SLEIGHTSBURG (Side Notch) – was named by archaeologist Charles L. Fisher for examples recovered from the 1st avenue archaeology site at the juncture of Rondout Creek and the Hudson River near Sleightsberg township, Ulster County, New York. They are small (1 ¼ to 1 ¾”) projectiles and knives with straight to convex blade edges with sharpened examples being almost concave. Shoulders are well defined and often at right angles, but more often angle upwardly from the stems which are expanded but not quite as wide as the shoulders on most examples. Elongated side indentations form short to moderate length stems with straight or convex bases. They were originally thought to be Normanskill points, but were found in layers with pottery, making that unlikely. They are examples of Archaic style points surviving into later periods. Full distribution isn’t known but includes New York, Pennsylvania and they were in use during the Middle Woodland period. References: Fisher, Charles 1982, Projectile Points from the First Avenue Site, Sleightsberg, New York: Implications from Multivariate Analysis. Northeast Anthropology, Volume 23, p. 61. Hartgen, Karen S., Charles Fisher, W. Lurie, G. Laden, K. Flynn, S. Massaroni, and D. Allstadt 1980, First Avenue Site, Town of Port Ewen, Hamlet of Sleightsberg, Ulster County, New York: Archeological Mitigation Proceedings. (tDAR id: 159506) Projectile Point Typology for Pennsylvania and the Northeast by Gary Fogelman pg193.
Fisher was a distinguished archaeologist who served as Curator of Historical Archaeology in New York State Museum, Albany. This type was name din a professional publication, but has no or limited professional references. This is considered a provisional type.
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