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

That's some really nice points, Bob! I like those Garzas and Toyahs...

Had some really nice woven mats (in pieces), and lots of those woven sandals. Usually, the sandals were woven Soto fibers.

Mathsr! Very nice!

Barry, Thats cool! That stuff really like the dry in those shelters. That small point above Washingtons head in the one photo. I could see Sheffield Texas from the shelter where I found it.

Old, permanent water sources. Streams usually.

Look on the higher bank, above the high water marks. Those folks had to have water, but they weren't stupid, so looking in a creek bed is usually a waste of time. Old, more permanent camps are within a pretty easy walk from water.

memory? what are we talking about?

This is a definite "make the campfire great" thread. Thanks.

I tried creek walking direcly adjacent to a spot I've found thousands of artifacts in.

Did not find even so much as a chip or flake. Other people I have met have had some luck. Waste of time for my areas. Too much competing media in the creeks here.

Now if you have a muddy bottom branch with no gravels, might be way different.

I've found some pretty decent stuff where washes and erosion went through a camp, or the banks changed a bit. Mostly the good camps I've found are above all that. FEMA should use the camps as a basis for 500 year floodplanes.

Years ago, most all cropland was plowed each year with a moldboard plow. That turned the soil over, and it was pretty easy to find stuff. Todays farmers rarely do that.....the Mennonites and Amish still do....instead relying on no-till or minimum till. No doubt that the good stuff is down there deep in the soil.

1Minute& Kaywoodie


Grayghost did in fact saw his thin blanks with a rock saw. Devised some type of mechanical had operated method to flake with. Interesting guy, a friend of mine knew him and introduced him to an old knapper from West Pains Mo who in turn taught Grayghost to knap. Within a few months his ability excelled the old knapper. Google him for a very interesting read on his life. GW

I wanted an Indian arrowhead since other kids brought them for show and tell in the first grade in 1957.

I was hunting for coyotes in 2006 and found this.

I looked down and said to myself, "There has got to be an Indian arrowhead somewhere in this gravel." and there it was in a minute.

Locally (if 35 miles away can be deemed local) there is a university sponsored dig going on during our spring summer months. It's in a spot beneath a basalt rim that would offer some degree of shelter from the elements, but not a place one would expect village like numbers. They are down about a dozen feet, finding enough to keep them interested, but not anything a collector type would go bonkers over. Carbon dating has them back about 14,000 yrs right now.

The area is in about a 12" annual precip zone supporting an endless sea of Wyoming big sagebrush (about 2.5 ft tall). No perennial water within 10 to 15 miles. One of our primo obsidian sources is only about 5 miles away. An interesting aspect is that all the wood and fire ring remnants are willow. Today, one would have to hike all the way to perennial water to pick that up. Obviously, the climate and vegetation were quite a bit different around here when we were exiting the last ice age.

Most of us fail to think in those time scales, and mother nature can deposit or move a lot of soil when one starts thinking in thousands of years. If one deposits about 1/32 inch of soil in a single year (not unreasonable in a forest), he ends up with about 36.5 feet of accumulation after 14,000 years. Again, Cookie and I are not pot hunters, but I've sound a few worked pieces of obsidian (scrapers and bifaces) two to three feet down in forested road cuts.

A lot of evidence in this region suggests there were waves of occupation and abandonment through the ages with the lithic tools being of different styles for each era. They see some similar patterns up along the Columbia River where salmon were a mainstay. During any of the Missoula Floods, the water was too deep and fast for fishing, and tribes headed into the highlands to make a living for several generations returning when the flows subsided.

It also seems some of the more artistic artifacts come from areas where the living was relatively easy. Most of the pieces found in our arid deserts are quite crude. They're functional, but nothing suggesting much in the way of artistic pride.


Mathsr:
Just curious: Where on earth does a guy from Georgia go to source obsidian?

I have to order it. But still, it isn't all that expensive. I can sell a few points made into necklaces and easily cover the cost of 25 pounds of obsidian. Missouri Trading Company Is the most reliable place I have found to get obsidian so far.

Most of the flint in Georgia is hours away from me and a pain to work. The Georgia butterscotch flint makes a very attractive point, but can have a lot of faults and inclusions in the rock. I have found that obsidian is easy to work, has very few faults or inclusions and makes an attractive point or blade. I guess I'll keep on ordering it.

Mathsr:

Thanks, I was just curious. Lucky enough to just kick cobbles out of ones way here as I walk down a hill. Agree that it's the easiest of all the untreated materials to handle. Knappers are an inventive bunch though. I've seen some very nice pieces made from old porcelain toilet bowls and urinals.

Have a good one,

Cool partial, how ya cut your hand?

pheasant spur

Damm dude what was he Arnold swartzinpheasant ?
I have grabbed a bunch of turkeys by legs and stepped on their necks and give em a jerk to snap their
necks, never got spurred like that. Some old "timers" have told me "boy your getting spurred real bad 1 day"
I don't listen to alot of old timers around here that have only shot 1 handful of turkeys their entire life needless
to say.
That bird got ya good though.

1minute:

I have been known to make some points out of weird things when I get hard up for some good rock, but think I'll pass on the urinals and toilet bowls. I've used old TV screens, floor tiles(not really all that bad) bottle bottoms and glass plates.

I found some old red glass plates not long ago and made a few small points from the bottom of them. Those were pretty thin but looked good...red glass is really hard to find around here.

Mathsr,

I think thats how they found Ishi. He was rummaging thru a garbage heap looking for Milk of Magnesia bottles wasnt he? The blue color supposedly meant something to him. He was using the bottoms for points. You've probably heard that story!

The paleo haw river on the upper left is gonna be a center peice for another shadow box eventually.
Some stuff from last spring
Fish tail Dalton on lower left was
a heartbreaker when I picked it up.
Small missisippian point is about 7/8ths of an inch long.
Yet to figure out what the small triangle thing that is to the right of the fish tail dalton
It is a whole peice, really finely knapped all around on both sides.