Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Sept 24, 2011 14:41:41 GMT -5
Howdy folks, Been spending a lot of time in the pastures lately as we've been having a lot of horse escape their enclosures. That's what happens when you have a drought and a stream is one of your pasture boundries. The stream goes dry and your horses keep wading around the fences. *L*. Anyway, been picking up Amerind stuff when I happen upon it and these are a few of the finds. All dart point partials except the small scraper on the upper left, the blank at right top center and a small drill on the lower left. Strangely enough, no Perds in this batch. All Nolans, Montells or Castroville points, mostly 2500-4000 years old or so. I sure wish some of the knives were whole. I found some pieces yesterday that must have been from a super thin blade of ten inches or so in length but horses, longhorns and plows have pretty much broken most the stuff up over the years.....Mel
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carloscinco
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since July 2008
Posts: 1,639
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Post by carloscinco on Sept 24, 2011 17:21:38 GMT -5
I haven't found anything like that since I was a kid. It's really cool that you can ID them. Thanks for posting them.
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dtcmor
freely admits to licking rocks
Back to lickin' rocks again!
Member since May 2006
Posts: 898
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Post by dtcmor on Sept 25, 2011 2:05:34 GMT -5
Nice finds Mel! I like the scraper and the blank. I know what you mean with finding broken and chipped up artifacts, as I live in a rural farmland area too - most of what we find is broken, but every now and then we find some good whole pieces that make it worthwhile collecting.
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elementary
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since February 2006
Posts: 1,077
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Post by elementary on Sept 25, 2011 22:15:25 GMT -5
Hey Mel,
Nice pieces for horse pastures.
You got my curiosity up, so here goes my question:
All these share the some color scheme, and I am assuming the same basic source for material. Do you find that depending on the age of the artifacts, there are different materials that may have been traded for by the locals and used in what you find? In Ca, obsidian was moving around from group to group, as well as other materials used for beads and such. Besides flint, did anything else get shipped in for use in tool making, and if so, does that help date a tool, or is it mainly by the design?
Thanks much,
Lowell
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Sept 25, 2011 22:57:24 GMT -5
Howdy Lowell, I've been studying the archeology of this area quite a bit so I can actually answer your question *L* Rarely, an artifact of obsidian shows up and the sources have been identified as New Mexico or Old Mexico. Mainly though, this area was an exporter of preformed material and many tribes and cultures camped here on a permanent or temporary basis just to mine the fine flint deposits of the Edwards Formation. Several types occur here in both vein and nodular form and all the deposits on the ranch show evidence of exploitation over a period of thousands of years. There are several campsites on the ranch that have finished knapped items but most sites were used for the manufacture of trade blanks which were traded all over Texas and the midwest. It was simply easier to knap a big crude blade for later modification into whichever blade type was needed than it would be to transport or trade the heavy whole nodules or vein hunks. A neighbor of ours has these big blades all over his lot but finds no complete points or knives at all at his location and several sites show evidence of this sort of workshop. Historic projectile points and knives are also rare here as most the sites appear to be archaic from about 2500-6000 years old. Once and awhile I'll find a partial arrowhead ( probably Comanche, Lipan Apache or Tonkawa) but most points are from pre bow and arrow cultures named for the initial sites (locations) they were found. Most identification is done by projectile point type as the knife forms seem to run through many cultures pretty much unchanged. So much topsoil has been lost in this area from overgrazing that most material is pretty much unstratified and many ages of material are found on the same surface. Not unusual to find a 5000 year old dart point laying on the ground down by our mailboxes because everything has settled into a thin layer of topsoil.
Most everything here is flint, some used raw and some looks to be heat treated. Occasionally someone will find a paint mortar or pendent of some imported stone. I suspect most their containers were either baskets or wooden and have rotted away. Same with bone tools. I have heard of a few imported shell beads like Olive shells, maybe from the gulf or Mexico but this was mainly a big game culture area so I suspect lots of hide, bone, antler etc was employed much like historic plains Amerinds. It's also speculated that this region was sort of a truce area where folks camped, traded and manufactured goods but did not war a lot. A lot of camps are associated with groves of native pecan oaks and Texas walnut trees so the nuts were surely an attraction too.
Very colorful and violent Civil War history here locally too......Mel
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elizabeth
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since August 2011
Posts: 94
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Post by elizabeth on Sept 26, 2011 20:09:01 GMT -5
I'd like to find some junk like that!!!!!!!!
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