CO-OP Sponsored Research by David Thulman
Since the early 2000s, I have collected images of chipped stone artifacts (mostly projectile points), mainly from the Southeastern United States. The goals are several fold: (1) preserve the data for future analyses, (2) make images of sometime-hard-to access diagnostic artifacts available to others, and (3) facilitate my own research in artifact shape analysis. ARCO-OP has funded some of this work and agreed to host some of the data.
The images were collected from public institutions and private collections. The latter source is controversial to some archaeologists, but I take a pragmatic approach – the data is there and will be lost forever, so for those who find this data useful and ethical, it is available for use. Working with collectors can be fraught with ethical issues, which are too complex to go into here.
The images were collected on a flatbed scanner and saved at 600 dpi. Sometimes the color is not true. I have about 14,000 images and am slowly cleaning them up and posting them to this site. The images are mostly of Paleoindian and Early Archaic points, although there are some others. If anyone wants copies, contact me. It may take some time to get assemble the data, and a small processing charge will be incurred to cover preparation and mailing. But my ethic is that as scientists, we should share data. These images were time-consuming to collect and come from some obscure sources that are no longer available to professionals. It makes no sense to keep those to myself. I hope that folks who use these images will also share theirs.
I have the copyright for these images but will make them available for use in professional publications with proper attribution. Please contact me concerning proper attribution; some institutions have specific requirements.
David K Thulman, Principal Investigator
Institutional Collections
State of Florida Bureau of Archaeological Research
The Florida Museum
University of South Florida
Silver River Museum
Southeastern Archaeological Center of the National Park Service
Smithsonian Institution
Research Laboratories of Archaeology at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Savannah River Archaeological Research Program
Mississippi Department of Archives and History
Amory Museum
Cobb Institute of Archaeology at Mississippi State University
University of Kentucky
Alabama Office of Archaeological Research
University of Tennessee Archaeological & Environmental Research Laboratory
McClung Museum
Pennsylvania Archaeology collection
Cincinnati Museum Center
Peabody Institute of Archaeology at Andover
Special Note of appreciation to the private collectors and avocationals that shared their collections and knowledge
Ike Rainey
Alvin Hendrix
Rodney Peck
Jeannette Cole & Bill Childers
Don Munroe
Eddie Templeton
Guy Marwick
Harley and Ryan Means
The Parris Family
Archaeologists and others also were helpful to this effort:
Michael Faught
David Anderson
Adam Finn
Jim Dunbar
Marie Prentiss
Monty Pharmer
Chris Moore
Derek Anderson
Ryan Wheeler
Joe Gingerich