Projectile point · Late Archaic
Bare Island
2800–1500 BCE, Archaic (Eastern)
Bare Island is a Late Archaic narrow-stemmed point of the lower Susquehanna and Chesapeake region, named by Kinsey for Bare Island in the Susquehanna River, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. It is common in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey and was made mostly of quartz, quartzite, rhyolite and local cherts. It is one of the most abundant Archaic points in the mid-Atlantic and belongs with Lackawaxen and Poplar Island in the regional narrow-stemmed group.
| Object | Projectile point |
|---|---|
| Dates | 2800–1500 BCE |
| Period | Late Archaic |
| Cultures | Archaic (Eastern) |
| Regions | North America — Eastern Woodlands |
Diagnostic traits
Narrow, thick stemmed point with a straight-edged blade, weak to square shoulders and a straight parallel-sided stem with a straight base.
Identification
Bare Island has a straight, parallel stem, unlike Poplar Island's contracting stem and Lackawaxen's slightly expanding or straight stem with a thinner blade; Lamoka is smaller, cruder and often has cortex on the base. Piscataway of the Potomac is smaller with a contracting stem.
Reproductions and fakes
Not usually faked; quartz and quartzite examples are hard to reproduce convincingly.
Elsewhere
Cite this article
Stratum Strata. "Bare Island" (Artifact type). Stratum Strata pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21. https://stratum.black/strata/types/bare-island. Accessed 2026-09-21.
@misc{stratum-bare-island,
title = {Bare Island},
author = {{Stratum Strata}},
howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/strata/types/bare-island}},
year = {2026},
note = {Artifact type article, Stratum Strata pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21; sources: stratum, wikidata, commons. Accessed 2026-09-21.}
} Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.