Arrowheads...
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I’m probably in the majority when I say I love looking for arrowheads. Over the last week or so, my wife and I have been in SE Oklahoma at my relatives cabin. There’s a lot of history with Indians in that area. We spend a great amount of time looking for these cool finds. Here’s a few we found, and also the ones my uncle has found.
I just love searching for and finding these. Please share your finds...
Top is a scraper, I believe.
Mainly knapped flakes/chips...
Mainly knapped flakes/chips...
My uncles collection over 5 or so years... he only looks while riding his side by side. :)
My uncles collection over 5 or so years... he only looks while riding his side by side. :)
Nice!
These are a few finds from southern Indiana. We have a wide variety of sites here, from Archaic to Late Woodland. Most of the ag field sites here are pretty well cleaned out after 200 years of row cropping, but a few artifacts can still show up from time to time.
I recently found this one after a rain storm. We used to find them often back when the neighbor farms were row cropping. Every Spring when they’d disc we’d spend hours walking the fields looking. My brother has a large collection. Most are white like this one. We’ve found lots of broken pottery pieces too. Fun way to spend some time outdoors.
Good stuff, thanks for sharing Rick!
I've never found anything, but my dad has an amazing axe head (large, functional size, not weapon size) that he found in a field tilling our garden in Southern Minnesota when I was a kid. It obviously took a lot of work to make. I've already told my siblings that when he passes, that I will use it on them if they try to claim it.
Very nice finds above and thanks for sharing them.
I found this head in Southwestern PA a few years ago.
I was at work related convention about a year later and there was an archeologist in attendance with numerous artifacts on display. One of the heads he had on display was an identical twin to the head I had found. I mentioned this to him and he gave me some info and estimated my head was 8,000 to 10,000 years old. I was blown away.
There's no feeling like picking up an artifact and wondering who and when the last person to touch it was.
I had a farm I used to hunt that must have been a campsite. I would scour it every spring after the field was tilled and a good hard rain. Found some really nice pieces I'll share when I get pics later.
I agree Nick. Amazing feeling when you find a completed head or even one that had been worked on. You have to think the person broke some of what we find, just as they were almost at completion state. I can imagine them cussing themselves for getting in a hurry or making a bad hit while knapping and busting the tip off. I could look for heads for days and hours on end.
Greg, those are some great finds! Love it!
First arrowhead I ever found.
First arrowhead I ever found.
Latest arrowhead I found.
Latest arrowhead I found.
Rick, great find. I love hunting arrowheads and found a lot of nice ones on the farm growing up in central MN. The first one I ever found is the burgundy colored one and the last one a turkey season ago I found walking up the farmer's field road.
I'm jealous! I've never found one.
As a kid I lived on a farm in SW PA. We figured there must have been an Indian village in the area because, after spring plowing/disking/harrowing , I always found quite a few.
My Dad and I used to “rock” hunt all the time in the spring after farmers turned over their fields. Found some really nice heads over the years and made some great memories with my pops. This case has a few of my favorites.
Awesome, Jeremiah! Great memories and collection!
I gave a coffee can full of arrow heads to the Smithsonian institute. I found them by the dozens when I was a kid and people from the Smithsonian museum were at my neighbor's house to look at a grandfather clock he had. I had just found some arrowheads and they were interested in them. I went home and brought a coffee can full of arrowheads and gave them to the museum. I have found them in my garden and driveway before it was blacktopped. I have a neighbor that would have his field ready to plant and it would rain. That was the time to find the heads real easily.I gave my daughter a good size stone ax head or whatever you call it. She still has it in her living room.
A few that I have found on my property
I have always wanted to find a arrow head never have though. Found part of an old aluminum shaft above tree line once but that does not count.
I have been lucky enough to find quite a few over the years, but this one is my pride and joy. This knife is almost 6 inches long and sharp on both top and bottom. I have butchered a few cuts from numerous elk with this. Found in Utah.
