Stone artifact collection from S/E Michigan

[mspsarge]

This collection of stone artifacts was found in Lenawee County here in southeast Michigan. This county and my hometown of Tecumseh had the reputation of several Indian trails intersecting with many different tribes gathering for trading purposes. The trails are now state trunklines, US-12, US-127, M-50. These artifacts were collected by the individual farming his fields over several years.

I welcome any and all comments. If anyone can get specific on certain points, all the better. This collection will never leave the family. Thank you for looking as this is my 2nd post following an introduction.

Greg

 

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[Tnmountains]

Looks like a real nice old collection. It looks like a clovis point to me. I am no expert though. Many in there are worth discussion just by themselves. Welcome to T-Net. I saw your other post with the found repros. Keep them away from these field finds.

 

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[mspsarge]

Interesting comments and pix. Thanks to all contributors

Greg

 

[katdancing]

can someone identify the type of stone used for the 4 pictures above. I have some that resemble those, but I have no clue as to the stone used. your finds are great. congratulations

 

[Get-the-point]

Welcome to the Forum Sarge!! First thing nice display of artifacts. I like the 4/4 grooved axe. The possible clovis point looks to be a possible Sloan Dalton. Not ruling out clovis though. Many Archaic types in that frame.......Now Greg you need to start finding them and learning more about them..............Happy Hunting to ya................GTP(Chris)

 

[WolframRaven]

Some of those points, like the clovis on the bottom left, could be as many as 14 thousand years old, they were used to hunt GIANT animals with atlatl (spear throwing sticks) which is why most of those are not notched in the first place... the more even it was with the haft of the dart//arrow//spear, the easier it would penetrate the skin of something like a Mammoth. They most certainly did hunt these in Michigan, as I have personally found petroglyphs matching those figures on the only KNOWN petroglyphs in Michigan (those on the Sanilac Michigan site that is in the Saginaw area). I have found many of the hunter and bow with the pointed heads and a female version of the same kind of glyph over and over, I will post some of these later on. I have also found war hammer heads and ax heads/Hand axes and even a MASTODON tooth broke off of a cluster, that has been worked into an archaic paleo tool (looks like a pointy hand ax, but could definitely be a spear point). I find many effigies, mostly birds, have you run into any of this? They mostly seem to be owls, either horned owls, or barn owls, but there are lots of others too, lizards, turtles, rabbits, etc. I have a monolithic dagger/spear point which is an owl in flight, completely knapped and pecked/polished to look like a bird in flight with it's wings back and like it is coming in for a kill. I also have an archaic uniface ax that is an effigy of a person with an elongated (pointed) head that is pecked and polished on the outer rock side and ground pecked polished and chiseled/"burin" to make certain facial features in relief and others carved in to give depth and character to the face. The eyes seem to be painted or tattooed in a 6 spoke pattern, and the mouth is grinning but looks to have sharpened teeth. It looks quite like what you think an elf would look like actually, as ridiculous as this sounds. Probably just a headpiece like the Iroquois Tribal headpiece that hangs to one or both sides that I am mistaking for ears, but could they have kept the headpiece tradition so similar for so long or is the ear actually elongated? I digress... I commend this point/tool/scraper collection You have mostly items there from right at the end of the ice age all the way up through about 600 A.D. in your collection there. Quite scientifically AND monetarily valuable, but if you aren't going to sell or donate them to a museum, then you should at least share the pics with U of M or Michigan State. They may want the pics for their own studies on the cultures that passed through here, of which there were countless in the last 20 thousand years or so... send me a message if you want some websites that deal with identifying the pieces you have individually for your own sense of knowledge. You live around an hour from me and I find quite the same thing where I am, but the thing with farms is the plows mess up the stratification of artifacts which makes dating them a thing for people who have studied points at stratified locations to date each one correctly? I hope this helps... - Bruce

 

[WolframRaven]

The hole in this particular piece totally looks drilled... It is the right type of material to drill out if one wanted to, and as it is a side notched knife blade IMHO I would see why a hole would be beneficial, great way to hang a knife on yourself in case of emergency instead of having to knapp another one on the fly, especially in a hunt or fight...

 

[catherine1]

You think that hole was drilled. Have you ever found a drilled artifact?

 

[sandchip]

....This collection will never leave the family...

That's what I would've said about my frame of birdpoints a month ago. Lock 'em away safely! Anyways, welcome aboard and you've got some nice points there.

As far as the holey point goes, a lot of the Coastal Plains Chert down here is formed from limestone that becomes agatized. For whatever reason, sometimes there are inclusions in the chert of softer material that is protected for eons until the point was made, exposing the inclusion to the elements, mainly acidic soil for the next 3 or 4 thousand years while the point lies in the soil waiting for you to find it. The inclusion is leached out leaving the hole. No, it wasn't drilled.

 

[redbeardrelics]

Very nice collection of points. The bottom left points looks to be a fluted paleo period point to me as well, probably the oldest one in the frame. In the top row, 6th one from the left, looks like it may have a short basal flute as well, and could be a late paleo point from what I can see. Again in the top row, 9th point from the left, that dark notched point looks like it might be a Jacks Reef point, which would make it "only" about 1000 to 1500 years old.

 

[JohnK5]

Hey that's pretty cool. I have a dozen arrowheads that someone bought for me when I was kid. They would be from Tecumseh or Clinton I believe. One interesting thing is that someone wrote the date on one in pencil..it was found in 1937! Not nearly as old as the actual artifacts but cool nonetheless. I took my small collection to my friends girlfriend who is a u of m grad, but she said they would be hard to identify without location ID. He saw your post and knowing I am from area told me I should put mine up. By the way, if you don't mind my asking, what area (general) are yours from?