Perplexed

[BobGuy]

Hi everyone,

I’m hoping someone can help shed some light on something that has me perplexed.

I’ve recently started paying more attention to the creek banks and have started noticing layers of charcoal which appear to be from ancient campfires. The pictures are really bad but the black specks and smears that you see in the red circles Are definitely charcoal. These layers are 6-8 feet below the top of the bank so I’m not sure what else they would be.

However, at one of the places I saw some jawbones sticking out of the bank in the same layer as the charcoal that I found. I am almost positive that it is a modern cow. I’ve done a little research on bison jaws and teeth and I’m pretty sure it’s not a bison. Plus, it looks like there is a cut mark from a modern saw...

How do you suppose a modern cow skull could have been embedded into the bank of a creek in the layer of ancient activity?? That is if the charcoal is in fact ancient but not sure what else it would be from..

??

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

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[ptsofnc]

In the creek I artifact hunt, there are several deep ditches that feed into the creek. In the past 200+ years these ditches were convenient cavities to dump assorted trash by our ancestors (and maybe covered over with dirt). My creek (the banks) have greatly eroded in the past 40 years or so, especially in the last few years with all the above normal rain we've been having. The creek was 10 feet across 50 years ago. Now the creek has widened to 25' to 40' across and into the "trash ditches".

However there is one spot that I noticed charcoal specks 2' down in the newly eroded bank and discovered it was due to NA activity. Found a nutting stone, flakes of rhyolite, and fire cracked rock eroding out at that spot. So there. I'm sure I haven't helped at all lol.

 

[sandchip]

In the creek I artifact hunt, there are several deep ditches that feed into the creek. In the past 200+ years these ditches were convenient cavities to dump assorted trash by our ancestors (and maybe covered over with dirt). My creek (the banks) have greatly eroded in the past 40 years or so, especially in the last few years with all the above normal rain we've been having. The creek was 10 feet across 50 years ago. Now the creek has widened to 25' to 40' across and into the "trash ditches".

However there is one spot that I noticed charcoal specks 2' down in the newly eroded bank and discovered it was due to NA activity. Found a nutting stone, flakes of rhyolite, and fire cracked rock eroding out at that spot. So there. I'm sure I haven't helped at all lol.

Sounds reasonable to me.

Not to change the subject, but is that a telegraph insulator in the picture with the jawbone? Wouldn't mind seeing pictures of it, too.

 

[BobGuy]

In the creek I artifact hunt, there are several deep ditches that feed into the creek. In the past 200+ years these ditches were convenient cavities to dump assorted trash by our ancestors (and maybe covered over with dirt). My creek (the banks) have greatly eroded in the past 40 years or so, especially in the last few years with all the above normal rain we've been having. The creek was 10 feet across 50 years ago. Now the creek has widened to 25' to 40' across and into the "trash ditches".

However there is one spot that I noticed charcoal specks 2' down in the newly eroded bank and discovered it was due to NA activity. Found a nutting stone, flakes of rhyolite, and fire cracked rock eroding out at that spot. So there. I'm sure I haven't helped at all lol.

That’s essentially what is happening with this creek but I just don’t understand how the bones could literally be embedded in that layer. Maybe there was a fallen tree there at one time that the cow got pinned behind and over time the bones got pushed into the bank and into that layer??

 

[metrotec]

take it to a vet

 

[ptsofnc]

That does look like a saw cut mark.

 

[joshuaream]

Is the area around the creek natural? Is the creek old or a newer drainage? (If you look up old maps of your county, is it on the old maps?)

That stain and charcoal look like old fire pit sections to me, but a burned out stump from a 100 years ago can look the same... One potential scenario is that the creek is cutting through some old field clearing work or an old levee and the fire pit isn't that old. You can find relics that were brought/dozed in with the fill dirt.

 

[joshuaream]

take it to a vet

Post up and better picture of the teeth. Someone here might be able to identify.

 

[ToddsPoint]

When you see charcoal in a bank...a side view, it's called a lens. Years ago on the IL River they built a new bridge and dug a huge borrow pit in the river valley. A friend of mine put a small boat in the pit and searched the banks for charcoal lenses every night after work. He found them too. Every day, the pit would fill in with water a little more and he could search higher. He would dig out the lenses and recover artifacts. The last lens he found was 17' below the present surface and had Mississippian triangle arrowpoints. Gary

 

[newnan man]

A friend & I were digging in Hog Town Creek in Gainesville back in the early 80's (when it was still allowed). He found a small red coral triangle about 2' down right next to a soda can. Moving water does some strange stuff.

 

[unclemac]

why can't that be an elk or deer?

 

[BobGuy]

why can't that be an elk or deer?

I looked up what a deer jaw bone looks like and it is distinctly different

 

[BobGuy]

A friend & I were digging in Hog Town Creek in Gainesville back in the early 80's (when it was still allowed). He found a small red coral triangle about 2' down right next to a soda can. Moving water does some strange stuff.

Yes, water can do some really whacky things! That’s why I love the creeks so much. The most interesting features and landscapes appear near water.