Saharan Neolithic

[unclemac]

are these things being made or being found? they appeared out of nowhere a few years back, got real pricey... got real cheap... got pricey again. We had that one feller from Egypt that would go out, post insitus and leave them lay, if they are being made new... where do they come from?

[uniface]

North African deserts.

[newnan man]

They look pretty cool. I've never seen one, only pics.

[unclemac]

...yeah but are they actually old or is this a new ebay industry?

[uniface]

At/near the source they're cheap enough and abundant enough there's no incentive to fake them.

[unclemac]

do you have an authoritarian read on that?

[uniface]

Sometimes ​Google is your friend.

[southfork]

I bought these for about 1$ a piece years ago I still don't know anything about them . They looked real enough to spend a buck apiece .

[unclemac]

did the same... just can't find a good read on these

[uniface]

Unable to access the other site; discussion there: http://www.forums.arrowheads.com/285...sion-in-africa

[Tnmountains]

I remember the guy that traveled around in Egypt and posted pics of the wind blown sites. I think he is on my friends list I will look. He was finding the blades for cutting wheat. I will look. I remember he never picked anything up just shot insitu's.

[Tnmountains]

It was Ammonhotep who traveled in the Saharan deserts and took pics. He deleted every post he ever made. That was before we stopped the editing after so many days. It leaves holes in the story. Man he posted some cool stuff.

[Red-Coat]

Unable to access the other site; discussion there: www.forums.arrowheads.com/28569-confusion-in-africa

Thanks uniface.

That link is out of date as a result of the arrowheads.com forum being migrated to a new server. Here’s the current link:

(deleted for rule infraction, no links to competing forums)

That post was in fact mine (I’m ‘painshill’ on that site) and I have a large collection of such items. Southfork is showing a nice selection above… all authentic.

For an inexpensive book covering the typology and an overview of the broad timeframe for these kinds of points, I would recommend ‘Flint Artifacts of North Africa’ by Dave Greenwell, which is very well illustrated.

[unclemac]

perfect, thanks!

[joshuaream]

Originally they were plentiful, cheap and authentic. They are still relatively plentiful, cheap and largely authentic, but you aren't seeing people buying them in bulk for less than pennies a piece anymore and shipping them over as mineral samples.

The other thing that you will occasionally see is rechipping, if perfect points are worth a buck, the broken ones were essentially worthless. If notches are worth a penny more, people will notch unnotched points.