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

Best ones .

Gonna be 3 to 4 yrs before I turn stone to steel.
Takes awhile to throw together a collection.

Did it 2 yrs ago with a big shadow box collection of grade 8+ to 10 stuff.

Put up best ones at end of season for the year.
This was # 3 or 4 hunt this spring.
Lots of good hunting to go.

See any morels out there?

These are dead ammonia sprayed feilds.

Seen a mumified toad about 4 or 5 days old.

The sprayers got him pretty good.

LOL!!!

Once the feilds get hit with that ammonia.

Basically everything alive in em got the Pol Pot treatment.

Have not been out looking, but have had some idle moments when I go outside and knock out a few points. Here's some from the last few days. Need to figure out a way to get the glare off the image though. With the exception of top center (basalt), they're high quality obsidian which is essentially glass.



A quarter for scale (about 15/16" diameter top center) and the left most is just over 7 inches. Had about a 6-incher 90% complete yesterday and snapped it in half. Those pieces go flying into the high grass for someone to find years from now. They'll find quite a few matching sections but never a whole one. Donated a couple in shadow boxes for fundraisers this winter and they did quite well. The balance just keep going into the cake tins.

Need to do something too about the 5-year old neighbor kid. When he sees me outside he comes over with a chunk of obsidian expecting me to knock one out for him on the spot. He doesn't understand that it's a challenge when the cobble is about the size and shape of a golf ball.

Have a good one,

I saw a documentary on Tenochtitlan. This is the n. side of Mexico City, fantastic pyramids built long before the Aztecs, by a mysterious race of Indians.
As they have excavated these pyramids, they have learned that the city was so wealthy because it sat on a mother lode of high quality obsidian.
They made all kinds of points, and also traded bulk obsidian all over Mexico and Central America. It would be as though, 200 years ago, yours was the only country that had a good supply of iron ore.

So, 1minute, you would have been right at home a thousand years ago in Tenochtitlan.

I am still trying to understand the locale question.
As in why points, artifacts are found where they are found.
I understand that where much flakes and “ debitage” are found is where they worked materials down to points or tools.
I have located very, very many flakes and chips.
I assume that I have located either camp site or maybe quarry type, beginning of tool making.
Is that what I’ve heard called “preforms”??

I have difficulty finding where the points and tools have been left or lost.

I have gallons and gallons of flakes and chips.
Darn few points and tools.

simonkentonZ and Bill in NE:

Yes. Saw an article a few years back on Tenochtitlan, and obsidian was indeed a significant trade item. One can grind it up, run it through some high end lab equipment for elemental assays and then identify the material's root source. Had some guys through here about 20 years back asking for locations and then sampling/assaying our sources. Some of our materials were traded clear across to the east coast. If one finds foreign sourced but finished products, then the points were traded for. If on finds piles of flakes, then the raw materials where shipped in and shaped on site.

We have 8 or 9 locations in our county where one can gather 100 lbs in about 5 minutes or so on public lands. Quite a variety of colors and various degrees of clarity. With our better materials one can see through chunks that might be 1 to 2 inches thick. If I could backlight about 1/2 of the points in that image above, the transparency would be obvious, but it does not show once pieces are placed on a flat surface. We have softball sized cobbles in our yard and around the property. Adequate material, but not the really good stuff that's available if I travel 15 or 20 miles. About 100 miles away near Paulina Lake there is an obsidian flow with car sized boulders scattered about. It's a Park setting, however, and they discourage taking. Not an issue for me, as it's really not good stuff anyway. I've seen a bit in Yellowstone Park, but it too is pretty poor grade.

If one gets near a few of our good sources and near water, he can find chipped off detritus a few feet deep in some instances. For trading or transport purposes is was far lighter to haul around roughed out preforms than a bag full of cobbles.

We don't have any nearby flint given the volcanic history of the PNW, but with a little surfing one can shake out a lot of the famous sites for flint in the Midwest and East. Deeded property, however, usually makes its acquisition a bit of a money deal.

Have a good one,

I went up to the pipestone quarry in Minnesota 20 years ago. Bought a nice Catlinite pipe. There was one Indian out there quarrying up some Catlinite.
This stuff was traded far and wide.

renegade50:

Some good finds and nice knapping on that lower right piece. Obviously a right handed knapper. Had he been a lefty the flakes would be running up the face.

The lost lake was a nut crusher when I pulled it.
Had about 1.5 inches of the tip sticking out.
The base of one is to the immediate right of it.

That one was a ball crusher also .
LOL!!!
Laying sideways partially exposed.

Waiting on more feild work and rain.
Some feilds are all clods waiting to be smoothed for planting
Some have been smoothed but not planted yet

Need Rain....

Like that knife, Ren!

A buddy found a spear point about 10-11 inches long when we were surveying years ago. Only way we figure it survived was it was buried in a creek bottom and he walked by at the right time after the right amount of rain finally... amazing find.

Went for a marathon walk on Saturday and found a few goodies.

Pink granite Metate, smallest one I’ve ever found, must have been travel size. Walked another 20 feet and found the matching Mano made of the same material. They fit together perfectly.
Also found my first Harahey knife, it’s not a really good one but definitely has the 4 opposing bevels. And a paleo point that had been reworked to a blunt or hafted scraper, also a first for me as we almost never find blunts let alone paleo period blunts. The knife is some kind of plain looking chert but the blunt is a beautiful orange red flint, it really pops in the sunshine.

^^^^^


I think Slumlord is out today with his daughter on a place we call pit bull hill.
We hit it like 3 rains ago.
Told him its his ground after that 1 trip for easy access for him.
Been waiting for him and her to hunt it

I got some unwashed stuff from last thursday.
Need ta put it up and keep the thread going!!!