Back in late 40's went with my dad to SD to visit relatives. His uncle had plowed virgin prairie behind horses when he started farming his own land. Being close to the action he would pick up arrowheads spear points as the soil was turned over. He had 6 peach crates filled with his different finds. I have no idea what happened to all of these on his death.
Me the best I have ever found was a midland point (think non fluted clovis point) as I was digging a dry well in Midland TX.
Terry
So I take my new girlfriend, now wife, to plains deer camp for a weekend. I tell her we will hunt arrowheads in the creek bottom midday when I'm not hunting. Over 25 years there I've found a good number of excellent tools, but never a head. We start down the dry creek bottom in front of camp and she immediately yells, "OH MY GOD!". It was laying there in the sand as if it had been carefully placed. I told her I had salted the creek so she would find one, because I wanted her to be excited. Then when she pressed, I admitted I hadn't, and congratulated her on an incredible find.
To this day I think she still sort of wonders if I placed it there for her....
I’ve only ever found one fully intact arrowhead, plus several chips from knapping. I found those in western Oklahoma.
There were a couple Indian burial mounds that were probably no more than 150 yards from our house, where I grew up in Iowa. One of the universities did some kind of archeological dig on one of them, when I was probably about 9-10 years old. I remember going out and watch them while they were digging. They carefully exposed several skeletons, including a child (without removing them) using tiny picks, whisk brooms, and spoon-like implements. I seem to remember there being some pottery and other items that looked to have been buried with the bodies. I was too dumb to search the field for heads, spear points, etc., but one of my classmate’s dad spent a ton of time arrowhead hunting, and he had 8-10 big glass cases full of all kinds of artifacts that he had found in that field and other areas. He would always be out in that field after a rain, or whenever the farmer would spring till it.
Whenever I see threads like this, it makes me think about the generations upon generations of peoples who were just like us - using short-ranged weapons to hunt animals.
And it makes me think about the neo-urbanites who have turned their backs on what we actually are; having lost their humanity, they feel that who and what we are is something grotesque - beyond antiquated, beyond hedonistic: murderous and sadistic.
What we are is no different than our ancestors whose stone remnants lay all around us as evidence and testimony of what and who we are: hunters.
I feel bad for these folks who have no clue of what or who they really are. And for what they lack: the satisfaction, contentment, and completion of self that comes with killing your food from close range and enjoying its sustenance with friends and family - a reward that in 2021, amongst nearly 8 billion humans, only a few of us continue to experience.
Despite being demonized, I'm happy to be one in a long line of folks who bowhunt.
It's really something to see the artifacts of those that came before us.
I like you Ike... even if you do take horrible field photos. ;)
A few I've found through the years.
My brother in law used to find hundreds of heads in NC. They lived on High Rock Lake. The power company would drop the lake levels in the winter and he would find them in areas where the rocks gathered on the lake floor. He had so many that my impressions of indians was that they all had holes in their pockets. Almost seemed impossible for there to be that many just laying around. I have 2 plaques on my hunting cabin wall with about 20 of his best ones.
History of the west fascinates me. I’ve been reading Empire of the Summer Moon recently. Have never found an arrowhead but plan to look a little closer going forward.
A few years ago I was bow hunting on a fall morning just a few miles from my home in Montana. It was just getting light enough to shoot and I was out of breath trying to climb straight up after the bugling bull above me. I had to stop and face the steep slope while I caught my breath. I looked down at a fresh pile of gopher diggings and right on top was an obsidian point. I grabbed it up and kept on climbing after that bull. Never did catch up with him, never even got to see him, but I did come away with a real trophy that morning. I would like to believe some hunter was chasing elk just like me when he let fly. Either he lost it or found it and threw it away because the tip had broken off. Whether it was from an atlatl or a bow, I've got to believe the last guy to touch that point was a hunter a lot like me. The difference was he had a little more at stake that day. I got to go home and have a nice breakfast. I always wonder if he got to eat at all that day! Thanks go to Ike for inspiring me to post.
Well written Ike... 1st bottle of Makers on me.......