any good ideas how the points/blades ended up where found?

[chong2]

like for example a perfect point, no damage at all from being thrown, no impact fractures. think it was accidently droped, left as a offering, fell while chasing game/running from hostiles/predators. maybe shot and the dart tip got lost in the mud/bog, and over time the elements ate away the wood, string, and pitch? maybe one indian wife was mad ar her man and threw his prized point away? what is your idea on this?

 

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[Likely Guy]

Around here it was disease. Gold was discovered in 1859 and in 1862 a smallpox epidemic broke out, killing a third of the entire native population, almost 100% of the natives in the villages and hunting camps closest to the gold rush.

 

[chong2]

that was around the time they switched to metal tools and guns right?

 

[Likely Guy]

They'd been trading with the North West and Hudson's Bay Companies for about 60 years previously.

 

[jamey]

i bet snakes got quite a bit of them.big cats also.i dont think they prized them all that much,maybe like a new penny to us.indians killed other indians and probally just let them lay were they fell,everything you can imagine probally happened over 13,000 years. jamey

 

[SoIll]

Anything you could have imagined (like jamey said), but I think it was more like 18 to 20,000 years. Whatcha think about that?

 

[jamey]

yes i agree soil,im just going on what most people think.i know that most names and such were giving by the white man who will really never know who or what thier talking about. jamey

 

[Tnmountains]

like for example a perfect point, no damage at all from being thrown, no impact fractures. think it was accidently droped, left as a offering, fell while chasing game/running from hostiles/predators. maybe shot and the dart tip got lost in the mud/bog, and over time the elements ate away the wood, string, and pitch? maybe one indian wife was mad ar her man and threw his prized point away? what is your idea on this?

Chong
My beleif is that they could knap out point after point when they had time. When your next meal is still on the hoof you are moving a lot yourself. So you had camps. Winter and summer. You traveled with the seasons and used the same sites over and over and over again. You could not carry everything so you would stash that heavy pile of rocks(points /knifes) in your camps. Make a cache maybe. There is always the grave goods being uncovered by elements long after the bone is gone or eaten or washed away. Very few field finds are ever perfect and many that we find were just drops or throw aways for one reason or another. To us they are perfect though. Also the sites they had were burned out areas or grassy plains.The Indians burned everything to build up the wildlife. Why so many towns and farms are now on cleared know Indian sites. I imagine that in the grass the points would be easy to loose and why we see so many good ones that have fire fractures.

I also think the wife must have thrown many of his prize points out because he kept knapping in bed !! LOL
TnMountains

 

[jamey]

im so glad tn mountains is on this site,chong he gives some good advice dosent he? jamey

 

[RGINN]

Anything you could have imagined (like jamey said), but I think it was more like 18 to 20,000 years. Whatcha think about that?

I like that idea, SoIll. Do you not subscribe to the theory that my ancestors strolled across the Bering Strait at low tide and proceeded to exterminate the mammoths with pointed sticks a mere 10,000 years ago? I'm happy to see the time frame is being pushed back, by some folks anyway.

 

[One mans trash...]

I think there are a couple of things to think about. One is that even a well-formed point wouldn't likely be thought of in quite the same way we might think of it if we had made it. For most of us, producing a pretty good point would take considerable nit-picking concentration. It's just not something we do every day. A stone weapon hunter or food processor knocks them out quickly and with little effort. He wouldn't think much more of it than we would of sharpening a knife. We really have very few occasions to make our tools on the spur of the moment. He just happened to be limited to stone and bone, so that's what he worked with. And it was such a mundane task that he would just whip something up as a matter of course.

Now, put that together with the uses. Points for weapons. When your arrows and spears are wooden, and your wood cutting and shaping tools are stone, the shafts probably represent a lot more work than the point. They have to be cut, and while stone tools can be very efficient for cutting hide and meat, they're not very efficient for cutting and trimming wood. And an arrow, if it's to be used over any distance, needs to be straightened, which takes heat and another tool. If I'm hunting with such things, I would find that they most often kill by causing bleeding. No "knock-down" like we take for granted with firearms. So, maybe more often than not, I expect my weapon to be carried off as the animal runs away wounded. I have to follow up and hope he drops within a reasonable distance. I'm not going to follow a turkey for very long. If I didn't come up with it in less than an hour, I'd write that one off and find another. I might follow up larger game for longer, but if it didn't go down soon, I'd quit when I lost a blood trail, figuring it just isn't going to die.

