Went metal detecting but found arrowheads

[Cal_Cobra]

A friend and I did some detecting around a ghost town out in the desert and on the way from our car to the site, my friend spotted a beautiful little bird point sitting on top of the ground.

The next time through the area between the car and the site, I started to study the ground and darned if I didn't find one sitting on the surface. It's the white (quartz??) one in the photo, unfortunately it's broken, but still was excited to find it. It wasn't too far away from where my buddy found his, so I started scanning the ground and found another one, this one is a beautiful little bird point, not sure what kind of stone it's made from, but it's translucent, which is pretty cool. The next day we returned to the site, and I found an obsidian scrapper. It's probably hard to tell in the photo, but the edge was flint knapped and sharp. I suspect they were hunting birds and rabbits in this area. I looked around for more, but didn't see any. The one on the bottom right of the photo that's fragment I found on a previous trip in the same area. It appears to be a fraction of a larger point, the edges are worked front and back, but broken off on two sides, so it's just a chunk of what was a larger piece.

If anyone has any info on these, I'd love to hear it. Obviously I don't want to give up our spot, so about all I can say is that there were found on the left coast.

HH,
Brian

 

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[choo]

Awesome finds I don't know much about points out west that white one would of been a killer still great finds!

 

[old digger]

Cool Finds!

Your white one with the wide notch on the right side looks like it might have been a halfted knife.

 

[rock]

That see thru one is very nice. Be careful picking them up in your state I heard they have some serious rules.

 

[NCPeaches]

Those are some awesome finds!

 

[sandchip]

Beautiful material!

 

[gilmerman]

I've had this happen to me, coin shooting and find chips and nice arrows.

 

[joshuaream]

Great looking finds. The deserts of California & Nevada might not have had big populations, but they were populated for well over 10K years. And those people were litterbugs. Depending on where you are, the higher elevations can also pay off, lots of little arrowhead camps and rock quarries up there.

There was a lot of hunting of pronghorn and bighorn sheep out your way in areas where they are no long found.

 

[Cal_Cobra]

Awesome finds I don't know much about points out west that white one would of been a killer still great finds!

It's a shame the white one wasn't complete.

Cool Finds!

Your white one with the wide notch on the right side looks like it might have been a halfted knife.

A knife, that would be interesting. I have some obsidian knifes, would be interesting to see what this one looked like before it was broke.

That see thru one is very nice. Be careful picking them up in your state I heard they have some serious rules.

These were surface finds, and the area we got them from (not CA) is OK to collect, although we were there to find old coins

Those are some awesome finds!

Thanks, I was stoked to find them

Beautiful material!

Thank you.

I've had this happen to me, coin shooting and find chips and nice arrows.

All part of the fun, you just never know what your you'll find when detecting

Great looking finds. The deserts of California & Nevada might not have had big populations, but they were populated for well over 10K years. And those people were litterbugs. Depending on where you are, the higher elevations can also pay off, lots of little arrowhead camps and rock quarries up there.

There was a lot of hunting of pronghorn and bighorn sheep out your way in areas where they are no long found.

I've been all over the desert, and every once in a while I'll encounter heards of pronghorn and bighorn sheep. Move around the desert enough and you'll encounter them, but they're a rare sighting. I imagine they were a prize for the natives to take down.

 

[arrow86]

Nice finds , that translucent one is beautiful , good eye finding them. Did you find some stuff metal detecting too? There may be some metal points out there

 

[Cal_Cobra]

Nice finds , that translucent one is beautiful , good eye finding them. Did you find some stuff metal detecting too? There may be some metal points out there

Thanks, that translucent one is my favorite. We did pretty well detecting, seated coins were found, a silver 1837 British shilling, and a few other finds. Once we get all our finds cleaned up and photographed I'll post them along with a little video in the Finds forum.

BTW I don't think there's any copper culture on the west coast. I've always found it odd that the natives on the west coast stayed in such a primitive state, never learned to refine metals, never built anything interesting/advanced, they were very simply hunters and gatherers. Move down south or east, and they had a much more complex culture. My theory is that the food was so plentiful, and weather was so mild on the west coast, that it never prompted them to make advancements, which were likely done out of necessity in many other native cultures. Just my theory, but I've always been mystified as to how primitive the west coast natives were, when not too far down south they were building pyramids, go east and they were building fantastic cities of adobe and stone, and also learned to refine and manipulate simple metals like gold, copper and silver. One thing they did excel at was fantastic basket weaving and point making. Once you get to the southern extremities of the west coast they were also making fired pottery, but I suspect that was something they learned from trading with more eastern or southern tribes.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

great post Brian.

 

[eastcoastdetectorist]

Those are some sweet points! Just the other day I found an arrowhead in one of my holes! It defiantly feels better than finding clad pennies!

 

[scruggs]

Those are beautiful artifacts, congratulations! You need to make a return and hit again! Good luck!!