Washington Quartz Crystal

[scepter1]

Puget Sound, Washington State. Only quartz crystal piece I've ever seen here.

 

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[SCrocks]

Nice find you have. Yep those crystal points are few and far between.

 

[scepter1]

Nice find you have. Yep those crystal points are few and far between.

It's an out-of-place stone/point. Would be really intersting to know how it got here...

 

[willjo]

Nice find Southfork on here find them on a regular basis.

 

[scepter1]

Nice find Southfork on here find them on a regular basis.

Thanks.

Southfork's profile has him in California, probably several hundred miles away from me. Are you suggesting the quartz point could be from there?

 

[willjo]

I did not read your statement good enough and looked at the statement seen here as this forum not Washington state.

 

[unclemac]

I think the lack of those points is due to the fact that it isn't great lithic material and the natives here had an abundance of good and varied stone.

 

[scepter1]

I think the lack of those points is due to the fact that it isn't great lithic material and the natives here had an abundance of good and varied stone.

Which makes it even more curious. That and the fact that there are no quartz crystals here even if they wanted to knap one. I hunt/dig/collect quartz crystals, and the nearest location is in the Cascade mountains at the top of Snoqualmie Pass (Denny Mountain), close to where there was a Native American cross-mountain path to eastern Washington. But again why, as there are other better stones available - so I suspect it has traveled a greater distance.

 

[southfork]

Are you saying there no Quartz or Quartz Crystal along the Columbia river drainage ? They loved colorful stone in the pacific N.west and used it all including rock crystal keep looking .

 

[unclemac]

no, he is saying quartz crystals...you know, clear like glass. The material for his point could have washed down some river drainage system too. We find a lot of seam quartz, carnelian, chalcedony, jasper, and the like...I know a guy with an Ellensburg blue quillomine point...prettiest thing you ever seen.

 

[scepter1]

The drainages to Puget Sound are (and always have been) separate from the Columbia River. The Columbia has many quartz based materials like agate, jasper, pet. wood, opal. etc. but not quartz crystals. Most of the Columbia material was brought in by the "Missoula Floods", named for the ice dams in Montana that repeatedly broke and created some of the world's largest floods - waters up to 1,200 feet high and moving up to 80 mph, and traveling 500 miles from Montana to the Pacific Ocean. Native Americans also brought in mostly Oregon materials like obsidian, jaspers & agates to the Columbia area.

 

[Charl]

There may be some confusion in terms here. Quartz crystal is one thing. Crystalline quartz is not the same thing. In other words, quartz can appear as faceted crystals, both clear and opaque crystals. But you can also have crystalline quartz, which is simply clear quartz. It does not have to appear as a quartz crystal in order to be crystalline(clear) quartz. Gee, that even makes my head spin, lol, but hopefully you get the picture. I could have a big raw chunk of crystalline-grade quartz, but it would not be in the form of a faceted quartz crystal. I don't think they would normally try to knapp a quartz crystal per se anyway. Quite often, on the other hand, quartz crystals might become part of a shaman's medicine bag.....

 

[southfork]

There may be some confusion in terms here. Quartz crystal is one thing. Crystalline quartz is not the same thing. In other words, quartz can appear as faceted crystals, both clear and opaque crystals. But you can also have crystalline quartz, which is simply clear quartz. It does not have to appear as a quartz crystal in order to be crystalline(clear) quartz. Gee, that even makes my head spin, lol, but hopefully you get the picture. I could have a big raw chunk of crystalline-grade quartz, but it would not be in the form of a faceted quartz crystal. I don't think they would normally try to knapp a quartz crystal per se anyway. Quite often, on the other hand, quartz crystals might become part of a shaman's medicine bag.....

Most if not all of my Quartz points come from faceted crystals some of the cores are large and lot of small crystals that have been broken off of clusters . I have a large number of well made rock crystal points . Here's a large crystal from a couple of days ago .

 

[Lucky Eddie]

If it was knapped into an arrow point - might it not have traveled over land as say an arrow embedded into a wounded animal, in a non lethal position, or conversely into a marine animal, mammal, bird, fish or whatever?

Maybe something then killed and ate the animal and the arrow head was left behind in that position?

I have found such napped points myself from first nations people - that were 50 miles or so from the nearest known source of the rock, so they definitely do travel various distances with humans as spear and arrow points.

 

[unclemac]

it is sure true that rocks move around for a variety of reasons, trade, glaciers, rivers, tides, volcanoes, etc. I have often associated points from smaller streams with wounded animals.

 

[Bajahunter]

This is the crystal point that brought me to t-net.
It was found in the mountains west of San Felipe Baja California.
The source of the material is about ten miles south of where I found it.
The natural shards of crystal quartz are so sharp that a dog can't walk there. No need to make a knife or scraper when you can just go pick them up off the ground.

 

[scepter1]

There may be some confusion in terms here. Quartz crystal is one thing. Crystalline quartz is not the same thing. In other words, quartz can appear as faceted crystals, both clear and opaque crystals. But you can also have crystalline quartz, which is simply clear quartz. It does not have to appear as a quartz crystal in order to be crystalline(clear) quartz. Gee, that even makes my head spin, lol, but hopefully you get the picture. I could have a big raw chunk of crystalline-grade quartz, but it would not be in the form of a faceted quartz crystal. I don't think they would normally try to knapp a quartz crystal per se anyway. Quite often, on the other hand, quartz crystals might become part of a shaman's medicine bag.....

True, "It does not have to appear as a quartz crystal in order to be crystalline(clear) quartz" - but it is really RARE here.

Had a discussion with a couple of Washington State geologists whom told me that crystalline(clear) quartz does not exist in the Northwest without having habit (faceted) looking sides . But they were convinced it's true when I showed them some photos of quartz nodules I dug on the other side (eastern) of the Cascade mountains at the 5,300 foot level. I dug, cut, and tumble polished these two nodules below. On the first one, the first layer of rind clearly shows it's a round nodule and not a cystal point.

 

[old digger]

I occasionally find that clear quartz in my area. I am sure that it may have been brought into your area through trading or tribal migration.


A sample from my area.

 

[scepter1]

" quartz crystals might become part of a shaman's medicine bag....."

I wonder if they knew about "Triboluminescence" the optical phenomenon in which light is generated when quartz is rubbed togerther, broken, or crushed, giving flashes of light. Creates a bit of a stink too. A shaman could make a real dramatic show by making light from rocks...

 

[unclemac]

I am sure they had a lot of tricks up their sleeves...every culture on every continent...