Arrowheads

[sluckey]

I was about 10 years old when I found my first. I always loved stomping through a freshly plowed field after a good rain. Exploring river banks was another good way to find some points. So I've been saving them all these years. They've been in some turned wooden bowls for the last 35 years. Today I finally got around to doing a proper display case. Still got a couple bowls filled with more points, drills, a couple axes, and lots of pottery sherds. I also have a lot of shark's teeth and other fossils I've found through the years in potholes in the rivers.

It's been many years since my last find. Anyhow, I had a good time today reminiscing about the good ole days. Hope maybe some of y'all like this stuff too.

[PRR]

Gee, all I find here is engine blocks.

[shooter]

Nice finds, i've looked many a year, nada.  Same with sharks teeth.  I seem to be tuned to 'ol farm burn piles!

[sluckey]

Gee, all I find here is engine blocks.

Look small. Find small.   

[sluckey]

Nice finds, i've looked many a year, nada.  Same with sharks teeth.  I seem to be tuned to 'ol farm burn piles!

I've never found any keepers in a burn pile.

[shooter]

I've never found any keepers in a burn pile.

found some nice depression glass bottles, intact.  wandering the woods i'd spot something outta place, once I'd start "looking small" there would be a bit of old lid, scrap of foil, glint of glass.  I was that odd kid, my rucksack would have a folding shovel, a crescent wrench, a PBJ wrapped in tin foil, carried a canteen on my belt with a hunting knife, a pocket knife.  never went anywhere without my Winchester BB gun. 

Look small. Find small.

1st time I ever heard a phrase like that, just bought a used Garratt 22LR with a peep sight, looked through it, gave this "HUH?" look to the gun guy, he smiled and said "sight small shoot small"  I had him add a 4X scope

[sluckey]

The Patriot... Mel tells his young son as he's leaving for his first squirrel hunt, "aim small, shoot small".

[separateness]

That really is an incredible amount for one fellow to find. I have known people to have found one or two before. You must really have an eagle eye. That is a lovely case for them.

[sluckey]

Those were found over a 40 year period. I don't think I ever found more than two or three on a single hunt. One of my favorite places to look was downstream from a power plant dam on the Conecuh River near River Falls, AL. Probably have 30 or more nice points and many broken ones from that area.

A boyhood friend of mine who stayed in that area told me many years later about a super hunt he had. The power dam needed some major repair work so the flood gates were opened to allow the lake to drain during the six month repair project. So my friend took a walk along the river/dry lake bed and found about 100 nice points in a two hour period! I told him to call me if the lake is ever drained again. So far, it hasn't happened. My friend has now passed away and I'm too old to walk the river banks now, except in my mind. I would have loved to be with him that day! This is the same guy that gave me his '57 Fender Harvard amp.

[Platefire]

WOW! Had no idea that you were an Indian relic hunter. Very nice collection you have there. That's something I've done also all my life. Somehow mine started in Arkansans when we would go on vacation to visit Grandparents. We would go on Fly fishing trips wading in   the creeks and somehow incorporated walking through the fields by the creeks looking for arrowheads. That's something my Dad had done all his life and taught me. Latter I had a friend in Louisiana that dug for arrowheads that got me into searching that way. I then found out that Indians had lived all around my home town in Louisiana. I finally found that the most likely place to find their campgrounds is on the high places on a creek/river(no flood area). So I don't pursue them by plowed field or digging anymore but I still find myself scanning the ground in front of me when I find myself in a likely place to find something. 

[scstill]

The display is really great. Wonder why so many different types. Just the stone size available to the Indians I suppose or many different tribes. Some almost look like spear heads. Wonder why there are so many arrowheads in the lake bed? Just a wash down from upstream?

Would be pretty cool to embed a couple into a custom cabinet with an epoxy filler.
Or even a live edge table top.

[shooter]

why so many different types

guessing the same reasons for various,(Gazillion), fishing baits, ammunition calibers, boxer or briefs.....

[sluckey]

These arrowheads covered a span of thousands of years. Bound to be some diversity. And they are not all arrowheads. I just use that term loosely to cover a variety of native American artifacts. The biggest ones in that display are about 4" long. Too big to be shot with a bow. But perfect for a spear, or the more deadly atlatl. And the ones that are obviously asymmetrical are probably blades and/or scrapers.

