From spearpoint to tools

[undertaker]

Heres a couple reworked points I have found. It seems like they reworked alot of points, as I find quite a few. Ive been told these are scrapers which Im sure they are but some just dont have that good sharp scraper edge. I could see if they where a blunt tip for a arrow, but I dont know why they would have a blunt spear tip.

 

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[pickaway]

Maybe pentagonal base hafted scrapers(Archaic)Nice finds

 

[Bob Young]

If the working end is chipped from one face only, it's a scraper. If the working end is chipped from both faces leaving the edge in the centerline, then it's probably an end knife.

Bob

 

[Cannonman17]

I have found some like that but I can't say a lot. I think that when points broke (away from quarry sites in particular) if they could recover it and there was enough left they would have tried to use it- these appear to me at least to be points that were broken and reworked into hafted tools. Hafted knives/scrapers... often times IMO there isn't a whole lot of difference. I say that mostly because I have done a lot of experimental archaeology field dressing and processing animals using primitive technologies and I can tell you that simple flakes often make better knives than knives do. Just as an example, I field dressed and later processed a wild turkey for my friend with a knife I had made.. It worked quite well to start with but by the time I was about half done my knife was showing definate signs of wearing down and needed a little retouching to sharpen it. In contrast some large flakes I had used worked even better (they cut like a razor blade) and as long as I just used them for soft tissue they stayed sharp for a while (the knife I was using to cut joints, tendons, and soft tissue). Another thing that I realized while doing these crazy experiments (sometimes my friends found this all to be quite entertaining) is that I often found myself using these tools in more than one capacity. The same simple knife I used to field dress a rabbit (very similar to the ones you have found here) worked well for seperating the skin away from the body but also worked fine for scraping residual fatty deposits from the skin after it was off. I guess I just hesitate to label a thing a knife, scraper, spear, etc. because I firmly believe that these tools were more often than not used in more than one way. "If the working end is chipped from one face only, it's a scraper. If the working end is chipped from both faces leaving the edge in the centerline, then it's probably an end knife." I think that this is true as far as how we identify artifacts but doesn't tell just how resourceful these Native Americans were. I haven't been reading up on lithic use wear analysis much lately but I do know that much of the research done in this area has confirmed that microscopic analysis of the ancient tools confirms that they had been used for more than one purpose. I don't know if any of this makes sense to anybody or if I'm just rambl'n on again but here it is anyways. Happy Holidays.