spear point-----------Preform

[Bigfoot]

I doubt very many on here are in to points, and hardstones. I used to really enjoy them. I lost my collection in a storm, and decided that they were just treasures on earth. I no longer look for them. I do get excited when I stumble on to one. I found this preform in my roping arena early this morning. My farm is pretty weel known in archeology circles for producing paleo and clovis points. I don't think this peace is quit that old. It has an ancient patena none the less.

The outside:


Here you can see the definite outline of what would have been the point:


Here you can see the knapping, and pressure flaking:


I am assuming the original knap was too concave to suit his taste, and gave up:


I always try to imagine a story to go along with the piece that I find. I can just see an adolescent, maybe 9 or 10 sitting by their father or grandfather. The child is experimenting with knapping. Learning a trade to feed his future family. At some point it becomes evident that the point will never turn out right. The elder encouraging the younger to throw it away, and start another. A scene that reminds me of me, and my son perhaps learning to stretch barbed wire.

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

Found a few the other day, points and some other stuff. I don't hunt them much just pick up what I see now and then.

 

[inyati13]

I have picked up a small box of artifacts over the years. My best piece is a hoe. Before it became illegal we dug under the cliffs of sandstone in the appalachia mtns. A professor of archeology went with us and held the finding for the school. The burials were exciting. Some primitive people were here long long ago

 

[TennesseeTuxedo]

I have picked up a small box of artifacts over the years. My best piece is a hoe. Before it became illegal we dug under the cliffs of sandstone in the appalachia mtns. A professor of archeology went with us and held the finding for the school. The burials were exciting. Some primitive people were here long long ago

Look around, in some places they're back.

 

[inyati13]

I have picked up a small box of artifacts over the years. My best piece is a hoe. Before it became illegal we dug under the cliffs of sandstone in the appalachia mtns. A professor of archeology went with us and held the finding for the school. The burials were exciting. Some primitive people were here long long ago

Look around, in some places they're back.

LOL :lol:

 

[HOSS]

We find arrowheads all over my farm and my neighbors even though both have been picked over pretty good over the last 40 years. I have a big walnut tree that I find them under. My neighbor said that the old man that lived on my farm back in the 1950's had a pile of them 3ft deep around the walnut tree. When he would find them he would just toss them into that pile. Somebody got them back in the 1970's. My neighbor has a few shoe boxes full. All found out of his garden. He looks every spring after a rain. The must have been a big encampment here to have so many heads scattered about. I am like bigfoot......when I find a head I try to envision who made it and their story.

 

[Commercialfarmer]

Points are the ultimate antique. As many points are found throughout the US, it amazes me. Lot of work involved.

You ever tried knapping Bigfoot?

 

[Bigfoot]

I have tried. It is difficult. A newly knapped head would be as black as coal. If you look closely at that piece it has been recently dinged by something.

I like a point of course. Who doesn't. I love to find a tool: acorn grinders, celts etc. I would never buy a piece. I only like what I have found. My brothers doesn't collect. He has a few points, and a nice Celt or two. He has one point that walked in this area from somewhere far far away. It is a stone that is definatly not found around here. I would love to find one. Especially would like to know the story behind that one. It's a bird point.

 

[cow pollinater]

I've found a few acorn stones and the rocks they were ground in at the ranch. I've also found them in sequoia national park and according to the park service native americans didn't go up that high. ;-) I think I have some paintings spotted but I'm waiting for cooler weather to crawl up and look.
The best arrowheads we found were in fish lake valley, Nevada at my grandmother's house. There is a lot of obsidian there and most of the findings are from it. In one spot you could still see how the camp was laid out with teepee rings and a ten minute search would almost always come up with something. My dad has a perfect six inch knife that he found there and I found a broken knife there as a child along with piles of arrowheads.
The interesting one was an inch and a half perfect arrowhead made out of rock that the best and brightest of the early 80's determined to be from north Dakota. Nobody could tell us how it got to the Nevada desert but we all knew it didn't belong there.

