I believe it is Patricians because they were the Roman Aristocracy
It is starvation, lack of water, and lack of money and goods.
Keeping in mind the description of the stone point given in the story, we can state Marshall the rancher was looking at a Folsom point.
As it's known, a Folsom is a kind of stone point with a leaf-like shape which has a concave base and wide, shallow grooves/flutes running almost the entire length of the point.
Museo reina sofia, madrid, spain
