Another birdie

[tomsneck]

This has to be one of my coolest points. I found it today at the end of a long unproductive beach walk. Only found a few flakes, so I decided to head for the truck. We walked back not by the beach but a long driveway and in a spot where someone had done some brush cutting last year and cut too low, this was perched on a little pedestle of dirt. Almost mistook it for a leaf. It's missing the very tip and one wing, also it's almost perfectly flat on the back side. never seen the like here. Thanks for the look

colin

[Johnny X]

Very nice!

HH

xstevenx

[fossis]

nice going,

Fossis.................

[tomsneck]

Here is the pic of the back. I've never found one so flat. Do you think that it broke while flaking?

colin

[pickaway]

Nice point...

[Neanderthal]

The "flat" spot is simply the ventral surface of the spall they made it from. The Ventral surface of a spall is the flat, inside part closest to the original core, the outside being the Dorsal. "Birdies" (arrow points) are typically made from detaching a spall (flake) from a larger core. That flake is then knapped to a more functional shape. It's very common for them to leave the original surface and not flake to the center if they didn't need to on arrow points. That's a common occurance that you'll notice on alot of points, especially the small arrow points.

Here's a flint reduction primer that I done a while back that could help the flaking and terminology better. http://www.arrowheads1.com/flaking/primer.htm

Matt