arrowheads/indian artifacts

[cheyenne]

I have collected Indian Artifacts all my life & don't have one arrowhead except for a few on arrows from the late 1800's........I 'm jealous of every one of you who has them.......When I figure out how to post pics I'll take some pics of my collection & post it.........My pride & Joy is a White Buffalo..........Cheyenne

[WDH]

MM,

I agree with Northwoods.  They do not need to be banging around and getting chipped in the bucket.....Kinda like running a chainsaw without protective equipment  .  Not trying to preach, but, well, you know, trying to be helpful. 

Just from what you show in those pics, I see several very old points in the 7000+ year range.  The side and corner notched points are old.  The ones with a basal stem are not as old, but still exceptional.

If I ever get over your way, you can burn grill some chicken for us, then we can put those points in relative age order. 

Whitepe,

It is a shame that the display was stolen.  I see some really great stuff, several celts, an outstanding grooved axe, a basal notched point of some antiquity, and at least one nice drill. 

[Magicman]

I know absolutely nothing about arrowheads, and didn't realize that they could be aged.

WDH, we will have to have another "Unofficial" Southern Council meeting.  Since I am the "Official" Chicken Crisper, I will be happy to host it.

[WDH]

MM,

They can be aged based on the material and how they were chipped/constructed.  Not quite as easy as counting tree rings, though  .

[Banjo picker]

Don't wash them...Thats another way they can tell they are "real"..Tim

[Weekend_Sawyer]

Magicman that thumb looks like it's taken some hard hits 

[SPIKER]

I wish I knew what happened to some of the ones I found as a kid and then some of the ones my mom had found at the old homested.   I had 30 or 40 pristine arrow heads and probably 2 buckets the size shown above of broken and or damaged ones.   I had one which was about half size of that pine tree version held in the hand above that was white flint with gold vein running through it that was probably fools gold but looked like the real thing, I used silver solder and made it into a neck less that disappeared (someone stole it) or the cat drug it off one day when I was newly married.   I had it on the closet door knob when I left for about 2 weeks left the woman home alone (temporary duty in US Air Force)  It was gone when I got home.   She is my ex for a reason as I was told there was a party while I was gone..  :mad:       We had 3 or 4 broken ax heads used them as book ends & door stops growing up.  They along with all of the ones I had when I joined the AF simply vanished according to my mom & brother (both have passed now.)   I have found 3 or 4 in the last decade but have not gone looking either.   

Mark

[Magicman]

Magicman that thumb looks like it's taken some hard hits 

But the most recent was the pinch that the "social" finger took a couple of weeks ago.  Still hurts.

I'm really not very kind to myself.   

[ibbob]

Still looking to pick up my first. My place sits on what was Potawatomi ground until Cheif Menominee was removed in 1838. 
The wife and boys have found these.

 



Grandpa found these on his dad's farm.

 



 

[Tom]

We think of arrow heads the same as if we had to make them to put food on the table.  That bucket has a lot of them in it and is a real treasure, but might represent the work of only a couple of people.

These lands have been hunted, by people who used stone, for Thousands of years, tens of thousands of years perhaps.  How many generations of hunters knapped a point and then lost it in the weeds when he missed his fowl or small game?  How many were lost when the hunter shot it while on the run?

It's almost unfathomable to me how many of those stone tools may be lying around in this country.

[Dale Hatfield]

I have never found anything either. The  area That I live is covered in flint, big to DanG big chunks
rocks /boulders .

[barbender]

Maybe someday an archeologist will date southern council meetings by the burned chicken bones That is amazing, the amount of heads you have in that bucket, MM. I have only found one arrowhead up here, the grader had rolled it out of the road bank when grading the county road. I lost that many years ago. I do have a couple of crown royal bags full of heads from the Powder River valley out in Wyoming, I found that stash on some property that my uncle had purchased out there. I'll try to post some pics, I'd like to know more about them and this looks like the place to learn

[metalspinner]

You guys are getting me excited!

