knows very much at all. In the end, we had to enlist the help of the BC Archaeology Branch to search through the site records, interview venerable archaeologists with a deep background in B.C. archaeology and reach out to friends and associates in Alberta to find anything at all. It is hard to know why this is the case.
It may be that there were just fewer of these artifact types traded into the province before people transitioned to firearms, so not many survived.
One would also expect that iron points might tend to be on or near the surface in archaeological sites and thus be more prone to rusting away to nothing than the same artifacts in the drier Prairies.
Or perhaps the “Pre-1846 AD” bias in B.C. archaeology could have meant that archaeologists did not recognize or choose to record these artifacts.
So, what we do know?
As far as we can tell, there is essentially nothing we could find in the B.C. literature about metal projectile points, with only a handful of sites in the province recording them.
Looking farther afield to Alberta and down into the United States, this artifact style becomes more abundant, both in sites and in the ethnographic literature.
There are mentions of both locally manufactured points, often cut from scrap metal like barrel hoops or wagon wheels with a cold chisel and hammer, as well as ones that are factory made for trade.
One reference mentions the explorer David Thompson trading several hundred metal points to the Interior Salish in 1809 and 1810. In general, metal points tend to be longer and wider than the stone points from the same time frame. Often the locally made points are reported as being more triangular and often asymmetrical.
The commercial ones tend to be more symmetrical, often with leaf-shaped blades, and sometimes had a manufacturers’ stamp or mark on them.
One other interesting tidbit of information was that the point bases were often described as having serrations, presumably to help keep the points firmly attached to the arrow shaft.
Points used for warfare often were described as having smooth-sided bases that were loosely attached to the arrow so that they would slip off the shaft when the arrow was pulled out.
So, what did we have here?
The point we found at Big Bar is consistent in size with other reported metal points and is noticeably larger than the smaller Kamloops points with which it is associated.
It is symmetrical, leaf-shaped and has a smooth, parallel-sided base for attaching to an arrow shaft.
We were not able to discern a manufacturing mark or stamp, but this could be because we did not heavily clean the artifact out of concern for damaging it.
The shape and symmetry suggest the point is probably more likely a commercial item made for trade, rather than locally made.
We can never know the final intentions of the owner, but the smooth-sided base suggests it could have been intended for use in warfare.
One of the fun things about archaeology is coming across finds that test one’s assumptions about the past.
Finding this point at Big Bar will help us tell a more complete story of this site and its surroundings.
Clinton Coates and Abby Wilson are archaeologists in the Kamloops area.