All About Pocket Knives

Some of this springs finds from a local Woodland-Mississippian site.

WB

A few more odds and ends from the same site. A sandstone gorget, pottery shards, bone beads and a petrified tooth fragment.

WB

W.B. I used to love walking the fields looking for artifacts. You've got some nice ones there. Are they all surface finds or did you have to do a little digging to gather all those ?

WB those are awesome finds. I especially like the drills and the gorget.

Awesome and beautiful. I have never found anything like those.

Thanks guys!

Phil these all came from plowed bottom land along the creek. This year we got a fairly heavy rain shortly after, so surface hunting was a little better then usual. We'll hunt it again come fall.

The Gorget is very rare for this part of the country. In 30+ years of hunting multiple sites in this area, it's the first I've come across. While there were many sites in the Ozark Mntn. region during the Mississippian period, they weren't really part of the mound builder culture and the decorative/ceremonial type items associated with it. By all accounts that I can attest to, Ozarks Native Americans were basically simple country folk. Well equipped with the tools of the trade, but not many bells and whistles.


WB

Thanks for sharing those, brings back old, old memories. When I was in grade school I went to visit a friend. He asked if I would like to see his arrow head collection. I expected a note book with sleeves like my baseball cards. He opened his closet door and had 3-4 shoe boxes full of arrowheads. he lived along the Patuxent River in MD. He said after it rained all you had to do was walk up and down all the trails along the river. Figured the Indians had hunted there for centuries. I have no idea now of what period, or periods, were represented in his collection. I just know he had more arrowheads than I had baseball cards. Thanks again, Joe.

WB, those are awesome! Thanks for sharing.

You fellas are most certainly welcome and thank you!

Actually, it's getting pretty close to a fall hunt. The water levels have been up and down a few times during the summer and as soon as some of the vegetation has died off, I'll hit the creek banks and a couple of plowed fields. I almost always find something, but some years are better then others and every now and then I get lucky and find a real gem. I love 'em all, but there's nothing like finding an 8-10,000 year old Dalton point. Ever seen a 60 year old feller do cartwheels in the middle of a plowed field?!


WB

Great fun Rob, I’ve been told it’s like ginseng hunting, you develop an eye for that unique sheen.

We have the Ohio River and several large tributaries in this Ohio valley area here. Points and other artifacts are not unusual and most are found in the same manner as Rob does, plowed fields after a rain.

Several have been found in the small stream in back of the church house where I was baptized. My brother found a black spiraled point that was apx. 5” long before church one morning. He lost it before church was over. It was a great point, best I have seen. I suspect one of the other children playing with him outside found it.

Mornin' Lyle! It is good fun and a great way to spend time outdoors.

I suppose you do develop an eye for 'em over time. I've taken a few beginners out and let them go ahead of me and as often as not, they'll walk over a point and not spot it. I've found a few on gravel bars, which in essence is like finding a needle in a haystack. I know it was my 6th hunt before I ever found one, after that, it seemed to get easier.

Rain is essential to a good hunt, it makes the cherts/flints stand out against most of the other duller rocks. I've also hunted at night by flashlight. That serves two purposes, the light makes them shine, but it also helps to keep your eyes from roaming and focused on a specific area. People think I'm crazy, and they may be right, but it does work.

Would love to have seen that black point, sounds like collateral flaking. If so, it would have been a real treasure!


WB

Soooooooooo cool. Probably would never find anything like that here in FLA!

Scott, we do find some points and pottery shards in Florida. I used to hunt them when I was a bit younger, walking plowed fields and even planted fields after the crop was plowed(cultivated), some spots were more productive, probably old camp sites near water, creek or lake, usually a sandy place maybe chosen because of drainage?
I think the flint and chert tools in Florida may have been cared for a bit more than in areas where flint and other materials for tool making was in abundance. Flint was, according to some Florida historians, a sought out trading material between tribes, the "haves" and the "have not's" based on where they lived. Florida is devoid of rock compared to a lot of states.
Finding a point or a piece of pottery is always a though provoking occasion, who, why and when.
The last point I found was a couple of years ago. It was in the church yard on the north side of Blue Lake.
Treefarmer