Arrowhead hunt today at an industrial clearing

[jamesp]

This ~100 acre clearing in progress along Flat Creek in Peachtree City GA.
Peachtree City a upper end development along Flat Creek, also a serious Native man settlement.
Mostly white quartz, found some chips of flint from NW GA about 130 miles away, one flint arrow.

finds, bases down points up. Most broken by heavy equipment




Discrete parking on a (discrete) Sunday



Discrete colored clothing matching soil



first view from car, well prepared ridge. organics removed, ground and piled



First 100 paces yields high speed flakes and an arrow and an imported flint chip



Soil prep great, red clay too deep, yellow soil a bit deep, brown and gray soil perfect for artifacts-flat




And a stone's throw from the food rich wetland



Too late to hunt most of the area. Top soil(about a foot thick) removed and pushed aside. Working the red clay base for road and foundations.
No artifacts in the clay, let's just say it is before man's occupation. I was too late for all these clearings.



As found










rockpickerforever, this is the real mud world.



Too clean boots, walk thru the lespedezia and other high weeds.



predicting two more inches of rain for next 48 hours. Will return after.

[Intheswamp]

I haven't looked for points in years, that brings back some great memories. Most of the sites I used to hunt are gated off by big hunting clubs now.

[quartz]

What a way to hunt, have someone else clear the area for you. Wonder how many points were disappeared forever by the clearing process?

[jamesp]

Nov 1, 2015 21:47:28 GMT -5 Intheswamp said:

I haven't looked for points in years, that brings back some great memories. Most of the sites I used to hunt are gated off by big hunting clubs now.

Urban arrowhead hunting Ed. Sneak in on construction sites. The construction guys rarely ask any questions, and the rich land owners could not care less.
Probably hunted 500 construction sites.

Peachtree City/Flat Creek is one of the most diverse sites and the state archeologists do not even know about it.
Have found 100-200 points/acre along Flat Creek. The city built a lake in the center of town.
They grubbed a 2 acre peninsula sticking out in the 200 acre wetland to serve as the city lake.
Found these on the peninsula, flints and agates from all over the SE US. Ages from 400-6000 years old.
The site sat cleared and rained on for a year, and kept getting better. Then they covered it with lake dredgings.
It would have been the most diverse site ever found in Georgia X10.
Had I reported the site the state would have shut the construction down in a heart beat.
I will donate these to Peachtree City's little museum one day.



The white quartz arrowheads is local material. The colore material is mostly from Macon area 100 miles away and Cartersville 130 miles away.
Lots of imported flint, chert and agate. The greenish stemmed point at upper right is beryl from Lagrange.

[jamesp]

Nov 1, 2015 23:51:12 GMT -5 quartz said:

What a way to hunt, have someone else clear the area for you. Wonder how many points were disappeared forever by the clearing process?

i got the upper hand on yesterday's site Larry.
It is pouring cats and dogs all night, 3-4 inches. Will go back today when the rain passes and find the 'unbroken' points.

They will have serious erosion due to the rain and the(uh, unbroken) arrowheads deeper in the soil will be exposed.

Hopefully rain will keep them from grading further for a long time so I can clean out the artifacts.

Yes, grading projects have destroyed so many archeological sites; you are dead right.
The best projects are golf courses since they leave the top soil in place.
Factories grade down to clay, way to deep for artifacts, and use the artifact rich top soil as fill.
Most of the top soil averages only a foot deep, then clay. So the artifact zone is only a foot deep.

So much of Georgia was cultivated, the plow broke many artifacts. Many construction clearings are done on virgin land.
Artifacts never broken or exposed by the plow. Peachtree City was a cattle ranch of old, so rarely plowed. Artifacts in great shape.

Those Natives did not like our red clay, they preferred sandy loam.
Peachtree City/Flat Creek a very loamy zone. Few rocks. Arrowheads stand out like a sore thumb.
Flat Creek a very rich wetland to this day. I collected plants from it for many years. Rich in fish and mammals, Native food galore.

Peachtree City is a golf cart community. Kids go to school in them, people shop in them, drinkers go to the bars in them. Must
be a hundred miles of trails thru the wetlands alone. Upper crusters community was also top pick for Native man.
The densest native population was in the center of town, getting less dense as you move radially outward from the center of town. Darndest thing.

[Fossilman]

How cool is that James!!! I have one quartz scraper,I found in northern North Dakota....
You scored big-Two thumb up!!!

[jamesp]

Nov 2, 2015 10:00:44 GMT -5 Fossilman said:

How cool is that James!!! I have one quartz scraper,I found in northern North Dakota....
You scored big-Two thumb up!!!

Easy pickens down here Michael, especially on this creek. About every grading site on this creek is a win.
Been hitting them since 1985. Same ole song and dance.

Some spots have only points(deer trails/crossings), others are camps with lots of chips, points, scrapers.
Most is archaic era, 2000-4000 years old. Lots of trash points, business points-poorly made for the kill and not for show.
The bigger camps have show points in this area.

