More artifact finds
Grommet wrote:How do you know how old they are? Do you have someone who dates them for you or do you know how to date them yourself?
They (the archeologists not me) date the points based on the type, manufacturing characteristics, Stratigraphy (study of strata, or layers http://id-archserve.ucsb.edu/Anth3/Courseware/Chronology/04_Stratigraphy.html) Kinda like we know 'clackers' are a toy that dates to the 1970's. A 'such an such' point type dates to a general period they call 'archaic' between a range of several 1000 years.
The arch's have performed many digs and categorized enormous amounts of artifacts. Early on they carbon dated them and the layer of dirt they were found in to determine age. They have a bunch of data now so when you find a point you can generally assume the age based on all this data. I use the Cambron & Hulse book "Handbook of Alabama Archeology: Point Types" to look up the points. The more you look at points the better you get at identifying them.
Fluted paleo points came first, side and corner notched points came next, stemmed points came next, the small bird points came next, then the white man came with his bullets
Here are some pics from a Paleo conference they had at the University of Alabama in Huntsville a couple of years ago. These points are as old as they get in North America and some are worth $10k, $20k, $30k and up...
How about this cumberland found in the TN river... he turned down $30k for it
Last edited by tica-tica on Sat May 20, 2006 9:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
Those paleo points (clovis, folsum, cumberland, redstone, beaver lake) are few and far between. Some folks hunt a lifetime and never find one of them. I like to hunt all the point types but some people zero in on paleo.
personal find Little Bear Creek points from Morgan Co. AL
You might run into other artifacts while point hunting. A friend of mine found this preform pipe while we were hunting one day. The injun never finished it... no holes drilled in it.
I found this greenstone celt a few years ago. A celt is an axe head. This type is called a pole celt. It tappers back to a point. The celt was wedged into a hole in a wood paddle handle. Everything rots away... only the rocks remain.
personal find Little Bear Creek points from Morgan Co. AL
You might run into other artifacts while point hunting. A friend of mine found this preform pipe while we were hunting one day. The injun never finished it... no holes drilled in it.
I found this greenstone celt a few years ago. A celt is an axe head. This type is called a pole celt. It tappers back to a point. The celt was wedged into a hole in a wood paddle handle. Everything rots away... only the rocks remain.
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