There was no lake back when those points were made. The lake was built much later by the white man. The dam was located at the confluence of two rivers with high ground in between. This was an ideal location for a large native American tribe and many lost, broken, or abandoned tools. But with the 20th century comes the need to supply rural areas with electricity. So a hydro-electric dam was built. The lake covered a large part of the area where the village had been. When the lake was drained for a maintenance project many years later, all that area was once again exposed to the delight of arrowheads like me.

I don't think any arrowhead geek would ever put these real artifacts in epoxy or a live edge river table. But there are plenty of beautiful points made by modern day knappers (and the Chinese!) that would look good in epoxy! I've watched some impressive flint knappers on youtube that could have had high standing in a tribe 1000 years ago! Here's a guy from my general area that I like to watch on 100° days. You may want to click through the lengthy video...

[Platefire]

That's amazing the patience and skill required to make the arrowhead on the video. Makes you appreciate your collection even more. I been looking for my collection and so far, have only found a small portion. As I recall I gave some of it away to one of my daughters who is interested in that. My collection included my Dad's collection that included items from the Spiro Mounds in Oklahoma.

https://www.okhistory.org/sites/spiromounds

 I guess before the Archeological Society was fully organized a contractor dug these mounds for gain which is now illegal. Dad lived close by in Fort Smith Ark and picked up a lot of stuff that the contractor must of considered worthless and discarded. These items included various size black flint hide scrappers and even hatchet heads, beads made from bone and shell, carved images on shells and of course arrowheads, drills, grain Grinding stones, tools and pottery.

My personal collection mostly consist of arrowheads and pottery shreds from various locations in Louisiana & Arkansas. I always wanted to find a smoking pipe bowl complete but never did. I did find what appears to be a portion of a broken one, but that's it! Where I live or my local area around my house there is absolutely no Indian relics to be found because I've certainly looked diligently over the last 38 years here. The problem I think is no continuous sources of water. The creeks and branches dry up in the summer. So I'm sure they passed through on hunting trips but camped where there is a permanent source of water about 10 miles away in Many La. When I lived there, I found arrowheads right in the downtown area. I'm looking for what remains of my collection and will post some pictures when I find them

[sluckey]

These sharks' teeth came from the same place on the Conecuh river as many of my arrowheads. I was first attracted to that spot on the river just downstream of the Point A power plant/dam to bowfish for longnose gar. Lot of good times with that sport! That's when I noticed the sharks' teeth and we would search the potholes, scooping out handfuls of gravel looking for them. That led to the first arrowhead find. Had a lot of good times at that place.

Here I am with a typical gar catch in 1970. Nice clothes huh?   

[shooter]

that's a big ol swamp monster.  did some bow fishing up here in the 70's, we shot carp, lots of carp, carp rodeos, carp festivals, always a spring thing after being stuck in snow all winter, you'd wake up from hibernation, throw on the waders and play in the muddy waters 


the Gen-X guys now have elaborate pontoons with landing lights bolted all around the railings, troller motors, boom-box.  add 5 friends, spend the night bow fishing with beer

[Platefire]

Nice picture of you and your Gar sluckey. I had a Bear bow one time but only did target practice with it. There is a place I use to go as a kid with my Dad called Blue Lake. It was a place where the Sabine River changed course and left this long slender lake. It had the largest Alligator Gars in there. Didn't try to fish for them but would sure get your attention when they came floating by and just see their backs sticking out of the water.

This is what left of my arrowhead collection. It appears I've already gave most of it away to my young-ins
 

[sluckey]

I always wanted to bow fish for Alligator gar but we had none in my area. I had a 45# Bear Kodiak Hunter recurve bow that I bought just for bow fishing. I doubt I could even string it today. Did you notice there were two arrows in my gar? My brother was with me and when he saw me wrestling this gar he came running over and put another arrow in the fish. He claimed he thought it was about to cut the line. I think he was just excited and wanted a piece of the action. Not much action left with two arrows and only two feet of water. 

You have some nice artifacts too. Those two scrapers may have been used as scrapers but were most likely arrowheads in the making. At that stage they are called preforms. If worked on both sides they are called biface preforms. I have a few of those. I also have a lot of crude arrowheads that were surely throw-aways.

[Platefire]

No, I didn't notice the other arrow in the side until you called it to my attention. It was great you had a camera on hand and took a picture ofthe event. I never even thought of cameras back in those days, wish I would have.

The two preforms are the same on both sides. I had some lot larger ones in the black flint exactly the same shape as the one shown.

[sluckey]

Here's another bi-face preform that looks a lot like your lighter colored one. Mine is made with sandstone. What's yours?

