Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Indian Artifacts - Volume II

Here in the PNW, the finer points are found in locales where life was the easiest. I.e. if food was plentiful, like along the Columbia River, there was plenty of time to elevate things to an art form. With glacial melt and the Missoula floods, fishing periodically became impossible, tribes had to move to the less productive uplands, and points became quite crude. As the floods receded, fishing picked up, good times returned, and another layer of fine work occurs. If one travels down the Columbia, stop in at Bonneville Dam, and given the extensive excavations required for the build, they have museum exhibits clearly depicting the waxing and waning of knapping talents across time.

We're in SE Oregon, and rumor has it our resident Paiutes were composed of mostly undesirable outcasts forced into the hinterlands. Life in the high desert is tough with seasonal moves across the landscape necessary to hunt, fish, forage, and endure winter. Most finds here are fairly rough even though we have the finest of obsidian about. The nearest local digs date back about 15,000 yrs, but they're not uncovering any Clovis work.

As to time in general, the Clovis points, with their near full-length flutes, are some of the earliest and yet most difficult forms to duplicate. Still, no one knows exactly what techniques were historically employed in their fabrication. It's clear those large flutes were the absolute final steps though. Several modern duplication methods have been devised with some requiring 3 hands, but even our most advanced efforts frequently break ones point in half with the final strikes.

Knapping is one of my many hobbies with raw materials about in abundance (various forms of obsidian), but I've not yet elevated it to an art form. A good mind cleansing but often frustrating endeavor though.


A photo hint: If one wants to do a better job of presenting the subtle colors of his finds, place them in a shallow cookie or baking pan beneath about 3/4 inch of water. The above are not near as brilliant when dry and out in the air.