NYSAA Bulletin No. 52 — Archaic Sites: Croton Point & Dogan Point — Passage 3 (part 8)

[Various (1971)] Here, in the basal levels at the Sylvan Lake Rockshelter, Funk uncovered a small number and assortment of untyped projectile points. Two radiocarbon dates from this general zone are 4030 B.C. ± 120 (I-2599) and 4610 B.C. ± 100 (Y-1655) (Funk 1965). Although Funk has remarked on certain attributes of resemblance in three of these points to the Otter Creek type of the Vergennes phase, Laurentian tradition (Ritchie 1961: 40-41), I would here emphasize my belief that the Laurentian tradition, as I have defined it (Ritchie 1938: 106-108; 1965a: 79-83; 1968) is a northern. and later manifestation, unrelated to the finds from the deepest part of the Sylvan Lake Rockshelter, except insofar as certain elements of this vague and anomalous assemblage may have persisted, to later become assimilated to a Laurentian culture or cultures of Late Archaic times. Still lower down river in Westchester County, radiocarbon dates of similar magnitude were secured on charcoal from the bottom level of a midden at Croton Point, 3900 B.C. ± 200 years (X-1315) (Brennan 1962), and on oyster shell from the base of a deep shell stratum at Dogan Point, 3700 B.C. ± 200 years (L-1038E) (Brennan 1968: 14; Newman et al. 1969). Unfortunately, diagnostic artifact associations were lacking at both sites.