Well now - It finally quit raining for a few hours. The sun is out and I decided to take a walk down the logging roads, on the side of the mountain, to see if the washouts from our recent rains revealed any of our ancient history. I do this periodically, especially after heavy rains but have found nothing for a few months. Today, however, was different.
The first picture is the arrow head or point as it lay when I found it and the second pic is after I got it cleaned up at home. It looks greyer in the first pic because it was dry and in the sunlight. After I cleaned it up, actually I just washed it under running water and brushed it off, the color changed somewhat due to the oils from my hand rubbing off on the surface of the point. It will eventually lighten up again. My neighbor also found one while he was working in his garden just up the road.
They're both about 1 1/2 inches long and about 3/4 inch wide. I haven't identified either to a specific type yet but I'm working on it. I believe they both date from 6000 - 4000 BP (Before Present) which would place them in the Middle to Late Archaic period. I have accumulated quite a collection since I got here and really enjoy hunting for them and researching their history. Most of them were probably used during hunting because most of them have impact damage and were probably lost or left behind. This area of the mountain has heavy limestone deposits that are loaded with the chert or flint that the ancients used for projectile points, knives, drills, scrapers etc. Enough pointology 101.
1 comment:
We used to find arrowheads around Lake Shasta when we were kids. The lake covered a lot of Native American sacred sites and land when the dam was built in the 40's.
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