Post Your Thumb Scrapers if you have some

[Tnmountains]

Open posting. Post those little uniface thumb scrapers we find. Here are a few and will post more if people are interested...

 

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[diggingthe1]

I have thought about about those questions also. I think whoever left it got sidetracked and forgot it. It was quite a hike. Here is a picture with a quarter.

 

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[DaveSmith]

Absolutely beautiful digging, I would love that one too!

 

[Volfannumber1]

Nice ones man.

 

[Volfannumber1]

That looks like one of the pictures in my Overstreet 15th edition.

 

[DaveSmith]

Imaudigger,
I asked a friend that knaps if he could make stuff out of quartz, he said"those boys were good"! That may be the reason there aren't as many to be found. And my pic is beside a silver dollar not a quarter so probably takes me out of second place lol

 

[uniface]

Re-runs --

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/n...facts/137700-some-paleo-tools-joshuareem.html


http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/north-american-indian-artifacts/137562-enterline-scrapers.html


http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/n...ts/136885-paleo-spurred-endscraper-blade.html

 

[GrouseMan]

My first and only, made out of crystal quartz! Found last week.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

There was a lot of knowledge being freely offered back in the day here.
Decade later... Uniface has been consistent it seems. Thanks.

 

[sandchip]

I have thought about about those questions also. I think whoever left it got sidetracked and forgot it... View attachment 1847137

That always seems to be the general line of reasoning on artifacts like yours and other items like unfinished bannerstones, etc. Aside from simply losing it as we all have done with tools, money, etc., we must never discount the very real possiblilty of some natural disaster separating belongings from its owner. There were tornadoes, hurricanes, flash floods, wildfires, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes back then, just the way there are today, not to mention sudden attacks by other groups. Why would someone leave behind such beautiful artifacts? Probably didn't.

Beautiful scraper. About as pretty a material as one could imagine.

 

[Charl]

Do I hold the record for smallest uniface thumbnail scraper?
Most of the thumbnail scrapers shown so far are pretty large.

View attachment 1846867

Must have been of small stature.

View attachment 1846879

I thought I might give you a run for your money, but, no, not quite, lol....Not even close, lol...

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

I thought I might give you a run for your money, but, no, not quite, lol....Not even close, lol...

View attachment 1866480

Nice! Kind of a butterscotch chert? I’ve seen some flakes that color around here.
So far I haven’t quite seen any as delicate as that one I posted. Funny thing is, I picked it up at least once and discarded it in an area littered with leaves, before coming back months later, armed with more knowledge (learned here).

 

[Charl]

Nice! Kind of a butterscotch chert? I’ve seen some flakes that color around here.
So far I haven’t quite seen any as delicate as that one I posted. Funny thing is, I picked it up at least once and discarded it in an area littered with leaves, before coming back months later, armed with more knowledge (learned here).

It’s jasper, sourced either in RI, or Pa., they are visually impossible to separate. But, jasper is a form of chert. Jasper is fairly rare at my sites, I save every flake. Dump the bag out, and go through them and I’ll always find a micro tool. They made lots of flake tools out of jasper, did not waste it very often I guess.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

It’s jasper, sourced either in RI, or Pa., they are visually impossible to separate. But, jasper is a form of chert. Jasper is fairly rare at my sites, I save every flake. Dump the bag out, and go through them and I’ll always find a micro tool. They made lots of flake tools out of jasper, did not waste it very often I guess.

Sometimes I wonder if they didn’t wedge a small flake into a split stick or bone and use it as a micro blade, kind of like an exact-o knife. Would be much easier to utilize than trying to hold a small sharp edge in your bare hands.

 

[uniface]

FWIW, they almost certainly wedge endscrapers into bones with the ends cut off for exerting pressure comfortably in use. But microblades were almost necessarily hand-held. Partly because the cutting edges were so small to begin with, and partly because, being thin, they'd easily snap if pressure was exerted on them. You don't need much force with a razor blade.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

FWIW, they almost certainly wedge endscrapers into bones with the ends cut off for exerting pressure comfortably in use. But microblades were almost necessarily hand-held. Partly because the cutting edges were so small to begin with, and partly because, being thin, they'd easily snap if pressure was exerted on them. You don't need much force with a razor blade.

I was thinking along the lines of avoiding injuries. Small razor sharp objects are a little risky to work with. That’s why I like having a handle on generally all razors. Control and safety.

 

[uniface]

If you're talking about 1.5 inchers, that's one thing. Many of the jasper/heated Onondaga ones I recall finding cores for produced blades +/- 10 mm.

 

[IMAUDIGGER]

I went out and tried to find a scraper this evening.
Found a broken bird point and a quartz crystal which I think was carried in from somewhere else.

I’m thinking I need to rip the field I’m searching rather than disc it. Maybe I’ll buy a double bottom plow and see if I can’t turn something up that way. Hate to break stuff, but it won’t see the light if day if I don’t do some earthwork.