#aFactADay2026
#1862: even though Clovis points vary wildly in shape and size across North America, they were (most probably) made using the same techniques all over.
they used percussion flaking (hitting your rock with another, harder rock) to remove flakes from one rock to shape it. once you've got a biface (flat thing), you thin it by taking off flakes that are at least half the length of the rock, called overface flakes. seems obvious but it is quite an accident-prone method.
see some of the flakes that came off here. by cutting off these larger flakes, they also became useful as something to make smaller tools out of, usually with a sharp edge already.
overface flakes leave behind quite distinctive scars on the rock that make it easy to tell how the point was made, and most notably how the delicate flute at the bottom was done.