[Platefire]

I have found several examples of attempts to make a arrowhead out of petrified wood. All seem to be culls. I guess they were giving it a try

[sluckey]

Here's another display of various fossils found below the Point A power plant. Just a mixture of the stuff found while looking for shark teeth... Stingray barbs, ray bite plates, sawfish rostrum barbs, sand dollar, shark teeth, turtle shells, and several unknowns. Got a bowl full of this stuff too.

[Platefire]

Very Interesting! What did you do, find them first and then identify them by on line searches? I could identify a shark tooth but all those others in your collection, I wouldn't have any idea. I pay attention to fossils but never found anything I considered significant. I'm always looking at rocks on my property that seem be petrified conglomerations of very small organisms.

[sluckey]

I've only recently began learning what this stuff is. There are a lot of knowledgeable people on youtube. I've learned a lot by watching these kids from the Gainsville Florida area. Here's one of their fossil hunting trips. May want to fast forward to about 15 minutes unless you just want to see some bream fishing.

&ab_channel=PaleoCris

One more...

&ab_channel=PaleoCris

[Platefire]

Yeah, that couple are go getters when it comes to fossils. It's amazing that the bottom of the creek, where they stopped, is covered with petrified bones & teeth. I guess that proves that parts of Florida in times past went through periods of complete water coverage and other periods where the water receded to dry land and marshes.

[shooter]

guess that proves

My Daughter n family live in FL, there's lots of people n traffic, I like neither
so I'd go down into the everglades n fish with the Haitians.  One year the water would be chest high, the next bone dry. One year water runs so clear you can see everything for miles, next so muddy clouded you walked poking a long stick out front so ya don't step on a snake or gater.


the average elevation in South Florida is 5' above sea-level, add copious rains from the State, by the time it moves into the glades it's impressive.

[Platefire]

Most of my experience with Florida has been going on joint vacations with my family to the beach. I'm not much of a beach person, I get enough beach pretty quick but on the other hand it was worth it getting to be with my family in a
such a lovely and beautiful place.

[sluckey]

I've finally got all my stuff displayed in one area rather than scattered about or hidden in a closet. Everything is either in a display case or in a nice wooden bowl in my bedroom. I didn't rate high enough for a spot in the living room.   

[scstill]

did you make those bowls? They are beautiful.

[sluckey]

did you make those bowls? They are beautiful.

I did. Also built the headboard they are sitting on. I was very into woodworking in the '80s. Woodturning was my favorite. It was called sawdust therapy. Almost cost me a marriage.   

[Platefire]

Very fine wood work and also great display of your collections

[shooter]

It was called sawdust therapy.

  when I knew mine was over, I left everything behind except my 50's cast iron table saw n my popup camper, threw the saw on the camper, hooked it all to the company car n lived homeless for a few months.
once the dust settled that saw built a 1500sqFT house n still use it nearly every day for some cut or another.

[Platefire]

I ran across what's left of Dad's Rock/Fossil collection in the shed. Like I've already said, my children have gone through it and took a lot of the choice pieces in which I ask them to. So I went through the box and picked the ones most interesting still remaining

[shooter]

the one piece looks to be a very well preserved bird embryo

[sluckey]

Nice stuff. You can get those identified if you label each piece and post that pic to google.

[jjasilli]

A bit late to the party.  Great thread! I'm a traditional archery addict.

[sluckey]

A bit late to the party.  Great thread! I'm a traditional archery addict.

You should not stay away so long. See what you have been missing...   

Anyhow, good to see you around again.

[rafe]

I found my first point a few months ago ...it appears to be from Paleoindians period 10,500 -12,000 years back. Was likely hunting mastodons behind my property....spear point .....

[sluckey]

I found my first point a few months ago ...it appears to be from Paleoindians period 10,500 -12,000 years back. Was likely hunting mastodons behind my property....spear point .....

Love to see a pic.

[Platefire]

Do ya'll ever watch the "Un-earthed" programs where the glaciers are melting and artifacts are appearing complete with arrowhead, shaft and feathers along
with tools, shoes, baskets and clothing well preserved. Pretty awesome!

[sluckey]

I have not but would like to see such. What network?

[rafe]

I'll post ASAP New phone and it's not set up yet. I saw that on You Tube a year or so ago. I forget where it was .....In Europe If I remember .

[PRR]

I have not but would like to see such. What network?

