Charl
Silver Member
First of all, I have no idea why spellcheck butchered my title, but I can't edit it out, so I have to live with it, lol...
The wife and I went on our first field hunt of the Spring on Tuesday, and I returned for a few hours yesterday. We have recovered several hundred quartz points from this field over 25+ years, most all being Squibnocket Stemmed, or Wading River points. At one time, it was all corn, and we could walk it until the corn was as high as an elephant's eye.
But in recent years, the farmer started growing other veggies, and, in keeping with a recent trend hereabouts, growing the crops under plastic. I originally thought this was to create a greenhouse effect for the seedlings, but it's actually a type of weed control. And it means get in the field after he plows, but before he plants. Without rain, we're outta luck now. But, it poured Monday, so we had a shot this year.
These were the best from Monday. Two Squibnocket Stemmed(named for a pond on Martha's Vineyard), and a small quartz scraper.
Looking at the tip of the bigger point in profile, looks like we were lucky it survived:
And here are my finds from yesterday. The crystal point ain't much, but always nice to find crystal quartz. The argillite tool is interesting for having a white "worm trail". They are not really worm trails, that's just what collectors call 'em.
The oddly resharpened tip brings to mind something I learned only last year, from the late Jeff Boudreau, in his revised New England typology guide. It's something that is true of both Squibnocket Stemmed and Wading River points. He states: "It appears that Squibnocket Stemmed points were often used for cutting, graving, boring, or scoring operations. When newly made or resharpened they may have had needle-like tips....."
Squbnockets and Wading Rivers seem like such obvious projectiles, so it came as a big surprise to me to learn that most were not used as projectiles at all....
The wife and I went on our first field hunt of the Spring on Tuesday, and I returned for a few hours yesterday. We have recovered several hundred quartz points from this field over 25+ years, most all being Squibnocket Stemmed, or Wading River points. At one time, it was all corn, and we could walk it until the corn was as high as an elephant's eye.
But in recent years, the farmer started growing other veggies, and, in keeping with a recent trend hereabouts, growing the crops under plastic. I originally thought this was to create a greenhouse effect for the seedlings, but it's actually a type of weed control. And it means get in the field after he plows, but before he plants. Without rain, we're outta luck now. But, it poured Monday, so we had a shot this year.
These were the best from Monday. Two Squibnocket Stemmed(named for a pond on Martha's Vineyard), and a small quartz scraper.
Looking at the tip of the bigger point in profile, looks like we were lucky it survived:
And here are my finds from yesterday. The crystal point ain't much, but always nice to find crystal quartz. The argillite tool is interesting for having a white "worm trail". They are not really worm trails, that's just what collectors call 'em.
The oddly resharpened tip brings to mind something I learned only last year, from the late Jeff Boudreau, in his revised New England typology guide. It's something that is true of both Squibnocket Stemmed and Wading River points. He states: "It appears that Squibnocket Stemmed points were often used for cutting, graving, boring, or scoring operations. When newly made or resharpened they may have had needle-like tips....."
Squbnockets and Wading Rivers seem like such obvious projectiles, so it came as a big surprise to me to learn that most were not used as projectiles at all....
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