THE HOLLAND CACHE
HENRY COUNTY, IOWA
EARLY ARCHAIC PERIOD
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COPYRIGHT FEBRUARY 28, 2010 PETER A. BOSTROM

     These 14 points were discovered in a plowed field in Henry County, Iowa in 1966 by Warren Holland. They have been designated the type points for Holland points. The cache is interesting for three different point styles that are represented within the cache. Twelve of these points have excurvate blade edges, small shoulders and concave bases and one other point has a straight base instead of a concave base. One of the most interesting points in the cache is the one that does not have any shoulders at all (top row right side). It represents one of the classic forms of a Dalton point, which in this case illustrates a close connection to stemmed and shouldered points. All of these points are made of white Burlington formation chert of varying degrees of quality. They range in size from 4 1/4 inches (10.8 cm) to 5 5/8 inches (14.3 cm) long and from 1 1/8 inches (2.9 cm) to 1 5/16 inches (3.4 cm) wide. The thickness range is from about 7 mm to 8 mm.
   Perino describes the Holland cache points, "Of the 14 points found in the cache, thirteen have shoulders 1 to 2 mm wider than the stems. One has no shoulders being lanceolate in form (top row right side), contracting slightly from the widest point near the center of the blade to the base. It may have had shoulders that were removed in resharpening the point. Ten points are typical and have essentially straight-sided stems. Three points have slightly contracting stems and one point has an expanded stem, only one has a straight basal edge (4th from left). Ten have slightly concave basal edges, 2 to 3 mm deep, and three have moderately concave basal edges 6 mm deep." (Perino 1971)

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