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

Very interesting, how is it you came to learn how to do this. FWIW I think it's a neat talent to have.



Nothing wrong with doing charity/fundraiser work.

I found all of those in Christian and Todd counties here in Kentucky. I have a good place here on the farm, but it's been hunted to death. As I said in an earlier post, no-till farming has made arrowhead hunting very hard anymore.

12344mag:
For decades, Cookie and I have been out and about. We've found some pieces, but most everything of substance were only halves. We've never been rabid pot hunters, as serious digging/sifting on our mostly public lands is a no no. Mostly as a challenge, I picked up some raw materials, perched on the pickup tail gate when I got home, and chiseled out what might have almost looked like a 1 1/2 inch point in about 3 hours. Not too bad I thought. Only took 3 hours.

I kept struggling in spare moments for a month or so, and soon had an extensive collection of maybe 4 crude points if one held them up and looked just so. Subsequently I came upon a flint knapping book by a gentleman named Waldorf (like the hotel). His presentations laid out the basic principles of getting rocks to break in desired patterns and I was off and running in about another 2 months. The book is about the same dimensions as a Saturday Evening Post if one comes from that era.

Flint knapping link

There are many other publications out there on the subject now, many employing paleo techniques and others building complex jigs and using hydraulics, rock saws, and impact tools to bang out their fabrications. Also many technique discussions in refereed journals.



One blessing for me is that I can gather obsidian at almost tons per hour rates. Many sources on public ground here in Harney and Lake counties. Locally near Glass Buttes, Oregon there has been an annual flint knapping gathering in early spring (like March). One might be able to surf up some references. I've been to a portion of one of those, and it's about a 3-day affair with everything from seriously scruffy mountain men to university PhD's camping out and hammering on rocks while passing on their discoveries and techniques. A very informal and remote event, and weather can and does do anything that time of year.

It is a neat and challenging hobby, and while there are some extremely adept makers out there, I've not met one yet that considers himself a master.

So much to do and so little time.

Have a good one,

No till sucks............

renegae50:
Yes. One needs to find some reason to rip or plow deeper. Great country for finds back there with I think a more extended and continuous history. Used to be a resident of Tenn, Va, and WVa and my brother has all of my treasures from back there. Ice ages, Pleistocene floods, and subsequent conversions to near desert, make things a bit spotty out here. Where all the resources do come together though, there are some good places to look.

Those are some pretty amazing collections! Thanks for sharing them.

That's great stuff you guys have!

Long story short, 30 years ago while rafting the upper San Miguel, we stopped at a very unlikely spot to wait for another raft. I climbed a bluff to get a view of the other raft, and there on a shelf of rock set back into the bluff was a bunch of pottery shards and an intact jar. It was cracked, and the lip was chipped, and it had a faint design painted on it.

My first instinct was to take it, but I didn't think it was likely to survive the raft trip, and I said to heck with it and put back exactly where I found it.

I doubt if I could find that spot again after all this time.

1minute Online Content
Campfire Kahuna

Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 20,852
Burns/Hines, Oregon, USA
12344mag:
Quote
How long does it take you to make one of those points?

The small true arrow heads I can knock out in 5 minutes or so. Points/knives 4+ inches long might require 30 to 45 minutes. I've done some 10 inch implements, but not made any foot longs yet. Need to get out and find some larger material. Matched pairs are the real bears. The first is a piece of cake. Generating a second with the same dimensions/lines can take 45 minutes to an hour if I don't break anything.




1Minute


Greyghost?
Are you familiar with a flint knapper from West Plains Mo who went by the name of Grayghost during the 70's/ 80's. He used gray flint from Texas and mass produced 10 to 12" points. You can find a lot of information on him by Googling the name Grayghost. I have a 15" point made by him. He had a very unusual knapping method.

I found my first point at approximately age six while digging fishing worms in our barn lot. Have my small collection and two other collections found by friends. No picture posting ability but will forward pictures to anyone who wants to post them to this thread. Have a few unusual artifacts that you don't see everyday. Need to photograph the frames anyway for estate reasons. GW

oldtimer303:

No, not familiar with Grayghost. I spent an afternoon with a professional knapper at a conference in Bozeman in about 85, but his name has long ago escaped me. He was hammering untreated flint, and his fingers and arms clearly exhibited the stresses they'd endured over the nears. Said his doctor had long ago encouraged him to quit. He did have beautiful stuff, and I was obviously way short of his skills in working that material.

I have some Texas buddies that owe me, and they're always threatening to bring up some flint. Always escapes their mind though when they do get around to running this way. I recall seeing sizeable chunks embedded in rip rap boulders around Brownsville and Corpus Christi. Lots of variable colors as well.

