Oxbow and Besant Points

Oxbow points (Top)
Besant points (Bottom)

 Last week I knapped reproductions of a couple styles of projectile points found on the prairies; Oxbow and Besant.  Oxbow points are the earlier form and according to Record in Stone: Familiar Projectile Points From Alberta they date from 4500-4100 BP.  They were named for the town of Oxbow in Saskatchewan and have very distinctive ears that result from side notches with a deep concave base.  Besant points are found a little later (2500-1350 BP) and have a few more regional and temporal variants, but they all tend to have wide side-notches or an expanding stem.  Both Oxbow and Besant points were likely used on darts that were launched with atlatls.  I made these for a friend who is building a point typology collection assembled with reproductions made by his knapping buddies.

A page from Record in Stone, showing a variety of Oxbow points.  My reproductions are the two at the bottom corners of the page.

The Besant page from Record in Stone, with my reproductions laying in the lower left and right corners.  The lower right hand corner is made from Knife River Flint.  I don't have access to a lot of common knapping stones from the prairies, but somewhere along the way, someone gave me some KRF to try out.

Read to ship.

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast