Question about Arrowheads

[smurf-42]

Please don't laugh at this question, I am new to metal detecting and searching for treasures. I plan on detecting an area where Indians were known to travel and started doing research on the area.

Besides digging and getting lucky to find an arrowhead, does a MD help locate them too?

Told you I am new, lol, but having fun learning.

Sue

 

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[Kentucky Kache]

Detectors work for metal only. Freshly plowed fields after a rain is a good place and time to hunt arrowheads. Some people find them in creeks too.

 

[Ramapirate]

Arrowheads are usually found on the western slope of a hill next to a creek. You find strays otherwise
, but if you want to find more, that's where to start. There's a spot in Statesville, N.C. that's now
covered by a garage and parking lot that I hunted back in the late 80's that I picked up literally a paper grocery bag full in 45 minutes. There was a fellow that lived on the property that sold old Regina
Music Boxes and my brother and a buddy of his had gone there to pick up one the fellow was restoring for
my brother's buddy's wife. He knew I wasn't into the music boxes so he grabbed four paper bags and started putting them one inside the other and handed them to me and said "Here, go find you some arrowheads!" I asked him why such a big bag? and he told me that I'd know the answer in about 10 minutes. You could not scrape the ground with your fingernail in an area the size of a Seven Eleven that there was not a point!! I
flipped out! I felt like I was dreaming. I filled up the sack and even asked the man if he wanted some of them.
He told be to check out his "museum" attached to the back of his garage. He had nothing but pristine, sharp,
beautiful poits of every description. He has since sold the property and it has been paved over. I talked to him about two months ago and was so bummed.

HH,
Ramapirate

 

[smurf-42]

Thanks for the replies.

I didn't think a MD would pick up arrowheads but wanted to make sure. The hillside does face west, but I haven't found any streams. I do have some pics posted that I took on my first walk to look at the area. You can find them http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,184276.0.html

Sue

 

[N.J.THer]

Arrowheads are usually found on the western slope of a hill next to a creek.

I know nothing about arrowheads but why the western slope?

NJ

 

[Ramapirate]

Don't really know. I'm a flintknapper and a lot of my buddies that are into flintknapping are also
into hunting points. Every one of the guys I talked to said that was the best place to start if you
were looking for points. Most everytime I've looked on the western slope coming up from a creek
that had that also had any knapable flint had at least some flakes if not points. But you also have
to be in an area where there could have been activity. I don't know the reasoning behind it.

HH,
Ramapirate

 

[N.J.THer]

Ramapirate,
Thanks for the information. I still don't know why but if I ever start looking for points (which I'm sure I will on day) I will start on the western slope.

For everyone else that does not know what a flintknapper is (yes, I had to look it up):

Flint knapping is the process of making stone tools (i.e. arrowheads, projectile points, hand axes, etc.). The ancient art of flint knapping has been around for about 4 millions years. Flint knapping has evolved as man has evolved. And it was not until recently that man quit knapping for survival purposes. Only a few small groups of people in remote parts of the world still knap as part of their daily lives. Flint knapping is a reduction process because flakes of stone are broken off the of the original piece of stone. Knappers, both ancient and modern, generally begin knapping a piece of stone with direct percussion. Direct percussion is accomplished by directly striking the stone which is to be made into a projectile point, etc., with a tool, such as a hammerstone or antler billet to remove large flakes. The purpose of direct percussion is to thin the stone to the required thickness. Generally, the next step is pressure flaking. Pressure flaking is achieved by placing a pointed tool, such as an antler tine or copper-tipped pressure flaker, on the edge of the stone, and applying an inward pressure to the tool. This pressure will remove a small, thin flake from the stone. Pressure flaking shapes and refines the projectile point. Finishing a point can include notching, stemming, fluting, etc.

Thanks again

NJ

 

[Ramapirate]

Here's a couple of my duds. Everything nice I've made I've given away to friends,
but you can get the general idea from these. The shiny one is obsidian and the other
is dacite. I haven't gotten to the point (no pun intended) that I can do percussion
that great, so I stick to using a Ishi stick (a thick hard piece of copper wire mounted in a sick.
I could teach anyone on here how to do it in about an hour, but you can spend years
perfecting the process. I could have you to the point you could make an arrowhead though.

HH,
Ramapirate

 

[Ramapirate]

That was meant to be "stick" not "sick". I was afraid that you'd have thought it was a flintknapping term.

HH,
Ramapirate