Taking a break while fishing. A walk along the river bank

[BilletHead]

 

        Went for a boat ride this morning to one of my favorite rivers. Tributary of Truman Lake. Fly rod along looking for something to catch. Not much caught but I was happy to get out. I passed a long sweeping cut bank, steep cut bank leading to a high point along the river. I know this place well. Everything the natives need is right here. Shelter in the form as an overhang almost a cave like, actually it is a shallow sandstone cave. Water in two forms. The river below and up high a ditch I have never seen dry dripping into the river. The high area never floods. It is all they need in one spot. I parked the boat and put on my rubber boots. Pretty steep. Almost vertical up top and muddy below. 

     As I looked around, I began to see flakes.  A few yards farther a bunch of flakes,

   As I looked up a fresh sloughed off spot

  Looking good and no fresh human tracks. Then something below next to water's edge caught my eye. Shape was right and color was right. I worked my way down for a closer look. Bingo! A point. Picture as it was found. One more river raise, and it would have slipped off into the abyss.

  A great example of a Dickson point. The top is broken off like an impact fracture might of happened.  the remaining point is 2 1/4 inches long by 1 9/16s wide. It is sharpened on a bevel. If you look from the tip back it has a slight twist. Some points were sharpened that way. A bit later picked up a worked piece of chert. I thought about the prehistoric knapper working in it and thought I have been there before. A piece being worked that goes nowhere. You cannot get it flat. In knapping circles we call it a turtle. The knapper would give it a hurl as far as he could. Been there done that . 

             Picked up a few assorted flakes. Burlington, Chouteau, and Jefferson City cherts. Also a hammerstone. A hard sandstone almost a ball polished up from use wear. It could of been used to knock off flakes for point making or cracking nuts. Fits into the palm of you hand perfect. Worn slick,

     Lithic material all over to be used. Down by my boat is a limestone bank and it is full of chert in bands and also in nodules.  Ran into the Jeff City chert in the dirt bank first.

  Then some Jeff city pieces,

         Here is the stuff in the limestone deposit,    Fun day and was ready for the long boat ride back to the ramp. This stuff is out there to be found you all!

 

 

[dpitt]

Very, very Cool!  thanks for sharing

[Nick Adams]

Agreed. You should do a youtube channel walking people through sites like this.

[Foghorn]

A little hunting on a fishing trip. Makes for a nice day.

[Terrierman]

Marty, expertise earned and shared - like this - is a huge part of what makes OAF so valuable.  Thanks for a great post my friend.

[fshndoug]

very cool marty

[fishinwrench]

Guys get plum ate up with this kinda stuff.    When I worked underground cable construction they had to fire guys that couldn't keep from sifting through our trenches and earth saw cuts.   We got paid hourly PLUS footage.....and if you had several guys on the crew that spent all day picking around in the piles of dirt, you couldn't get anything done.    

It never failed, things would be going along fabulously, and then all of a sudden somebody would notice "flakes".....and our footage quota for the day would go straight to hell. 🙄

Somebody would fail to show up, and you'd ask "Where's So-n-so"? 

"He got fired for being an uncontrollable archeologist".  😂

[Flysmallie]

Cool stuff. I look around sometimes but I have no idea what I'm looking for. 

[Quillback]

Some great stuff Marty!

[BilletHead]

1 hour ago, Flysmallie said:

Cool stuff. I look around sometimes but I have no idea what I'm looking for. 

              Ronnie,

  As you are fishing smaller creeks as you do look on gravel bars for flakes. They can be all colors of the rainbow but heat treated material can be even red in color. If you find those look ahead on the banks for where they may be coming from. Depending on the flake size it could be along ways. They are coming from somewhere. You will find points also that have tumbled in the current. Bigger waterways it happens too just hard to move along them. Boating and like your kayak works. Lake shores are fantastic but like I mentioned illegal. I look for lost lures and sometimes find all kinds of things on lakes shores. Do this at low lake levels for best results.