Historic Clovis Points Made By J.B. Sollberger and Errett Callahan in about 1985 Were Part of "Bison Butchering Experiment". The wide Clovis was made for me by Errett when he was in Denmark (circa 1985) and the slender Clovis was made for me by Solly about the same time,at his home in Dallas, Texas.
Sollberger was a famous flintknapper in the 1970s- 1990s. He was noted for starting the Texas "school" of flintknapping and mastered the lever fluted methods common today. He was very well published and is concidered to have been true master flintknapper.
Errett Callahan, of Virginia, is concidered a master at flintknapping many styles, including Danish Daggers and fantasy obsidian knives. He has published much on the stages and sytematic methodologies of knapping. He aslo came up with the "lithic Grade Scale".
I found that the more even the edge of the Clovis the better it was for perferation but not for cutting. Callahan's point was very sharp and worked well to slice. The bit of alternate flaking on the sollberger point made it better at cutting. The point first perferation on both points was outstanding. Callahan's was better for slicing but Sollberger's point cut better. Both points held there edge well during the butchering experiment. The blade edges will be magnified in future studies.
Here are the two historic Clovis points:
Above J.B. Sollber knapping the Clovis at his home in Dallas, 1985.
Above Errett Callahan works on a Clovis point.
Other knappers that Joined John Piri and I with the butchering experiment were Patric Aims, and Gary Picket.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// THE TEXAS MASTER; In the states of Texas was a long lean bloke, it wasn't Johnny Smoke, it was paleo flintknapping pioneer, J.B. Sollberger. I was aquatinted with Mr. Sollberger and know that he was a true master flintknapper and influence to hundreds. Though they were contemporary, Carabtree and Texan, J.B. Sollberger spurred on two separate schools of thought. Crabtree the obsidian school and Sollberger the Texas flint school. Though both are flintknapping, the methodology is very different. In the realm of thought and mental visualization, deep in the mind is the perfect visualization or pure idea, the mental template. For most craftsmen by the time this idea becomes a piece of work it has lost a bit of perfection. On rare occasion it is manifested in a piece of art work, this was the case with the magnificent flintwork of J.B. Sollberger, of Dallas, Texas. Sollberger was a true flintknapping pioneer and a legend in his time. Not only was Sollberger a master knapper, he was truly a gentleman and humble as well. He was very analytical with his theoretical papers and articles being the best in the field. His literary works were of the highest quality where he published in many journals including American Antiquity, Lithic Technology, Flintknappers' Exchange, Flintknapping Digest, and The Emic Perspective. J.B. Sollberger started flintknapping when he was middle aged, some time around 1970. He always had a curiosity about knapping but didn't get the "lithic erg" until he observed a scrapper making demonstration at the 1970 Dallas Archaeological Society meetings. Ironically Don Crabtree came to Dallas to the meetings but J.B. Sollberger had to work so he missed the opportunity to meet Crabtree. The next week he tried to make up for it buy going on his first flint hunt and ordering Crabtrees book. Upon reading this, Sollberger got a basic tool kit together and began experimenting. Sollberger recalled seeing a forked stick in a museum in Texas as a boy and began experimenting with his famous "fork and lever" knapping style. Sollberger was very successful in his experiments and was soon making fine arrow heads with his rig. According to Sollberger (1978) " back in 1933 I suppose, we were just boy artifact collectors. We made this trip to San Antone to see the Witte Museum and inside they had a forked stick a little over a foot long with something like 3/4 of an inch gap between the two forks. It struck me that pressure flaking could be done with leverage by laying the biface material across this forked stick and using the fork as a fulcrum for a lever". In 1990, John Wellman spoke to Solly and said that Solly was really interested in the East Wenatchee Site in Washington and he had made several large fluted points including an eight inch Cumberland he had spend eight hours preparing and fluted off the tip. This was really advanced work for the year and to me Sollberger's work remains unsurpassed. Bob Vernon, an old time Texas knapper once conveyed this story about Sollberger to me: " If any of you ever had the privilege of sitting alongside Solly at a small knapping session, you'll remember his dry, but gentle, humor. Like the times when he would say, " That platform looks a like a strong `un- guess I better drag out ol' "he-poppa-ho" (his mega-moose billet)." Almost all Sollberger's work was in flint or chert, I have only seen one item made by Sollberger of obsidian. The obsidian point is in the collection of Steve Carter, a master flintknapper from Ramona, California. The obsidian point was very nice and very delicate, this shows the diversity in craftsmanship Sollberger had. The last time I spoke to J.B. Sollberger he was crafting a set of masterful flint Folsom points out of Texas flint. He had made quite a few thousand points in his time and was using 1,000 pounds of flint a year. Even when Sollberger was quite old he continued being very active in knapping and writing. In a letter from Sollberger to Steve Behrnes Sollberger described this incredible expedience, " My house, on Monday nights, is known as the Sollberger Clovis Factory. Joe Miller and Woody Blackwell made Tee Shirts to that name which we often wear.