We have a couple professionals in the region that display some 24 to 30" pieces in both red and black obsidian. I'm fairly sure they rough their blanks out as thin slabs with rock saws. Sadly the younger of the two rolled a 4-wheeler a couple years back and suffered some brain and vision damage. Migraines etc have set him back. With a good marketing manager, I suspect he could have earned 6-figure coin setting up shop in a well visited year round destination resort.

Sawed blanks are a bit of cheat, but they certainly conserve material. One shapes the slabs and then simply flakes off the saw scarred surfaces. I can start with a foot long chunk, hammer out a single point, and have 5 lbs of waste at my feet when done. I'm pretty much an impact and pressure flaker. With a saw, one can get 7 or 8 similarly dimensioned points out the same rock I started with, and be left with a couple lbs of waste.

Given what pops out of the ground on occasion though, there were some seriously skilled artists roaming around our continent in pre-settlement days.

1minute, could that Boseman knapper have been Russ Ivy?
he is in a nursing home here now , but i used to have a table next to him at gun shows and watch him work. Guy was a michelangelo with obsidian, chert, and flint or whatever. made antler handled knives about 6-8 inches long while sitting there.

deerstalker:
I'm sorry. It could well have been, but could also have been Herby Schwartz, Elmer Fudd, or Kilroy W. Here. He used moose/deer antler butts and some heavy copper rod as hammers, and then wood/copper punches for pressure flaking. That with a good layer of saddle leather in his lap and in one hand. I suspect you are correct, but 1985 was like 33 years ago. Consider myself lucky at 72 yrs to remember the combo to my gun safe. Sometimes I open it just to practice.

Have a good one,

Edited: That lower center white point with the ruler in your image above appears to have been done by a left-handed knapper. A right-hander would run those flakes in the opposing direction starting from the upper right edge. For comparison, look at the largest certer piece in Renegade50's picture above. The flakes on that one originate from the upper right edge. Nice work with tough material.

[img]https://imgur.com/a/AeDeL[/img]



About 20-25 of these were found in an tobacco patch after the guy plowed it deeper than it had ever been plowed. The area is a high shallow, and for this area, flat hollow with a lot of springs on each side. Camp area? It brings up the question of how deep in the ground the good stuff rests?

I've heard of greyghost from some knapping acquaintances here many years ago. . There was a greasy looking grey chert from I think the Fort Hood area (Coryell county) that I think he used.

The depth depends on the site.

The oldest will be at the bottom of a particular site. Mostly, the oldest has the finest craftsmanship and rarity as well.

Some sites can run very deep. The people that lived in them didn't really clean house... they just added new layers of dirt. After hundreds or thousands of years, that can get pretty deep.

I used to do a lot of native style twining and fingerweaving with natural materials. Texas Archaeological Researh Lab has an extensive collection of pecos area woven material and artifacts. While young son was doing some internship there I was able to get into the vault (tripping over the Malakoff heads collected in the 30's) and examine 100's of preserved woven artifacts.

Barry's housecleaning comment prompted my memory of one of the woven sandal type pieces of footware affectionately and accurately refered to by research staff as "the pooh sandal".

On the depth question

I test that with a landowner. We took a shovel and dug a couple of test pits in the hottest of the hottest center of the best part of the "site".

A post hole. Top soil was 15-18" deep. Then we hit a red clay layer. That intersect is where the flakes ceased. I'm thinking the place was initially a buffalo wallow that was panned out by the herds. Then the Indians moved in and started building organic matter from there.

Posted this several times before, but one of my favorite and best surface finds. Heck I was walking back to camp from turkey hunting when spotted.

And a few arrow points. The long "Alba" point I found when an old friend finished out a runway on his place.

I have spent the majority of my life in the woods and fields hunting and fishing. Near almost ten years ago, I acquired my little piece of heaven, and have plowed a portion up each year to plant. I have yet to find an arrowhead.

Granted, I'm not actively searching, but I would have thought I would have run across at least one by now. I would love to be able to find some around here. The area where I live is full of Indian history; point of fact, "Lord Dunmore's War" began with the slaughter of Chief Logan's brother just across from the mouth of Yellow Creek on the Ohio at Baker's Tavern along Baker's Bottom, which is only about 15 minutes from my farm. The Little Beaver Creek runs just past my farm, and is alleged to have been Mingo Indian territory.

Surely there has to be a few laying about around these parts; though admittedly, I have no idea "where" to look, and "what" to look for. Anyone want to share some tips?

I really like the idea for a Volume II.

I posted these on the other thread and thought I would post them here too since they will be among other pictures rather than a bunch of Photobucket messages. I made them from Obsidian. I'm getting better but I'm not near where I want to be with my knapping.