diggetydoggy
Newbie
Here are artifacts found during an excavation where a new house is being built on the bluff above Little Falls on the Potomac River. Most items were found peeling away the excavated walls at a uniform depth (about 1.5 feet) below the present surface. Stratigraphy seemed intact with extensive quartz debitage capping the old surface horzizon. The stone is mostly (one pottery sherd photographed) the usual indigenous people's toolkit for the area. A few exotic stone materials were found, one of which I initially thought was petrified bone. Now, I'm thinking perhaps a strike-a-light or gunflint. There was a glass fragment that was found amongst Indian artifacts and was thinking that perhaps the flint and glass might be associated with the Potomac Rangers fort that existed in the area (there are only theories of its actual location).
Some descriptions of the artifacts in the photos:
Hamerstone - dense rock that fits in hand comfortably. - Battered edges
Heating stone? - reddish, round oblong shape for easy tong grip. Slightly potmarked. Or . . . a cosmetic mortar and applicator (course surface)
Rough gouger - quartz, planer-shaped, thumbpush hump on back
Rough gouger - rhyolite, long sharp nose,
Ovate rhyolite
Ovate quartzititic
Teshoa/Ulu quartzitic knife (Shoshonean Woman’s knife) made with an exfoliated cobble rind of fire-cracked rock.
Broken bifurcate, chalcedony, not found in situ (newly broken?)
Flint (gunflint, strike-a-light?)
Bifurcate quartz, resembles LeCroy projectile point
Points quartz and rhyolite - assymetric shoulders, rhyolite (helgrammite-like)
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