mjflinty
spending too much on rocks
Member since September 2011
Posts: 356
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Post by mjflinty on Jan 13, 2014 8:05:44 GMT -5
Hi All, Just wanted to post some pics of a fun field trip I took with my wife. We moved to Columbia SC a few months back and learned of a chert outcrop near Allendale SC just across the river in GA. We went yesterday and had a ton of fun collecting. The weather was perfect, 60s sunny and a little breeze; the two days before we had inches of rain so I figured there would be some good washes. I want to thank RTH'er jamesp for his help in pinpointing the collecting site! Here are some pictures! The dirt road goes right thru the quarry site. The ground is littered with prehistoric flaking debris. Here I am testing a nodule. Flintknappers test lots of material at the site so we know we have solid matierial. Here's my Rock Wife, Tracy, helping me test rock. Manged to get 3 buckets in a few hours! Good chipping, Michael
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,158
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Post by jamesp on Jan 13, 2014 10:42:05 GMT -5
Micheal and Tracy: Next time you guys go there and it is not deer season....One of you walk into the brush perpendicular to the road in the first photo. To the right, in the first photo. I would say west. If you go about 200 yards you will hit uncut 30 year old pines. The last 50 yards of that walk you will see where a lot of burned trees are laying. The heat of that burned area heat treated a lot of rock to great colors. Some of my finest chips came from there. There are not any signs regarding trespassing but i suggest one of you stay on the road or park the car way away and hike there.ie sneak over there... I cleaned it out a year ago. I see that the pines are now over 8 feet tall and the stickers may tear you up. I got while the getting was good(few sticker bushes). But i would venture back there and take advantage of newly exposed rock from the heavy rain season to get another load. Lots of purple and red in there. If you go in summer go to the end of Stoney Bluff Road to the river/boat ramp and the river is low the artifacts are plentiful to the left(upstream) from the boat ramp for about 100 yards of river shore line. Lots of incised pottery chips. There is a huge house over looking. When they graded for the house they pushed the indian camp into the river. I have been picking out of that 100 yards for 30 years. If you have a boat you can go upstream about 10 miles and there is a bluff on the left. It is lime and fossilized oysters that are up to 15 inches long. Before they paved Stony Bluff Road it was the best place to collect. You could dig down 3 feet deep about any where and find great heat treated chunks. I would say the ancients did their lithic mining along Stoney Bluff. There were boulders on each side of the road which have been sledged and carried off by rock hounds and knappers. I broke a couple down long ago about the size of a washing machine. Some of the finest heat treatable material. That day is past and private owners posted all that. When i went out there last year i picked this up down at the river in a couple of hours
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mjflinty
spending too much on rocks
Member since September 2011
Posts: 356
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Post by mjflinty on Jan 14, 2014 7:46:16 GMT -5
Here are some of the points I made from the chert collected at the quarry site. Michael
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