 

[john250]

I have a modest collection of points. Hunters would come to walk the fields when we plowed. When we went no-till, that went away.
My place is called "Big Springs", like about 100,000 other places across the USA. When it was dry, there was still water here. That drew game like a magnet, and Indians who lived on game. And when Europeans came, it drew them. Lots of points here.

 

[Caustic Burno]

We find arrowheads all over my farm and my neighbors even though both have been picked over pretty good over the last 40 years. I have a big walnut tree that I find them under. My neighbor said that the old man that lived on my farm back in the 1950's had a pile of them 3ft deep around the walnut tree. When he would find them he would just toss them into that pile. Somebody got them back in the 1970's. My neighbor has a few shoe boxes full. All found out of his garden. He looks every spring after a rain. The must have been a big encampment here to have so many heads scattered about. I am like bigfoot......when I find a head I try to envision who made it and their story.

There was a place in central Texas not far from where my oldest lived he called he O shyt hill.
There were so many broken one's there. Must have been a Commanche or Kiowa campsite for eon's.

 

[jedstivers]

Here the meth heads really find them.

 

[Bigfoot]

I once read that de Sota encountered a young man with 13 arrows in his quiver. Only 2 were stone tipped. The rest were organic in nature. Antler tips mostly. A stone tip must have been a prized possession. It makes you wonder how they could go about losing it.

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

I no a few people that can take a decent piece of rock and make a point in a very short time. Don't take near as long as folks seem to think.

 

[Jogeephus]

Nice find. I do a little hunting in a few spots. Always wanted to find a bird point but they always eluded me. I took The Bug with me one day and was telling her how I wanted to find this tiny treasure. I set her on an old campsite where there is plenty of pottery shards to keep her busy then she says, "Daddy, is this a bird point" and she is holding the prettiest bird point you've ever seen Its so tiny and so thin you can see light through it. I was amazed. A little jealous but more pleased than anything.

RBB, I used to knap some and there is one fella that has several of my pieces in his collection. :lol2: :lol2: :lol2:

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

I ain't no good at it Jo. But got a couple of buddies who are. One of the guys I work with is really good, not only makes them he uses what he makes.

 

[Jogeephus]

I ain't no good at it Jo. But got a couple of buddies who are. One of the guys I work with is really good, not only makes them he uses what he makes.

I'm no good at it either but that's what tickles me so about him keeping the ones I drop on the ground while we are hunting heads together. I'm sure I can pick out each and everyone I made cause they are the ones that look like they were made in the retarded teepee.

 

[Caustic Burno]

I ain't no good at it Jo. But got a couple of buddies who are. One of the guys I work with is really good, not only makes them he uses what he makes.

I'm no good at it either but that's what tickles me so about him keeping the ones I drop on the ground while we are hunting heads together. I'm sure I can pick out each and everyone I made cause they are the ones that look like they were made in the retarded teepee.

The old man that taught me how to build bow's could whip one out about as fast as a cat could lick his ass.
He would put a piece of leather in his hand and take a deer antler and knapp them out one after another.
I could never get the hang of it.

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

They folks I no who is good at it just make it look so easy. The wife found a nice little bird point while I was loading hay a few weeks back.

 

[Commercialfarmer]

I crack the heck out of my knuckles a few times and it cools my desire for the apprenticeship and increases my appreciation of the craft. :D

I enjoy looking for points. There apparently was a campsite on my grandads land that he discovered after a flood in the 30's or 40's. He didn't think much of it then, but has tried to find it again later in life and never could. It was buried deep in the hill side, so I think it would be very old. I've spent a lot of time looking for evidence and looking a topographical maps but nothing has come up as obvious yet.

As far as the stone from various areas, it is my understanding that the Natives had a pretty good trade market going. I believe I read where Osage Orange was prized and traded from this area for distant prized stone and such.

A good friend of mine, picked up knapping and within a year and half to 2 years was making some great points. I pulled some photos from the web (I think most of these are from just around that time frame). I hope to some day get more serious about it.




The beads in this pic are authentic from Spiromounds here. Someone else did the cane quiver, but the flint work is his.


I think that is an obsidian knife blade on an antler. That stuff is scalpel blade sharp.