This is a wicked spiral point. Very thin and with a twist. Probably not the arrow you want fired at you.

[jamesp]

Getting ready to drive back out there. 3 inches of rain from 11PM till now.

[Tom]

Looking forward to your next finds James

[jamesp]

Nov 2, 2015 22:21:32 GMT -5 Tom said:

Looking forward to your next finds James

Thanks Tom, will be waiting for the next land clearing.

[Fossilman]

Yes sir James,that is a fine point,worth putting in your collection....Thumbs up

[paulshiroma]

What an outstanding trip, James. This is great! Thanks for taking us along ...

Paul

[jamesp]

Nov 4, 2015 9:07:58 GMT -5 paulshiroma said:

What an outstanding trip, James. This is great! Thanks for taking us along ...

Paul

Those are easy 1/4 day trips Paul.
Best trips to take kids, short and fruitful. And man do they love arrowheads.

PM your address and I will send them to you Paul.

After rain



The whole batch

[Fossilman]

Thumbs up!

[Tom]

Ok James, what I don't get, ok, one of the many many things I don't get:) is WHY so many points/scrapers/tools are all in one place? This is not the case IMHO of arrows being shot at animals and getting lost?? Were these people just prone to loosing items, is this a camp and these are just rejects that they through away, or did they spend most of their time drunk and forgot what they did with things?

Up here one will find a point every once in a while on a cultivated field, this is becoming almost impossible because all the farmers use no till seeding techniques.

When I was a young fellow I went on a week long geology camp to the Badlands here in Saskatchewan. We found a place where the natives ran the buffalo off a cliff, and we dug in the cliff and we found many points that had been broken off during the kill and were not found by the shooter. A lot of these points were super nice full points. Unfortunately I have lost mine in one of many moves I guess.

I can see there being a lot of points being found in a situation like this, where the natives would be killing the injured animals. But spread around like you find them, I can't figure out why.

[Pat]

jamesp
About how old are those you are finding now? Neat to hold something made long ago.

[jamesp]

Nov 4, 2015 22:40:06 GMT -5 Pat said:

jamesp
About how old are those you are finding now? Neat to hold something made long ago.

Tough call Pat. One thing for sure, not a single piece of pottery was found.
That alone dates the site to about 1000-2000 years ago and older.

it is very difficult to make quartz points into definable/datable points.
But this is a primitive site and they were using the local not so good/available quartz.
And arrowheads is bad terminology, most of these are too heavy for arrows. So they are about all spearheads.

I did find imported flint chips and a couple of flint points. The flint is probably later when trade routes were established.
And the small skinny flint point is likely an arrow point. I don't think bow and arrow was invented until later.

The spearheads are leaning toward guilford and morrow mountain designs. A big sandy or two. Big Sandy out of white quartz dates the site best.
I would guess classic Archaic era.

Here is a chart that is fairly well agreed upon by modern archeologists.
Recent findings and research have found Archaic is 2000-5000 years ago.
Paleo 4000-7000 years ago.



These fairly recent archeological dates are causing a bit of a riff between the creationist and the evolution folks.
From the standpoint of how old modern mankind is. Dating methods have improved in recent years.
A very large data base of native man's artifacts has been tested with modern equipment.
Opinions of man's time on earth has changed to much more recent.

[jamesp]

Nov 4, 2015 16:55:17 GMT -5 Tom said:

Ok James, what I don't get, ok, one of the many many things I don't get:) is WHY so many points/scrapers/tools are all in one place? This is not the case IMHO of arrows being shot at animals and getting lost?? Were these people just prone to loosing items, is this a camp and these are just rejects that they through away, or did they spend most of their time drunk and forgot what they did with things?

Up here one will find a point every once in a while on a cultivated field, this is becoming almost impossible because all the farmers use no till seeding techniques.

When I was a young fellow I went on a week long geology camp to the Badlands here in Saskatchewan. We found a place where the natives ran the buffalo off a cliff, and we dug in the cliff and we found many points that had been broken off during the kill and were not found by the shooter. A lot of these points were super nice full points. Unfortunately I have lost mine in one of many moves I guess.

I can see there being a lot of points being found in a situation like this, where the natives would be killing the injured animals. But spread around like you find them, I can't figure out why.

I love this question Tom. I have more fun laying out the flow paths/trails using point/chip concentration.
This particular site was heavenly for understanding travel path because 4 other flat balds were cleared for comparison.

4 out of 5 of the flat knobs paralleling the swamp had perpendicular-to-swamp ridge approaches.
Natives not stupid, ridge travel much better than up and down hill travel.
The ridge where all the artifacts were found also terminated at the swamp, but flanked the swamp for a long way.
Flanking the swamp makes a travel route close to water and food. Good hunting route.

90% of our artifacts occur on flat land that flanks creeks and rivers just above 500 year flood plain and higher.
Easy water access and best hunting ground.