Googoo says Science Channel?
https://www.sciencechannel.com/show/unearthed-science

Unearthed - S2 E1 Tut's Buried Secrets - Science Channel GO
Unearthed
Tut's Buried Secrets
New discoveries reveal the dark secrets of King Tutankhamun's tomb.

S2 E2
Curse of the Blood Pyramids
Archaeologists unearth dark secrets of the lost city of Teotihuacan.

S2 E3
Lost Temples of the Jungle
New technology reveals the truth behind the largest temple ever built.

S2 E4
Secret History of the Sphinx
Recent forensic findings uncover the secrets of the Great Sphinx of Giza.

S2 E5
Ghosts of Stonehenge
New discoveries reveal the deepest and darkest secrets of Stonehenge.

S2 E6
Hunt for King Arthur's Castle
Scientists make a gruesome discovery at a legendary castle in Scotland.

S2 E7
Hidden City of the Incas
Scientists investigate Incan codes to reveal the mysteries of Machu Picchu.

S2 E8
Terracotta Army Treasures
Newly discovered artifacts reveal the secrets of China's Terracotta Army.

S2 E9
Mystery of Egypt's Mega Temple
Archaeologists delve into the ancient religious rituals of Karnak, Egypt.

S2 E10
Sex, Lies and the Taj Mahal
New investigations reveal the dark secrets of the beautiful Taj Mahal.

S2 E11
Lost World of the Colosseum
New evidence uncovers the ancient mysteries behind the iconic Colosseum.

S2 E12
Lost City of the Desert
New technologies resurrect the lost city of Petra in Jordan.

[Platefire]

On Direct TV I get it on the Science Channel 284. Also get a lot of it from Google on my phone. Google keeps me updated on all the latest guitar/amp stuff and archeological finds

[jjasilli]

I don't have any stone arrowheads, except modern reproductions which adorn knife sheaths & arrow quivers.  In the photo is an Indian stone hammerhead; a Bear brand broadhead; and a chunk of obsidian.  The hammerhead was given to me by a bowhunting buddy who found it in Western NY.  The broadhead is one of a collection I acquired in the '80's & '90's, which I use for bowhunting.  The obsidian was given to me by my late friend Bear Paw, a Nez Perce Indian who I used to shoot archery with in the Pocono's.  He lived a rural life of hunting and trapping. It can be used to make knives & broadheads.  He also gave me a walking stick he made from a birch sapling which I use for hiking & hunting in the woods.  Great memories.  I keep the hammerhead & obsidian on display in my workshop.

The only knapping I do is to sharpen the flints in my muzzleloader rifle.

[Platefire]

One thing to remember when looking for Indian relics is the Indians always camped on high ground next to water on a creek or river. So when you come on high ground next to a source of water, look for flint chips or broken pottery. If you see that, that's a sign they were there. Even better if you find one of these high places with signs of occupation that has been freshly plowed by a farmer after a fresh rain to expose the chips and arrow heads, your more likely to find more artifacts in those conditions

[shooter]

and to think they didn't have google or Utube


I found an 'ol miners camp using the same "logic"  FL has a waterfall, some too-much-money guy thought, hmm, oil???  the main camp was well documented, read the report, wandered the area, thought "if I was here?" and settled on a raise 150 yards from camp.  You can use metal detectors in the park, but NO digging, 1st hit, a stove leg, 2nd hit square nails, sketched the area, where digging needed, even did a artists concept.  turned it into the Ranger, he was NOT pleased by my work, explaining how much work he now needed to do, I laughed, said you work for the government, put in for overtime.

[Platefire]

Back in the 70's I really got ambitious and would take a shovel and dig for relics. Did find pottery shreds, some nice arrowheads but mostly what I would call rejects, some charred wood and animal bones. I've always wanted to find a pipe bowl and did find what appeared to be part of one that was broke. The town I was raised in, "Zwolle" has Bayou Scie and San Miguel Creek that runs right through the outskirts of town and the Indians lived all along the creeks. There is also what I would call a Ceremonial Mound close to the Bayou Scie creek. Many including myself have attempted to dig in the mound for relics but to the best of my knowledge, nobody every found anything in the mound I would estimate it at about 30' tall and 60' in diameter.
 
Seems like the best stuff I've found was right on top of the ground without digging.


Anybody interested in the history of Zwolle, here is a link;
  https://toledo-bend.com/sabinepar/history/zwolle/

[rafe]

Steve, Sorry,Tried to post photos from camera(Phone) to big so keep getting blocked ....My computer is giving me no options to reduce them .....It used to be easy to do .....
Not any more though!

[EL34]

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