Personal Best Spot

[tjm]

Sure, they determined the style by carbon dating other stuff stolen from the same graves, didn't they?

I've thought that the primitive people might not have picked old tools and points up the way we do, because of superstitions and association with death or spirits. Some "expert" told me the rock sharpeners from one age had disappeared/been extirpated from the region for long periods before the next "civilization" came to be.

I never was an artifact hunter but have known a few, my deceased neighbor had about 12 gallons of stuff from one 8A hay field and a guy I worked with found a knife/spear "factory"  where he found a perfect 9" blade along with some partials and said the chip pile would fill a dump truck. The two sites are about 1/2 mile apart. 1/4 mi from the field there were acres of mounds until they were bulldozed out in the late '90s.

I have a celt my dad found that looks to have been shaped with a grinder, then hardened, whatever it is made from isn't native  rock.

[Al Agnew]

Yeah, there were probably periods in the Ozarks where there were few Indians living in the region, though it was probably used as a hunting ground by those in surrounding areas.  When the civilization centered at the Cahokia Mounds was thriving up and down the Mississippi, only a small offshoot settled in the Big River valley.  The rest of the Ozarks at that point was probably sparsely populated by small groups that were still in the Woodland period as to their culture, though some traded with the Cahokians.

[MOPanfisher]

14 hours ago, tjm said:

I have often wondered what the people here between 4000BPE and 1800 used to hunt with, all the sharp rocks that I've ever seen found locally fall into that 5-10,000BPE category. Also have wondered why as time advanced the workmanship deteriorated.

Someone began to make fun of the guys who were making the points.  Socity began to tell the point makers that they just can't kill the guys who are harassing them, and rather than suffer the scorn of such a society they took up bead work and such, and began to import points and stonework from asia, thus beginning the downfall of their civilization.  It was a blessing to them when Europeans came and killed thwm all.

[Hog Wally]

3 hours ago, Al Agnew said:

I've wondered that, too.  Some of the true arrowheads from later periods have excellent workmanship, but most of it doesn't compare with those early points.  It had to be a cultural thing.  Maybe there was cultural, even religious, significance to the way the points were made, not just utilitarian.

I've found plenty of points from later periods over the years, far more than the early ones.  There was one field I hunted years ago that had points from every period, from Dalton on, so it was obviously a highly valued camp or village site.

But another thing I find interesting and mysterious is why you really CAN (supposedly) tell how old a point is from its construction.  Stop and think.  Why do all points from a given period look like they were made by the same individual?  Why the "purity" of style?  Weren't there mavericks out there who made points their own way?  Obviously, with some exceptions, a point could be made in many different ways and still accomplish its purpose.  Was there a big workshop where all the flint knappers got together and learned how to make points using the exact same patterns?  Why didn't somebody from the Woodland period find a Dalton point and think, "Hey, I like how that thing looks.  I think I'll try making some just like that; I'm pretty sure they'd work as good or better than what Joe the expert flint knapper back at the village is making."  And DID Indians from one period find old points (like we do these days) when they were plowing up their field and decide to use them?  Surely they did.  

I really miss artifact hunting.  It's gotten so difficult to find spots to hunt that I gave it up.  The last few I found were when I plowed up my own ground for putting in food plots, and it was just uplands with no particular attractiveness to Indians.  If you can actually find three or four points in a couple acres of nondescript ground, just how many points are actually still waiting to be found, and how many of them were made and lost or discarded anyway?

I will put the 3 bottom plow on this spring and plan on coming over.  Half a day of big Smallie's and a couple hours of picking up artifacts. Unfortunately, I had to push snake mounds to get my house in. I piled all that dirt to the side and sifted some to no avail but when you scratch the dirt anywhere on my ridge there is worked flint and broken or perfect tips.  No modern stuff.  All old.   The modern stuff I usually find in the bottoms   Farmers? The big game gone they turned to maze squash etc for more reliable sustenance ?  My dream would to find a pemmican block buried deep in the clay where they stashed em.