So I have a choice. Bind my points fast to the shaft and risk losing point AND shaft, or bind it loose and save the shaft. I'd mount it very loosely. Can't do anything about the point anyway. Either the animal will die, and maybe I'll get it back unbroken, or it won't. I'm just not going to get too excited about the point. If I got the game, I eat, and I can make another point easily tonight while I sit there burping. Without making inquiries among peoples who hunt with projectiles that kill by bleeding, I'd guess that many - if not most - game animals carry off the point when hit by a single strike and survive or die much later. Consider how many in a good game area over 10,000 years, and that's a lot of points. Also a LOT of misses that could well be left behind if you'd rather pursue the game than hunt for an arrow. And, since points are loosely mounted, I can easily carry considerable "ammunition" and repoint my shafts, even on the run. Some of those get dropped and lost, too. I'm sure not going to give up a hot trail to stop and root around for a dropped point. And operating in this way means you make and use a LOT of points. No big deal for a man adept at making them.

It doesn't take a "perfect" point to do the job. It just has to penetrate. What's surprising is that there ARE so many very finely executed points. Probably the work from the "fat times" when you could afford to sit and work. And practices could be different in different places and for different purposes. In war, I might want to bind my points firmly. I want to disable, and a shaft sticking out is hard for a wounded enemy to deal with. And I'm not worried about traveling real light. The fight will be in one spot, and I want good rate of fire more than I want to keep the number of shafts down. If I win, I'll get them back. If I don't, I won't be worrying about that or anything else again.

There's just little to gain from firmly attaching points in hunting. I'm going to lose plenty of shafts anyway with very big game. The shaft's just going to stay in anyway sometimes, if it's in open country with nothing to knock or drag it out. As firearms people, we tend to imagine stone hunters thinking the same way about just their atalatl's or bows as we do about our guns. But I think they would feel just as attached to a nice spear or arrow shaft, maybe bringing out a favorite, perfectly straight, tried and trusted arrow for the one-chance long shot at a fat prize food animal. And I wouldn't want to lose that one. Points have been found in prehistoric animal remains, even the relatively few of those we've found.

And what's easier to do when a stone butchering blade gets dull? Mess with trying to sharpen it, or just knock off another one and toss the used one aside?

 

[Th3rty7]

anything goes when survival is priority #1.

 

[Tnmountains]

There's just little to gain from firmly attaching points in hunting. I'm going to lose plenty of shafts anyway with very big game. The shaft's just going to stay in anyway sometimes, if it's in open country with nothing to knock or drag it out. As firearms people, we tend to imagine stone hunters thinking the same way about just their atalatl's or bows as we do about our guns. But I think they would feel just as attached to a nice spear or arrow shaft, maybe bringing out a favorite, perfectly straight, tried and trusted arrow for the one-chance long shot at a fat prize food animal. And I wouldn't want to lose that one. Points have been found in prehistoric animal remains, even the relatively few of those we've found.

And what's easier to do when a stone butchering blade gets dull? Mess with trying to sharpen it, or just knock off another one and toss the used one aside?
[/quote]

I agree with you on most of your post but being a hunter and having taken down many animals with bow would you not want the stone projectile firmly attached to the shaft? Would you not want maximum impact with the limited kinetic energy. Even a good hit or pass through and an animal can at times travel long distances I doubt they had the power with the throwing stick or later on with the bow for many pass throughs. They probably did good to achieve 80 feet per second. But with the shaft fimly attached to the projectile and the shaft bouncing around like you said and it does bounce around it keeps cutting and enlarging the wound hitting on trees and brush as the animal flees causing faster bleed out. Did they not bind and seal with pitch or rosin? I know how a loose tip affects flight as well. But I do agree with you on the shaft being as prized if not more so than the point. Unfortunately shafts do not survive. You are right and I am sure they collected their shafts if intact and the point was many we find with heat fractures from the fire after being cooked in a fire pit. I think it was firmly attached to the shaft for maximum damage and not made to break away and just leave the projectiles plugging the hole.
When survival matters I think you want your equipment as good and as stable when opportunity knocks and not loose or unstable. Hopefully you recover that shaft like now days and replace the head.