One of our boys' teachers invited us out to hunt there family farm.  She said they always find "tons" of arrow heads, etc. after a good rain.  I'll have to take her up on her offer, pack a lunch and go dig in the dirt.

[jim king]

I had no idea that so many people were intersted in arrowhwads or that there were so many found.   Very interesting as to how many people there must have been a long time ago.

[Autocar]

Ive hunted them from a small boy on. As kids we use to chop the corn out from between the bean rows in the feilds. Ive found banner stones, hammers, axes and plenty of arrow heads. As a yound man a friend and myself hunted every free minuite, we enough arrowheads to fill a two pound coffee can and 44 of them was perfect the longest one was 3 3/4 inches long and black as coal. One other that comes to mind was a white/pink one that was 4 inches long and I didn't walk another forthy feet and there was another white one that was three inches long and real wide. It was a blast even to this day I drag all kinds of stuff home.

[isawlogs]

 Jim , I don't think that it is the amount of people using the arrows that is relivent here more then the time that the arrow and spear was used.  You are looking at thousands of years of use versus only hindreds for the gun. Makes for a lot of shooting to be made and they did not have the acrucy that the new combound bow has. 

[Magicman]

She said they always find "tons" of arrow heads, etc. after a good rain.  I'll have to take her up on her offer, pack a lunch and go dig in the dirt.

A freshly plowed or disked field and after a good rain, but you won't be digging for them.  They will be on top with the dirt washed away around them.  Very easy to find. 

[H60 Hawk Pilot]

Our farm was by the river and had a Indian Camp there for years & years. This river ground had a little higher spot on it and must have been the main camp area. This is the area that had lots & lot's arrow head's, flint, etc. . The neatest thing I saw was a indian wistle that still had the finger print of the maker. My dad's friend's found it as he looked for arrow head's. He cleaned it out and it had a sweet sound, quite a find. We have a suit case full of stuff but I have not seen it for years. I was amazed at the different levels of workmanship. Some of the stuff was fairly crude to some other's that you could shave with (almost).

The farm had the river flow around the two sides as it bent around our property. You could still see the stones that the Indians placed in the river that formed  Vee's  to drive the fish into to spear or net them (I guess). My dad was around 16 when he  met a man that found some graves on the moutain side of our farm. He was from the college and took some things from the graves. I'm not into distrubing the graves of others but it's part of the indian story... regarding our farm in PA.

You Guy's  have some real nice stuff and no two are like, can you imagine making these things, quite a art in it's own right.     

[SwampDonkey]

I've not found any myself. But there have been a few found. They tended to be at traditional camp sites where they fished and hunted. Most I've heard of were at old fishing camps, where they fished salmon on the bigger rivers, at narrow places in the river. Many of those places are reservation lands now as the natives at the time were just using the same places as their ancestors did for a very long time. Once in a while some will turn up around Saint John in their digging around for construction. Well that's the mouth of the Saint John River, so was either another encampment area or washed down stream for thousands of years. Many of the Indians around here never made permanent dwellings like they did on the west coast with big lodges made of timbers. A wigwam wasn't very permanent and easy to leave it where it's at when it gets too dirty to live in any longer. There were a couple of very old fellas way back when grandfather was young, they were brothers and they still lived in a wigwam and followed the old ways. My grandfather was a trapper and such and often he snow shoed by their place and he said sometimes a few days after a snow storm there still wasn't a track around their camp. Now you get the idea.

[Banjo picker]

When the right site is found , that is when the digging starts...there is where you will find lots of stuff...Imagine a site might have been used for many many generations...it would get nasty, they got sick and vomited just like we do...what did they do...the older ones would tell the youngens to go down by the creek and bring me some sand to cover that up...and in a couple thousand years the evelation is raised several feet just by covering up things as such...a lot of good stuff got burried...There are sites here in this county that have been dug 4 or 5 feet deep...Personaly all I ever do is like MM said. just walk along a creek or field after a big rain...to much work the other way even if you have permission , which a lot of the relic hunters don't have...it trully becomes an obsession with them...Tim