Exceptional case:

Low but permanently dry ridge terminating into a large flood plain.
Just up the street, a slender flat ridge above flood plain reaching close to the river's edge.
Ridge acreage about 5 acres, flood acreage about 2000 acres.
It was so bad that when the river flooded the 4 farmers that owned the 2000 acres all led their livestock to the five acre ridge that one of the farmers owned.
They cleared the trees off of one acre of that 5 acre ridge and me and friends found 300+ points.
It was heaven for the natives. And closest access to the river. A no brainer.

Quantities of points ? How many beer cans would be in some people's back yard if they threw every beer back there.
These people had to hunt on almost a daily basis.
Yes, they loose points, probably 100's in a lifetime. Even at camp where they are butchering-to heck with the point !!
Let's get the meat processed fast, it's 95F, to heck with the point.

There is a 1200 acre plowed field I used to hunt. The river wrapped around it.
You could stand on the high hill in the center and see 5 camps about 2-3 acres each, equally spaced along the river when plowed.
Stained soil. Darker due to carbon from campfires and probably excrement.
Not to mention growing crops and amending soil at these particular Mississippian camps.
They had to abandon camps due to cleanliness.
Stinky shell mounds/dumps usually have the camp to the NW of the trash heap due to prevailing NW wind. They had flies too.
One of the camps had a fish weir built across the(Etowah) River. It served as a game crossing.
Many whole points found around it(guessing lost in attempt).
And the largest camp next to the fish weir yielded about 500 broken points-not one matched up.
Lots of pottery, a few human teeth, and one dead give away that this camp had recent (Mississippian) occupation:
Bird points, always found at the upper layer, the most modern native man:

[Intheswamp]

Many years ago I was looking at a site next to a small creek. The village site was at the bottom of a sloping field that ended in a step/flat area before going down to the creek. As I hunted I started envisioning the camp...kids playing, women working hides, cooking, sewing, men coming into camp with game they had killed. This got so intense that the hair on my body started rising...it was a very intense feeling. Some guys doing archaeological work at Fort Toulouse up around Wetumpka were cruising my area and got wind of me. They came by and I showed them some of my finds. When they got to my microliths they stopped and were fascinated by them. These are really small ( mine are ~3/4" long, ~1/4" wide) tools and usually hafted. They were used to basically engrave on shells, pottery, wood, etc.,. All of these microliths came from that one site where the scenes from a campsite came to me which makes me think there was an artisan of sorts that lived/worked there. I think it's interesting that I had that experience at a site where the microliths came from.

Oh a side note... That was back when I was very prone to indulge in liquid grain. I shared some of the local rye whiskey (actually made by an old fellow that ran with my grandfather in the 40's). He was known for the best whiskey around. Anyhow, I shared some of this with the guys from Fort Toulouse and well, I don't think they ever had quiet that type of discovery before.

It's been a long time since I hunted, though, a really long time.

[jamesp]

Nov 5, 2015 9:50:07 GMT -5 Intheswamp said:

Many years ago I was looking at a site next to a small creek. The village site was at the bottom of a sloping field that ended in a step/flat area before going down to the creek. As I hunted I started envisioning the camp...kids playing, women working hides, cooking, sewing, men coming into camp with game they had killed. This got so intense that the hair on my body started rising...it was a very intense feeling. Some guys doing archaeological work at Fort Toulouse up around Wetumpka were cruising my area and got wind of me. They came by and I showed them some of my finds. When they got to my microliths they stopped and were fascinated by them. These are really small ( mine are ~3/4" long, ~1/4" wide) tools and usually hafted. They were used to basically engrave on shells, pottery, wood, etc.,. All of these microliths came from that one site where the scenes from a campsite came to me which makes me think there was an artisan of sorts that lived/worked there. I think it's interesting that I had that experience at a site where the microliths came from.

Oh a side note... That was back when I was very prone to indulge in liquid grain. I shared some of the local rye whiskey (actually made by an old fellow that ran with my grandfather in the 40's). He was known for the best whiskey around. Anyhow, I shared some of this with the guys from Fort Toulouse and well, I don't think they ever had quiet that type of discovery before.

It's been a long time since I hunted, though, a really long time.

Photos of the microliths Ed ? I may have never found those.
I would guess your points down that way are flint/chert ??

Always loved hunting artifacts in Alabama. You guys less populated, less artifact hunters.

William Bartram wrote about his visit to Ocmulgee Indian mounds.
Observed a young Native firing an arrow at a rabbit. Hitting it in the eye from 10 paces.
With a tiny 20 inch straight bow, a tiny arrow, and a bird point.

Yea, I catch your drift about hair raising. Every chip I find is an artifact in itself.

I find crystals, chunks of hematite, round rocks, strange chips of never seen chert.
Locations of such resources could have been handed down 40 generations.
These people did not sit at a desk 5 days a week.

Some of the finest tumbles I ever did was heat treated Savannah River Agate knappings.
They were found in a large 10 acre camp near Girard GA and tumbled in the ole PVC tumbler.
Those rascals found the best of the best agate. Where is their source, I have yet to find it...




A whole 16 pound 6 inch barrel full:

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