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My brother and I began the digging season this weekend and what a way to start! We located this shelter last winter but based on our initial screens, we decided a full blown dig wasn't warranted. This shelter is on the way to another shelter that we felt very good about. So, since we had to pass thru this one to get to the destination shelter, we decided to stop and catch our breath in it. We noticed some nice debitage and a broken tip in the drip line. These clues eluded us when we visited earlier. 
We mutually agreed to run 30 minutes of screens just for grins then, we'd move on to our primary goal. Our initial screens revealed an abundance of nice thin flakes of Carter Cave material, reminiscent of the shelter in which we uncovered the Archaic toolkit cache earlier this year. The debitage had an Archaic look and feel to it and our hunch was confirmed in relative short order. Within 15 minutes we had uncovered several uni-face blades/knives, scrapers. Ten minutes later my brother is yelling an expletive and pops up from the wall of the shelter holding a freaking Pine Tree! Our collective jaws dropped right into the sand. We continued to dig slow and methodical for a few more hours and found several artifacts, many of which are not pictured (broke bases, tips).
At first, we thought this to be another cache but based on the use and resharpening (exhaustion) of the points, we honestly think this small area is a place where the makers/users were storing their spent blades or blades in need of resharpening. The dug area so far is small, 4'x3'x8". Most diggers know, that is a very small area for such a large number of artifacts. The shallow depth is a huge plus! We were digging 4 to 5 feet to find the Archaic component in the other shelter.
The point pictured top right has just one side of the barbs exhausted, the other side...still sharp. All of the points pictured have ground bases and notches. Interesting though, the lower left point exhibits notch grinding on just one side of either notch.
The thin flake knife has been worked on the top and bottom edges, we've never seen this before. I hope the photos reveal this. And how about the knife/scraper with the fossil inclusion?! We really like that piece.
The top two pieces we think are Pine Trees. The bottom two, not so sure. We noticed a few examples on line of some Pine Trees that exhibit that style of base but they look more like a Greenbrier/Kirk to us. Opinions on typology are always appreciated and never argued by either of us. We'd love to hear opinions/thoughts about what we've located and how to continue the approach.
We mutually agreed to run 30 minutes of screens just for grins then, we'd move on to our primary goal. Our initial screens revealed an abundance of nice thin flakes of Carter Cave material, reminiscent of the shelter in which we uncovered the Archaic toolkit cache earlier this year. The debitage had an Archaic look and feel to it and our hunch was confirmed in relative short order. Within 15 minutes we had uncovered several uni-face blades/knives, scrapers. Ten minutes later my brother is yelling an expletive and pops up from the wall of the shelter holding a freaking Pine Tree! Our collective jaws dropped right into the sand. We continued to dig slow and methodical for a few more hours and found several artifacts, many of which are not pictured (broke bases, tips).At first, we thought this to be another cache but based on the use and resharpening (exhaustion) of the points, we honestly think this small area is a place where the makers/users were storing their spent blades or blades in need of resharpening. The dug area so far is small, 4'x3'x8". Most diggers know, that is a very small area for such a large number of artifacts. The shallow depth is a huge plus! We were digging 4 to 5 feet to find the Archaic component in the other shelter.
The point pictured top right has just one side of the barbs exhausted, the other side...still sharp. All of the points pictured have ground bases and notches. Interesting though, the lower left point exhibits notch grinding on just one side of either notch.
The thin flake knife has been worked on the top and bottom edges, we've never seen this before. I hope the photos reveal this. And how about the knife/scraper with the fossil inclusion?! We really like that piece.The top two pieces we think are Pine Trees. The bottom two, not so sure. We noticed a few examples on line of some Pine Trees that exhibit that style of base but they look more like a Greenbrier/Kirk to us. Opinions on typology are always appreciated and never argued by either of us. We'd love to hear opinions/thoughts about what we've located and how to continue the approach.
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Sounds a bit nutty!
For what it's worth, I'm off Monday as well......
