Friday, April 18, 2014

Fragments...

My friend Garret and I went to go explore a favorite place on a nice Saturday afternoon. I found this point, it looks broken but it is actually flaked into in this shape. Probably this was a long point that broke and was hastily reworked in this asymmetric way.
Garret found this nice little triangle made from an interesting material.
That was back at the beginning of March. I couldn't have guessed, then, that it would be 6 weeks before I saw another whole arrowhead come out of the ground.

Last year I had some great finds in March and April. This year I haven't been having the luck. Plenty of finds, but virtually all broken stuff, mostly just fragments. This one was a real heartbreaker. Too fragile to have survived intact, I guess. With this deep concavity at the base I might be tempted to call this a Dalton. But I find a lot of Levanna type triangles in the same place, all made of quartz like this.
This broken triangle was easy to spot.
Broken stuff in rough shape. My friend Dave found the one on the left.
I found all these on the same sunny day, on a beautiful hill overlooking a spot where fresh water flows into a bay. Not a whole artifact in the lot!
I found this one afternoon after work, nestled in the grass. Sorry about the blurry photo but I wanted to show it because it's unusual to spot one nearly vertical like this and totally exposed. I'm glad to be able to get out and look for stuff in the evenings now that the days are long enough again.
 Really nicely flaked, but missing the tip.
A turkey vulture, at dusk.
Dave and I spent a whole day searching in different places and this was the only find. It was totally exposed and I almost didn't pick it up, I thought it was just a triangular rock. Broken, the base is gone. The material is rhyolite. Whatever this blade was a part of, it must have been really big.
Wednesday night I had some time to go and look. It rained so much and so hard on Monday and Tuesday, I knew conditions would be good. The ground was really muddy, I could only search a small area. But it was worth it. I love the way this looked on the ground, gleaming.
The very tip is gone, the edges show wear, but I consider this a "whole" arrowhead. My first in a very long time. I'm happy with it.
In another place. that same night, another obvious quartz triangle.
Broken again. The other broken fragment was only about 3 feet away.
I've got an exciting lead for a new place I hope to check out this weekend. It's far away and maybe I can find some things that are not quartz triangles. Spring is here and I'm hoping for good things.

1 comment :

Anonymous said...

Hello Chris
nice finds
some these look like Daltons?
straight sides curved base, long barbs
you may have an early site there

Tony Brady