Any arrowhead collectors out there, would appreciate your advice !

Midwest4 · Apr 12, 2020

I appreciate any info that arrowhead collectors can give me on this find, for having grown up in an Indian rich area, I'm surprised I never found one sooner!

This arrowhead was found yesterday in my backyard while digging out a path (Ohio). It was only about 3 inches deep but imagine that when this was agriculture land (up until the early 1950's when the burb was put in), so I imagine the farm plows or the home construction disturbed it from a deeper area. Does anyone know the approx age, era, material...etc.

It's approx 2 inches long and 1 inch wide at its base.

Thank you in advance!

Tdog · Apr 16, 2020

I never said an impact drove flakes along both sides. The side you posted may have been that way before an impact. It looks like a fair amount of material was lost at the tip on the side I posted. There's clearly a point of percussion at the tip and radiating downward toward the base on the piece in that pic. Seems unlikely to me that the knapper would take the tip off trying to thin it further.

uniface · Apr 16, 2020

By the same token though, he hinged it on both sides trying to thin it from the sides behind the tip. Then he either didn't set up the attempted thinning from the tip properly or just got the angle wrong. The whole thing struck me as the work of a guy who didn't know what he was doing when it was posted, & the more detail we dial in, the stronger that impression seems on this end.

YMMV

FWIW

Relicgrubber · Apr 16, 2020

Or it could have been hit by a plow twice in the same general area some time through the ages.

So double impact fracture.

uniface · Apr 16, 2020

Lone enough ago that the surfaces of the plough breaks match the tip thinning (patina)

Older The Better · Apr 16, 2020

Tdog said:
I never said an impact drove flakes along both sides. The side you posted may have been that way before an impact. It looks like a fair amount of material was lost at the tip on the side I posted. There's clearly a point of percussion at the tip and radiating downward toward the base on the piece in that pic. Seems unlikely to me that the knapper would take the tip off trying to thin it further.

Kinda what I’m trying to say. Even if one is an impact fracture. There was still another flake driven from the tip on the other side. I also agree that a knapper wouldn’t take the tip off a point to thin it. So I have to ask why did they? A scraper would make sense if that wasn’t the business end of this piece then they wouldn’t have any problems removing flakes from that direction. But that is just my interpretation. Could very well be a knife or a dart point. I’m not as dug in on this as it’s coming across haha.

uniface · Apr 17, 2020

I also agree that a knapper wouldn’t take the tip off a point to thin it.

For whatever little it may be worth, I don't. If the sides are stacked and you want it thinned, you go along the axis because that's the only way left to go. (Or underneath to submarine it off, but there's not enough meat there for that).

Older The Better · Apr 17, 2020

At the risk of being more confusing I agree with that too. Assuming it was still in the earlier stages a thinning strike from that angle isn’t unheard of. But if you look at those removals as final strikes on a mostly finished piece then it makes less sense as a point. why wouldn’t you come back along the sides and resharpen the point? Maybe that’s the answer, after stacking from both sides and trying and failing to remove it from the tip the maker gave up on it.

uniface · Sep 22, 2020

It probably gets tedious having this pointed out, but a lot of ambiguous artifacts were not either/or cases.

A flake core necessarily develops an edge capable of (secondary) use ; continue that process long enough and you can end up with items like the one pictured. Possibly even with hafted points/knives.