Western Washington State points

[highnam]

I have been working for a builder and we started talking about arrowheads, he told me his 95 y/o father found a bunch of points on Whidbey Island while working fields with a horse as a boy.
I have looked for arrowheads for years and never found points from this area (shellfish eaters, didnt chip many arrowheads)

question #1:
are the majority of these points spear points and knives? Just a few arrowheads?

Qquestion #2:
what are the range of dates associated with this group? Anything really old or special?

Thank you guys!

 

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[Tdog]

I'd say there are more dart (spear) points and knives due to their apparent size. True arrow points intended to be launched with a bow would be small and thin IMO.

 

[highnam]

Could the smaller dart points been thrown from a atlatl? I recognize some knife blades and supposedly there is a fish knife in the group. The larger Spears have me wondering what was the purposeful use.

 

[Kray Gelder]

When they hunted deer, elk and seals, they needed something, right?

 

[southfork]

Without size reference this is just what I see and a guess . There appears to be a number of Cascade Cluster Knifes So early to middle Archaic 8000 - 5000 B.P. on part of the frame . And the smaller points look to be Darts no arrow points that I noticed .

 

[Tdog]

Could the smaller dart points been thrown from a atlatl? I recognize some knife blades and supposedly there is a fish knife in the group. The larger Spears have me wondering what was the purposeful use.

Yes they were for sure. Since the bow did not come into existence until around 2000 years ago (arguably), any projectile point older than that would have to be launched by hand. The atlatl has been around in North America from the beginning of human occupancy (about 13,000-15,000 years ago based on current archaeological evidence)--longer than that in Europe and elsewhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spear-thrower

 

[arrow86]

Some really nice artifacts in there .... kinda hard to ID them with that group pic any chance of getting some better pics ? There’s a few that look pretty old but closer pics of the bases and flaking would really help. Looks like a few gouges in there too

 

[CoinFetcher]

I live in the islands, whidbey is next door.

Finding artifacts around here is very hard. I had better luck when I lived in Seattle. I would walk the beach from Federal Way to Alki. Every 50 hours on the beach you’d come up with an arrowhead. I post them on this website about 10 years ago. The points in Seattle are all made of Jasper, and very beautiful. I have seen collections of arrowheads that came from the San Juan Islands, and they were mostly made of a black material, and the pieces barely register as arrowheads

 

[Tdog]

The larger Spears have me wondering what was the purposeful use.

When they hunted deer, elk and seals, they needed something, right?

Exactly--Megafauna which are large animals such as the ones just mentioned by KG plus Bison, Bear, Moose, and the now extinct species such as Mastodon, Woolly Mammoth and others. Some cultures also made very large ceremonial pieces that were not necessarily practical for hunting.

 

[joshuaream]

The islands up there didn't receive as much contact with groups on the mainland simple distance would suggest.

Most of those types are what you see further up the coast on Vancouver Island and even up to the very southern part of Alaska. ​

A lot of the types in Canada aren't clearly named like we do here. I'm sure they have names, but in archaeological reports they usually just date the site and show a picture of the items found there. This link should open up a paper with some cool pictures and dates of points. Surprising younger than some similar looking points from 100 miles away on the mainland.

http://archpress.lib.sfu.ca/index.php/archpress/catalog/download/40/12/513-1?inline=1

There are a couple of big slate harpoon pieces in there that were used for whales and swordfish in deep waters (both surface and can be speared relatively easily.)

Some of the points and technology behind how they might have been hafted and used is probably more similar to what Geradot posts in the always cool eye-candy thread Kamchatka Neolithic thread on the Eurasian forum. (The thread used to be here, but was mover over to another forum in the Artifacts section.) Although the Russians didn't reach Alaska until the 1700's, Iron, Bronze & Lead artifacts made it over through trade, drift wood from ship wrecks, etc. Here is a link to some of the more recent finds of metal items from before the Russians made it over looking for furs.

[SUB][SUP]https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...ade-between-asia-and-north-america-180959378/
[/SUP][/SUB]​

 

[highnam]

Fantastic information as always, thank you to those who contributed in the comments

 

[scepter1]

While it's Whidbey Island now, there's a good chance it wasn't an island when these artifacts were being used... This area also produced one of the few Clovis points in Western Washington.

 

[Tdog]

While it's Whidbey Island now, there's a good chance it wasn't an island when these artifacts were being used... This area also produced one of the few Clovis points in Western Washington.

THAT is a very good observation. It crossed my mind as well.