Daily storms finally turned up an agate point

[scepter1]

Western Washington, but was brought in from the south. Appears to have been in a camp fire..

 

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[Americus]

Awesome material! Thanks for sharing.

 

[NCPeaches]

It's beautiful! Love the material, we don't see that in our area. Great find!

 

[Dirt fishing Wolf]

Great find

 

[kingskid1611]

that is simply awe inspiring. I want one made out of that material too. Congrats on a beauty!

 

[GaRebel1861]

That sure is some pretty material!

 

[Hot diggity]

Wow! That is a great addition to any collection! Love the old, battered, burnt look of it. Adds character & good pics. Congrats!

 

[Mark Todd]

Congrats! Nice find. Don't know about in your area but the tips of arrowheads,drills, and gravers, etc. were sometimes fire tempered like steel is nowadays to give them a more resilient point or cutting edge and sometimes the color change was just due to the material that was being worked.

 

[Trezurehunter]

Great looking point.

 

[rock]

Shame on the tip but still nice enough for a frame imo.

 

[IAMZIM]

The "sheen" on that is simply amazing! Broken or not, still a "gemstone" to me!!!

 

[scepter1]

Shame on the tip but still nice enough for a frame imo.

Finding any arrowhead in my area is RARE, so while some would call it a heart breaker, I'm ecstatic !

 

[dts52]

Beautiful point! Congrats!

 

[scepter1]

unclemac - any guesses on type?

 

[theviking]

Killer! That's a nice little gem, definitely frame worthy. Thanks for the view.

 

[unclemac]

unclemac - any guesses on type?

I would be pretty confident in calling that a Wallula Gap. Or even more specifically, Wallula Gap Rectangular Stemmed. 1,000 to 200 BP. Notice the slightly flared ears, the one ear just a bit longer than the other but not so much as a Gunther. And of course that unmistakable squared off stem. Plus...just look at that material...classic.

Sure does seem out of place for your beach, but hey...I find a lot of stuff too that has no business being outside its cultural area. Makes me wonder if points were traded, and not just raw materials. Really nice piece...green with envy...Did find a nice pink agate one-off scraper/knife the other day...not much flaking but a really nice stone.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Wal...ved=0ahUKEwjCuYiB8_DJAhUPzmMKHUzQDSgQ_AUIBygC

 

[scepter1]

I would be pretty confident in calling that a Wallula Gap. Or even more specifically, Wallula Gap Rectangular Stemmed. 1,000 to 200 BP. Notice the slightly flared ears, the one ear just a bit longer than the other but not so much as a Gunther. And of course that unmistakable squared off stem. Plus...just look at that material...classic.

Sure does seem out of place for your beach, but hey...I find a lot of stuff too that has no business being outside its cultural area. Makes me wonder if points were traded, and not just raw materials. Really nice piece...green with envy...Did find a nice pink agate one-off scraper/knife the other day...not much flaking but a really nice stone.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Wal...ved=0ahUKEwjCuYiB8_DJAhUPzmMKHUzQDSgQ_AUIBygC

Thanks unclemac. When I first found it, I was thinking Wallula Gap. Then I compared it to another Wallula Gap arrowhead I had found a couple years ago, and the ears on this one are more flared than the other one. Got to looking at points online and saw a case of that was supposed to be all Gunthers and at least a quarter of them looked closer to this one... so got to thinking that maybe it was a variant between the two.

Yes, Wallula Gap is hundreds of miles away. As unlikely as it may seem, most of the finished agate/wood artifacts I've found here came from the Saddle mountains to Wallula Gap area down through the Columbia River Gorge, and from central Oregon. I've found 1 complete obsidian point and a couple of larger obsidian pieces, one 2 1/4" broken, that could have only come from central Oregon. I talked to another collector here that showed me a perfect agate "small desert side notch" from southern Oregon/N. California that she found near-by.

So my theory is that this was a trading area, and/or meeting/potlatch area, and that the points and tools that made the long trip were mostly fnished or performs.

For those that have never been to Wallula Gap on the Columbia River:

 

[unclemac]

yeah, I don't find much obsidian either and when I do I know it came from somewhere else. But I have found obsidian "Cascade" points that suggest trade of many thousands of years back. What a lot of folks don't realize is that some of the stuff we see on this forum was ancient before the pyramids were built.