CLOVIS! My Oldest Find EVER!

oxbowbarefoot · Sep 30, 2015

Two days later and I'm still just as giddy as when I found this.

Monday after work I decided to take a little drive down to Massachusetts to a colonial farm site along the Connecticut River where I have had some luck with my detector. After swinging the coil for a while in a lower field and only turing up a few flat buttons, I decided to try my luck in the upper field which had recently been turned over. The soil was really dry and the dust was awful. Disgruntled, I figured I would do one more pass hoping to dig at least one good keeper for the day. I always look down when I'm detecting, so its not uncommon for me to find the occasional arrowhead or flake, but what I saw laying on the ground shocked me. Staring up from the dusty earth was the most perfect point I had ever seen. I just about through my detector and shovel in excitement. I didn't even think to take an in-situ picture, I just picked it up and kept saying "oh my god, oh my god." In my hand I held my very first Paleo point, this wonderfully fluted Clovis! The point is 4 1/8" long, 1 1/2" wide. I can't wait to get back there and search for more!

oxbowbarefoot · Oct 5, 2015

catherine1 said:
Any mammoth tusks or animals associated with the find.....

none that I have found.

NWMP · Oct 5, 2015

Amazing !!! and rare.

monsterrack · Oct 5, 2015

This Clovis Point was found last Monday in a farm field in near the Connecticut River. I brought it with me on Saturday to the American Society for Amateur Archaeology in Norwell where it was examined by Dr. Richard Michael Gramly. He determined it to be made from Normanskill Chert and dates to approximately 12,800 C.Y.B.P. This makes it likely the oldest artifact ever recovered from the Connecticut River Valley and possibly the oldest ever recovered in Massachusetts. It predates the Sugarloaf site by 400-500 years. It is also almost a twin to the jasper Clovis found at the Vail Site in Maine.
This was copied from a FB post on this point after Dr. Gramly saw it.

1320 · Oct 5, 2015

monsterrack said:
This Clovis Point was found last Monday in a farm field in near the Connecticut River. I brought it with me on Saturday to the American Society for Amateur Archaeology in Norwell where it was examined by Dr. Richard Michael Gramly. He determined it to be made from Normanskill Chert and dates to approximately 12,800 C.Y.B.P. This makes it likely the oldest artifact ever recovered from the Connecticut River Valley and possibly the oldest ever recovered in Massachusetts. It predates the Sugarloaf site by 400-500 years. It is also almost a twin to the jasper Clovis found at the Vail Site in Maine.
This was copied from a FB post on this point after Dr. Gramly saw it.

How in the world did he date it AND determine that it's 400+ years older than the Sugarloaf site? That's just not possible with an eyeball test. Appreciate the follow up.

oxbowbarefoot · Oct 5, 2015

1320 said:
How in the world did he date it AND determine that it's 400+ years older than the Sugarloaf site? That's just not possible with an eyeball test. Appreciate the follow up.

While it is true that chemical analysis would provide a better date if period carbon was available, Dr. Gramly placed the 12,800 C.Y.B.P date based partially on the detail that the style of the point was much more closely related to those found at the Vail Site in ME, which has been radiocarbon dated to 12700 calendar years before present. He also hypothesized that it was an antique when lost (though so much information was coming at me that I forget what his rational was for that). He added 100 years for the "antique" factor.

rock · Oct 5, 2015

With a find like that you should put it in your avatar. I dont know what is in there now but the point would look better imo

oxbowbarefoot · Oct 5, 2015

rock said:
With a find like that you should put it in your avatar. I dont know what is in there now but the point would look better imo

My Avatar is my first Banner find. It was a Revolutionary War period Patriotic Button, a Rattlesnake with 13 Rattles and 13 Eggs to represent the 13 original colonies. Very few examples of that button are know and it is one of the finer examples. But I may very well change my Avatar when I take some better pictures of the Clovis.