ABSTRACT
The Folsom Point is possibly one of the finest examples of flaked stone art in the world. Since 1926 when it was first reported, it has been collected, studied, and replicated. In the fall of 1997, this question caused the author to conceive of the idea of modeling the fluting of a Folsom point with a computer. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software was acquired in February, 1998, the testing of the software and the concept began the same month. The mechanics of flake creation is an extremely difficult subject. The reasons for this are numerous, but one reason looms larger than the others. The removal of any given flake in the real world can be repeated because flake removal is a destructive process. Computer modeling is a form of experimental archaeology that can overcome some of the problems of real world experiments. To model the mechanics of channel flake removal the author used a computer program of the FEA category.