Many times also as you know as a hunter just because a blood trail quits does not mean the animal survives. I am positive they knew this and they also knew if they got a good hit or not and would not give up and they would give the animal the chance to lay down and die and not push it. That's whats wrong with many of today's hunters. They think firepower and perfect shot and the animal drops. If it travels very far and the blood stops they think the animal survives. It does not most times it goes to water and the next day will be floating in the creek jammed into a beaver dam or laying in a mud puddle if that's all there is. Primitive man could track and would laugh at our humble ways .He probably foraged all the way to his kill.

Sure they could always knock out another tool and point and a large flake will skin any animal in a second but there are many examples of them taking the time to resharpen their tools to the point of exhaustion.

There is so much we do not know. But the discussion is fun.
Enjoyable thoughtful post chong2.
Regards,
TnMountains

TnMountains

 

[One mans trash...]

I agree with you on most of your post but being a hunter and having taken down many animals with bow would you not want the stone projectile firmly attached to the shaft? Would you not want maximum impact with the limited kinetic energy. Even a good hit or pass through and an animal can at times travel long distances I doubt they had the power with the throwing stick or later on with the bow for many pass through. They probably did good to achieve 80 feet per second. But with the shaft firmly attached to the projectile and the shaft bouncing around like you said and it does bounce around it keeps cutting and enlarging the wound hitting on trees and brush as the animal flees causing faster bleed out. Did they not bind and seal with pitch or rosin? I know how a loose tip affects flight as well.

As you say, there's so much we don't know. And it's a big place, and there's very little that can be said that will apply to every region and every period. After I posted, I thought about the changes in vegetation over time. Frederick Law Olhstead and his brother rode through Texas in 1855, and he wrote a book on it. They passed across south of the middle and passed through Austin to San Antonio and beyond. He describes nearly the whole of South Central Texas as being covered in grass tall enough to spin a rider's spur rowels, with only clumps of occasional oak trees. Said it was like being on the ocean watching the grass move on the rolling hills. Indians burned it off every year, which kept much of the tree population from spreading. That was before the country brushed up to the state its in today. Sounds like it was made for losing your arrows in grass tall enough to make it hard to find anything. But probably also very nice for moving up on game in.

And access to materials probably had a lot to do with practices. If you had to import good stone, you took better care. If you lived where trees weren't, you likely took few chances of losing your shafts.

 

[Tnmountains]

Tennessee was all tundra and grassy plains then as well.The oaks were in the mtns thus the rock shelters and abundant morter and pestles. You had made such a good reply on Chongs post that it really had me thinking about all those arrows I have zipped through wild game. This is what I like about T-Net. I really think that most times their intention on larger game was the chance and ability to inflict fatal wounds no matter the time frame of death after impact. My beleif is that they recovered the animal in time. Of course this is all speculation on the stone age !!! haha
Happy huntin,
TnMountains

 

[Flintfinder of Mo.]

Like was said, these peoples traveled up and down the water ways. I hunt on a river around here that there is practically no high ground on the river that was not a maintained campsite. They were very nomadic. I think a lot of our points were left at the campsites. I am sure you only carried the things you had to have, until you made new camp. Something else that you have to think about is Look how long these people lived, and how long they used stone for everyday life. Now look at how much trash just you and your family throw away in a years time. Its not the same thing because i am sure that we are way more wastefull, but you get my point. I am sure that over thousands of years of using stone That some were lost, discarded,left behind, and everything you can imagine. I find most of my points on campsites. Or in the creeks where it is washing threw a campsite.
I think that they were efficient at making arrowheads, but I also think that some took a lot of pride in making these points. Look at some of the colors, and bulls eye patterns, the thinness, the secondary flaking on some of these g-10 points. You cant tell me that some didn't take great pride in making some of these fine points as well as some of the highly polished hard stone. My collection is a personal find collection, with the exception of one case. I would say 95% of them are just field grade.
My opinion on the shaft is that it was a tight fit. I seen a pic of a calf creek point I think embed ed in a Bison skull. That sucker had to have been fixed tightly. I also throw the Altatl, I think it is very much as deadly as a gun. Imagine having 5 Atalatl thrown projectiles being thrown at you at the same time By people that lived to hunt. I bet ya they didn't let to many get away.I think I once heard that a mammoth had like 6 inches of hide to penetrate threw before you could do any damage( I don't know how true that is) I am sure they were excellent trackers, and you would think a big wounded animal like that , wouldnt be to hard to track. Its a good post, and good to get everyones take on it. John

