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

Mathsr:

Thanks for the pics and description. Looks like and effective technique.

Not been out fishing or hunting much lately as our region is pretty heavily smoked up. That being, I've knocked out 35 or 40 obsidian points over the last week or so. Got some pleasant surprises from a few of the rocks I've broken up finding some that is quite transparent with lots of stripes. Need to come up with something to do with them other than just put them in tins the kid will toss when I buy the farm. I was thinking of drilling a hole in a few and epoxying in a stud one could run a small chain through. Having somewhat irregular surfaces though, drill might generate some breakage.

Made a pair of tiny ones today from mahogany obsidian (red) that would be suitable for earrings. Chipping out a point is a cinch, but pairs are a bear. The first is easy, but generating a second of the same style and dimension triples the effort.

Have a good one, and thanks again for the explanation and pics.

1minute, glad to do it. I've been thinking about asking a lady I know that makes jewelry if she wants to buy a bunch of points. Usually the only ones I sell are the ones I put gold wire on. Then I only sell it for enough to replace the gold wire. Most I give away...

Mathsr: For those interested in Indian Artifacts this is a link to a very interesting article on a huge Indian village just discovered with a photo of some just beautiful Indian arrowheads/points and other artifacts.

Link: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-kansas-lost-city-20180819-htmlstory.html

Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

VarmintGuy, Thanks for the link. I had heard of that site being found. Hard to imagine a primitive encampment with more than 20,000 people living in it. Not very primitive to me.

I am still amazed at what all we don't know about what was going on before this continent was invaded by Europeans. From what I have read they are finding artifacts in some locations that predate the invasion by the Asians that were at one time thought to be first. They just keep on digging a little deeper and finding more, older stuff.

VarmintGuy:

Yes, that site has been getting a lot of press lately. Given our relatively short presence on this continent, it's hard for us to think in terms of thousands of years. Worked a small farm back in West by God Virginia in my college days. It had already endured years of being well picked over, but one would still regularly find artifacts in our daily doings. It was a river bottom site also well serviced by heavily flowing springs and was either used for an extended period or supported a substantial population when it was occupied.

Still a lot history to be discovered out there.

Huntsman: You certainly encounter a variety of raw materials in your finds. Mostly obsidian and some chert in this region.

A friend recently aquired, through an estate sale, a flint (?) blade of some sort. About 10.5 inches long, 1.5 wide, and 'dagger' shaped, forlack of a better term, slight rounded on the wider end, with about a half inch point on that end. The only thing close, that I've found on google, is an 'ovoid blade'. Any way to ID / authenticate a piece like this? Can't get a picture at load, but could send some thru e-mail if anyone is interested.

GaryLL1959
Please send me pictures if you would.
I won't be able to help much authenticating but would love to see it.

VarmintGuyaol.com

Thanks in advance.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

VG

If/when you get those pics

Can you PM those to me

I've been promising gary an email but just have 't set one up yet

My apologies to gary.

Groovy finds Don!!!!

I stopped by the Modoc County Museum on my last trip to Alturas Ca.
They have some really neat stuff in there.

Arrowheads...



Assorted cool..

Nice pics Sal!

My dad and I had a collection that had more points that that one. NICE points. Rare stuff...

But my dad turned into a drunk and sold them when he got hard up for money, about 1980.

I never forgave him for that. They weren't his to sell, and represented a large dedication of my life as well.

To top it off, the guy that bought them caught his wife running around on him a couple years later, and saw them in a restaurant eating, and shot her, her boyfriend, and his parents right there in the cafe, and then turned the shotgun on himself. All in front of his two children. They saw everything.

I'd love to run across a collection like that. I'd wear out my phone taking pictures of those points/blades....

Love those little points you keep finding. I've only found one that small in 60 years of "off and on" looking.

I need to get over to young son’s and get into dad’s stuff. Take a few pics and post em. A good bit of dad’s stuff came out of an old WPA site that was partially excavated in the depression. Only a couple of miles from the now famous Gault site.

I think dad did same thing Barry. Sold some. But he didn’t sell em all. I know last time I looked thru them there was an Afton I was looking for that wasnt there. That was prolly 20 years ago.

Mathsr:

A question. Been knocking out a few points lately and rolling through thoughts on the variety of materials one sees (flint, obsidian, bone, agate, petrified wood, glass, etc). Would heavy duty clam shells be suitable for knapping smaller points? Being 7 hours from our Oregon coast, I don't have any on hand to break up? Don't know if they would fracture predictably or not.

Also wondering if sharks teeth were ever employed?

Salmonella: Thanks for posting those picks. Will have to give that museum a look when I get down that way. Lots of design ideas in those pics. Looks like if someone could think of it someone hammered one out.

Thank you folks for going through the trouble of posting your finds. This is a great thread. The reference links are helpful too. Only have a couple pieces my dad and I have found, but this is making me want to get out more and look down. We’re plowing a field next spring for the first time in 20yrs that they’ve been no-tilling. This has got me psyched to go over it afterwards.

Mathsr,

Dad had a meglodon tooth that came out of a site somewhere in the midwest that had possIbly been used as some kind of digging instrument. Also there was a fossil sharks tooth found associated with the remains of the paleo era woman that was found at the Wilson-Leonard site, Williamson County Texas in 1983. Possibly an ornament. Only two I can think of off top of my head.