Jack's Reef pentagonal projectile points are stone projectile point

Projectile point

In archaeological terms, a projectile point is an object that was hafted to a projectile, such as a spear, dart, or arrow, or perhaps used as a knife....

s manufactured by Native Americans what is now the northeastern United States generally in the time interval of 600-1200. They derive their name from the specimens found at the Jack's Reef

Jack's Reef, New York

Jack's Reef is a hamlet in the Town of Van Buren, New York in Onondaga County, New York. It was developed around an inn, extant today as a restaurant, where Old Route 31 bent around a large oxbow in the Seneca River. Subsequently a canal was cut about a mile to the north, which shortened the...

 site in Onondaga County, New York

Onondaga County, New York

Onondaga County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 467,026. The county seat is Syracuse.Onondaga County is part of the Syracuse, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area....

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Description

Jack's Reef pentagonal points are generally about 1 to 1 3/4 inches in length. They are generally rather thin and pentangular in shape, about one and a third times longer than they are wide. They and usually have a straight base. They are generally made from local flint

Flint

Flint is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as a variety of chert. It occurs chiefly as nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and limestones. Inside the nodule, flint is usually dark grey, black, green, white, or brown in colour, and...

s, jasper

Jasper

Jasper, a form of chalcedony, is an opaque, impure variety of silica, usually red, yellow, brown or green in color; and rarely blue. This mineral breaks with a smooth surface, and is used for ornamentation or as a gemstone. It can be highly polished and is used for vases, seals, and at one time for...

, quartz

Quartz

Quartz is the second-most-abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust, after feldspar. It is made up of a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO2. There are many different varieties of quartz,...

 and quartzite

Quartzite

Quartzite is a hard metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. Pure quartzite is usually white to gray, though quartzites often occur in various shades of pink...

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Age and cultural affiliations

They have mostly been dated to within a few hundred years of 900 AD in the early era of the Owasco culture.

Distribution

These points are generally found in the American northeast (New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia).

External links

• Virginia Department of Historic Resources