 

[One mans trash...]

Yeah. You were probably happy enough to see your mammoth running away wounded - so long as it was running AWAY. Likely a tricky business. They were not quite elephants, but it's a safe bet they shared some of the elephant's intelligence and defense of an individual by the group. There was a Far Side cartoon with three paleo hunters standing beside a dead mammoth they'd downed with one spear, and one of the says, "We ought to write that spot down." No doubt the real hunters also had a pretty good idea where to strike. There one account of a modern Anglo who hunted with a spear and wanted to try an elephant. Hit it with three but only one effective strike. It ran about 1,000 yards and died. Steel point, but experienced hunters with stone points probably did well. Still, with skin 1" thick, 4 inches of fat underneath, and four layers of hair up to three feet long, you'd have to strike well to do in a mammoth. There's a reasonable case that many mammoth remains found with evidence of having been butchered and the bones worked are where men scavenged an already dead mammoth. They weren't doing well and were being pushed to the brink by forests advancing as the climate warmed. They might have been few and far between for North American hunters, but if you got a healthy one, your group was set for food for a long time. Like the mammoths, the earliest men in North America would have also had some shots at giant ground sloths. Probably only slightly easier to kill at 8 feet tall and 800 pounds.

I wonder just how often they had a chance at really big game or how often they felt the need to try it. Certainly, there was no lack of smaller game. But people being people, they probably also got a kick out of taking something huge. The earliest North Americans would also have dealt with the occasional saber toothed cat. Not for long, since they died out quickly, but they appear to have been pack hunters, and a man probably seemed like just about right for a meal. There's always something.

 

[chong2]

so many good replys and responses. Jamey, yes i always enjoy reading tn's posts. this topic has so many good ideas. me personally i would have attached my point securly for penatration, but that makes me wonder about some points, like the gypsum cave varietys. i have one in particular where the base is so nubby, i dont see how it was attached firmly, but it was no doubt made with care. i imagine it was very easy to lose a point in the tall grasses, and marshes. untill now, i never thought about "knock down power" it never came to mind, like you all said these days they usually just fall down or run a short distance. this gives me even more respect of the hardships and survival ways of our prehistoric friends. another thing to consider is what you all mentioned, remember some days when you are out collecting, and end up with all that flint chips or crude tools, after carrying just a few pounds around all day it becomes a bother, even a 20 pound metate is a pain to carry a few miles, so i now see why there are so many things to discover at the camps. im not sure about you but i sure as heck cant run after game with pounds and pounds of rocks battering me while im running at high speed after game or even walking, im getting irritated just thinking of the thought, lol
next time you find that point, look around and just think how that one got there, try to think up its story, after all you probally spent a few hours looking for it, takes a few more mins to enjoy it where it was left or lost.

p.s. speaking of mammoths, anyone going to watch, "Waking the Baby Mammoth"?

 

[RGINN]

When winter came, you had to stay in the house a lot and this was the time to make points. You couldn't make them in the main living section as the lady of the house did not like those sharp flint chips lying around, so you moved to another room. The south side of a hill was a good spot. Certain people, not everyone, were skilled in flint knapping and you would trade with them for points. Everyone had a concept of how points were made, and it was said that they would re-work points with their teeth in the field, particularly scrapers and cutting blades. You would try to retrieve a point, but many times it wasn't possible. Caches were left. Houses were very susceptibly to fire, and anything in the house was left. Sometimes they missed a shot. I cannot imagine chipping flint with my teeth but it can be done, but for whatever reason I'm glad points are left for us to find.