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

I knew a guy in Uvalde that would go to ranchers and farmers, land owners and look at their property for Indian camps. He was pretty good at finding a good camp too.

Once he established there was one worth digging, he would offer the land owner 1/2 of the take. (He would take the day's finds and they would flip a coin for first pick. then take turns choosing until the points were gone.

He used a backhoe and commercial screen. That screen had several layers. He didn't miss much.

Kinda always rubbed me the wrong way though, to know he was doing that.

Dad had a screener with a little gasoline engine on it. He originally built it for Topaz hunting up around Mason. But you had to be close to your hunting site to use it as it was cumbersome and heavy.

Dad quit hunting all that stuff about the time I was really getting interested in it. Digging was work. We turned to fossils. Lots of em. Ranchers didn’t mind you hauling rocks off their property. And they were right on top of the ground. We did find some good stuff. We had an impressive collection of Pennsylvanian era Texas and Devonian era Oklahoma trilobites.

Interesting stuff. Don't know how I feel about that but it's none of my business what people do with their property. I read a story a while back about a guy that went on a pay dig and found something superb. Can't remember exactly, maybe an Andice or a big Friday knife. Anyway, the landowner requested that everyone report their funds so that he could photo and catalog for his records. Well this one guy went and showed it to him but he wouldn't give it back. They ended up going to court over the mess. I'll see if I can find the story.

Yeah, I can just imagine.

Had a fellow show up one night at Travis county archaeological society meeting with a mountain of stuff he found at a site in city limits of Austin. Some really nice stuff. Had a preform blade as big as my hand made outta some big ass piece of Colorado river cobble. Mebbe only 5/16" thick. And translucent. Cool as hell.

A TxDot archaeologist happened to be there that night. Started quizzing him on where he found all this stuff. Turns out it was on state ROW. A big no no here. Fines can be exorbitant. It’s "by the artifact" type of fines. Guy ended up surrendering all he had found. Made the newspaper. That big preform made front page.

I spoke to another TxDot archaeologist that went out to inspect the site. Said the local neighborhood kids were looting and trashing the place. Said they had uncovered a complete bison skull and used it for a rock target. Well wasn’t complete anymore.

I suppose sometimes it just pays to keep quiet about some things.

I have some friends that do that pay by the day to dig in mounds/camps. They have found some really premium stuff.

Afraid if I paid to do such, and the guy pocketed my find, I'd have to kick his ass, and probably break it in the process. But it'd be worth it..

In fact, I wouldn't show him. Might show him a coupla scarpers and broken points..

No doubt about keeping quiet.

I had found several Paleo points at one site, and the archaeology professor at UT tried every way in the world that he knew of to get me to divulge that site whereabouts. Did he think I fell off the turnip truck yesterday?

Keep an eye on your beer around those UT Professors RockinB, might try to slip you something. Instead of date rape drug, "site location" drug.

Professional archaeologist can be quite the eclectic lot. I have known quite a few. Many are great individuals that I have really enjoyed being around.

Others,,,,,,,,,,, not so much.

Considerimg some of the lame subject matter being discussed this morning. Wimmens soccer dykes and he-she coochie resident eradication, how about some more artifacts this morn???

Here’s one I posted several years back that belongs to my old compadre that he will not mind me posting again! This was found in a cliff shelter/ cave on Perdenales River close to the Travis/Blanco county line before WWII. Apparently former owner may have acquired it from a recent German immigrant. The uncle was killed in Italy in WWII but he was quite the relic hunter. He also found a small Lefaunchex pinfire revolver in another shelter. I do not have photo of it.

Great story thanks for sharing 👍very cool

Looks great KW!
Is it in firing condition?

Not really. I would not wish to try.

There was a 5 gallon bucket of assorted projectile points that he found out in the barn. That bucket got turned over and the contents scattered around the area. It was a great hunting spot. Sifting around in the dirt.


On another occasion I found the trigger mechanism to a Kentucky style single lever, double set trigger with my old metal detector. As well as two State of Illinois buttons. Clueless about where they came from. But compadres
Mom (btw, the uncle was her twin brother) told us that her borther had originally found 2 rifles. One they used for a toy and it got tore up. I probably found the trigger. ( I still have it around here somewhere. I’ll try to find it and photo). And she went on to say that she thought there was an old jacket that some relative brought home that had the buttons on it. She didn’t know where it really came from. I found all this stuff like 50 years ago.

I am puzzled about why we dont find points like you guys do down south, all I can figure is that the repetitive cycle of fires has broken up all the points. The other thing I was thinking is that early inhabitants were in much greater numbers down south than they were up here?
Pictographs are few here as well, you have many, thanks kaywoodie, interesting.

Hahaha!!!

Not artifact related but still way better than the stuff you intially said above!!!

I'm fixing to get jiggy with some carefully filing out air circulation slots on my AK.
The 922r forearm upper and lower leave alot to be desired
Been looking at how they should be from sovbloc designs on the web.

Soccor and dykes and lame stuff
Hahaha!!

Aha! I found the trigger mechanism out in my shop.



Never found anymore of the pieces.

Someday I should get me another AK. Found a whole bunch of mags other day left over from my contract OPFOR daze. Another may come in handy sometime. My old one was nice. An Armorygroup milled Bulgarian. Built in Houston. Old coworker has it now. Hammer forged bbl. It was a good’un!

Most all artifacts tell a story of the people that made and used them. The Northern parts of the United States, specifically Montana, were inhabited more by the hunting and nomadic tribes rather than the resident tribes of the south. Artifacts around here are mostly small and utilitarian..

My mother and I collected hundreds of artifacts that were indicative of the local Indian tribes that frequented the area around Yellowstone Park. Most were obsidian, with some chirt and basalt. Most are arrowheads, knives and scrapers.

There was a proposal for a ski area near Hebgen Lake in the early 70’s and an EIS was done of that area where the ski resort was proposed. They heard about our collection and wanted to see it.

Our collection was sent to New Jersey back in the early 1970’s for forensic data to determine the age of the points. Obsidian can be dated by how far moisture penetrated the surface of the material. Other points were aged by the style of the point itself. The oldest point I found was dated about 8,000 years old, but it wasn’t obsidian.

I haven’t looked there for years now, but would assume there are still some artifacts that we didn’t find. I keep thinking I should go back and look for more...

Not sure if this is a rock or arrowhead Arrowhead?

Doesn,t show any indication of being worked by man. Rock fragment, GW

That’s what I figured. Thanks old timer.