Projectile Points

This collection of projectile points comes from a series of archaeological sites located near Puslinch Lake in Cambridge. These sites were investigated in 2001 by Archaeological Services Inc. (ASI), which lead to the documentation of 38 Indigenous sites and 3 Euro-Canadian sites. These 41 sites cover a span of 9,400 years of human history in Ontario. Many of the Indigenous sites documented included a large number of lithic (stone) tools, most of them made of Onondaga chert originating from the north shore of eastern Lake Erie, or from more distant sources of stone material, such as the point on the right, which was made of stone originating from central Ohio. These projectile points exhibit specific shapes, which correspond with distinctive styles of manufacture that can be associated with specific time periods. These distinctive styles, in turn, allowed the archaeologists who documented the Puslinch sites to determine just how long humans were living in the area.