Projectile point · Middle Archaic
Cascade
6000–2500 BCE, Western Stemmed Tradition
Cascade was named by Butler in 1961 as the marker of his Old Cordilleran culture on the Columbia Plateau and is the characteristic point of the Cascade phase of the middle Holocene in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. It is made on basalt, chert and obsidian and is abundant along the Columbia and Snake rivers.
| Object | Projectile point |
|---|---|
| Dates | 6000–2500 BCE |
| Period | Middle Archaic |
| Cultures | Western Stemmed Tradition |
| Regions | North America — Great Basin & Plateau, North America — Pacific Coast |
Diagnostic traits
Leaf-shaped bipoint with convex edges, a pointed or rounded base, a lenticular section and no stem or shoulders; one variant carries small side notches low on the blade.
Identification
Cascade lacks any stem, which separates it from Windust and later Plateau stemmed points, and lacks the concave base of Humboldt. Lerma of Texas and Mexico is a similar bipoint separated by region.
Reproductions and fakes
Basalt examples are not reproduced; obsidian ones occasionally are, and lack sheen and edge rounding.
Elsewhere
- Wikidata: Q32153979
Cite this article
Stratum Strata. "Cascade" (Artifact type). Stratum Strata pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21. https://stratum.black/strata/types/cascade. Accessed 2026-09-21.
@misc{stratum-cascade,
title = {Cascade},
author = {{Stratum Strata}},
howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/strata/types/cascade}},
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.