Description

Stone tools play a privileged role in archaeology as they are extremely durable, and they survive through most circumstances. Palaeolithic tools have survived for hundreds of thousands of years, enduring repeated Ice Ages and being washed down rivers, but we can still pick them up, see how were made and say things about their makers. Even for more recent periods, the effects of weather and ploughing over thousands of years means more often than not stone tools are the only surviving evidence for where people were living and what they were doing.
Drills have been a part of the Native American tool kit at least since the Dalton period. Evidence for this antiquity is seen in the use of exhausted Dalton type points as drills. The use of exhausted point types like the Kirk Corner Notched and Kirk Stemmed and Serrated types have continued through time and is one of the clear indicators in dating drills. They often measure between 2 and 4 inches in length. They are diamond in cross-section and are equal in width and thickness. It is not unusual to find drills broken as their shaft is long and thin. Not all drills were made from exhausted points. These forms are often referred to as “key drills” and have an expanded hafting area. This hafting configuration was not always used and drills were simply rounded or pointed in the hafting area.