The Nelson stone tool cache, North-Central Ohio, U.S.A.: Assessing its cultural affiliation

•The Nelson stone tool cache was discovered in Mount Vernon, Ohio.•We analyzed it to assess its cultural affiliation.•We compared it to Clovis and post-Clovis caches.•We also conducted geochemical, ochre, and microwear analyses.•By some key measures it is consistent with Clovis, but the case remains unproven. The Nelson stone tool cache was discovered in 2008 in Mount Vernon, Ohio. The cache does not include any diagnostic materials, and independent age control is unavailable. Although aspects of its 164 bifaces are suggestive of a Clovis affiliation – including the occasional occurrence of unmistakable flute scars – nearly all are in the early- to mid-stages of production, there are no definitive finished Clovis fluted points that would make it possible to assign the cache to that time period. To ascertain its cultural affiliation, we undertook a detailed qualitative and quantitative comparison of the Nelson cache bifaces with ones known to be both Clovis and post-Clovis in age. We also conducted geochemical sourcing, ochre analyses, and microwear analysis to understand the context of the cache, regardless of its age and cultural affinity. By some key measures it is consistent with Clovis caches in this region and elsewhere, but the case remains unproven. Nonetheless, if the Nelson cache is from the Clovis period, it is significant that most of its bifaces appear to be made on large flakes, in keeping with Clovis technology in the Lower Great Lakes, and an economically conservative, risk-mitigating strategy that conforms to predictions of human foragers colonizing the area in late Pleistocene times.