Point Type: TRAVIS a.k.a Strawn Stemmed
Also See: Angostura, Bare Island , Darl, Kent, Lange, Nolan, Pandale

Location: Southwestern United States - Especially Texas

Associated Dates: 4600 - 1000 B.P. - Mid-Archaic - Woodland
Morphology: Stemmed

General Description: The Travis is a medium sized rectangular dart point characterized by the absence of barbs and has poorly defined shoulders. Due to the weak shoulders it can be hard to determine where the neck and shoulders meet on some examples.  The blade is long and narrow. Suhm and Krieger in 1954 first described the point as.. " A slender triangular to leaf-shaped blade, edges straight to excurvate. Many specimens have tip slimmed down to a needle-like point. The shoulders vary from slight to rounded. The stem is usually rectangular with parallel edges, but may expand or contract slightly. The basal edge is usually straight but may be slightly concave or convex.

The Travis has a close resemblance to some other Texas point types. Specimens of the Travis which have a concave basal edge can resemble the Darl type but lack the beveling and stem grinding. The Travis point seems to be related to the Nolan (Travis do not have the beveled stem edges) and Pandale point types and is found in the same areas of Texas. In all likelihood it may be that all three point types are variants of the same point. The Travis is narrower and have less prominent shoulders than the Lange type.

The size of the Travis point ranges between 51 mm and 89 mm. The stem is long and is between 1/5th to 1/3rd of the total length of the point.

The Travis point was named and described by Dee Ann Suhm, Alex D. Krieger, and Edward B. Jelks in 1954 for examples found in central Texas. J. C. Kelley had previously described a type which he called the "Strawn Stemmed" in 1947 which is now included in the overall Travis description. In 1979 F. A. Weir described a type called the "Buda" which may be a local variant of the Travis point.

About the Point Above: The point pictured at the top of this page is a medium sized Travis point. This specimen is made from a satin dark cream or tan chert. The point measures 67 mm in length, 23 mm at the widest point (across the shoulders) and is 7 mm thick mid blade. The point tip thins down to 4 mm in thickness and the basal edge thins to 5 mm in thickness. This point was formerly in the Bob Miller collection, and was found in Bell County, Texas. Catalog Number 35-15-U

References: Bell (1), Davis, Overstreet, Perino (1), Puckett (1), Turner & Hester

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