Hooks?

[mike a]

I was helping a friend move some stuff at a guys house and he had a nice collection of arrowheads and I saw some things that I havent seen before they were no bigger than a 1 inch but they were made in the shape of hooks I can't find pictures online of any anyone have any ideas on them

 

[larson1951]

post a picture please

 

[quito]

Were they stone or bone?

 

[mike a]

Were they stone or bone?

They were stone I am working on getting someone to send me a picture now hopefully he will send it soon

 

[mike a]

post a picture please

Posted a pic it is not a very good one but hope it will do the owner would not let it come out of the case also pic was taken with a low grade camera phone

 

[bsit1361]

I don't wanna be a naysayer but I would thinks that modern.

 

[unclemac]

most things I have read state that stone hooks are fantasy pieces....

 

[mike a]

I don't wanna be a naysayer but I would thinks that modern.

Possible like I said it belongs to a 90 year old man I met he has a couple of them in cases and the cases are old I know that means nothing but that's why I came here to see if anyone has ever seen anything like it

 

[GaRebel1861]

I don't wanna be a naysayer but I would thinks that modern.

I would be concerned about that piece as well.

 

[chase2]

Mike, as the others have states, these would be modern. There has been no documentation of stone fish hooks found in context. There has been both shell and bone fish hooks found in context, and is what has been accepted as the material of choice for these artifacts.

Stone fish hooks, just like "Thunderbird effigies" were an item that as a bad reputation as being sold to unsuspecting artifact enthusiasts as real. There has been no documentation of these items being found in context. They have been knapped since the 1800's, but gained more notoriety in the 1930's and 1940's for drifters wanting to make a fast buck during the depression. Most artifact hunters during the time period had no clue, that items like this were fake, and bought them to enhance there collections. Many got passed down from generation to generation and were accepted as found by the original collector. That is the long or the short on this subject.

 

[mike a]

Thanks for the info it is good to know I thought maybe instead of fish hooks it may have been used as a skinning or gutting tool for small game but its good to know there is no documentation on "hooks"

 

[mike a]

Thanks for the info it is good to know I thought maybe instead of fish hooks it may have been used as a skinning or gutting tool for small game but its good to know there is no documentation on "hooks"

Just glad now I dident try and buy them lol

 

[quito]

I think there are plenty of people that will tell you they didn't make flint fish hooks. Now, we know they made them from bone.

 

[RGINN]

I witnessed one of those supposed stone 'fish hooks' found in 1968 in SE Oklahoma in Pushmataha County in the One Creek Valley area. And it was found 'in context', as it was a village site and other undoubted artifacts were in abundance, it was of the same material as other artifacts, and the knapping style was comparable to other artifacts on the same site. We were told by other folks in the area that it was a fish hook and they had found a few from time to time. My buddy and I were only 14 at the time and had no motivation to plant it and had no clue it was controversial til many years later. I believe it is an item that has been faked, but I don't believe what we found that day was used as a fish hook. Fishing in ancient times in that area was done by fish weirs, traps, poisoning the water to stun the fish, maybe spearing. They were interested in quantity in a short period of time. If for some reason you just wanted to go fishin alone and just catch one or two, a gorge on the end of a line would be better, cause a large fish could easily snap a flint fish hook. I figure it was actually some type of tool, and gut hook would be a good guess. If you could examine these types of artifacts under a microscope for wear use, that might help establish it as a valid sort of tool. And I would NOT buy one as a 'flint fish hook'.

 

[Tnmountains]

Mike have not seen any like that from around here. I have seen things that looked like gut hooks though for skinning.

 

[chase2]

I witnessed one of those supposed stone 'fish hooks' found in 1968 in SE Oklahoma in Pushmataha County in the One Creek Valley area. And it was found 'in context', as it was a village site and other undoubted artifacts were in abundance, it was of the same material as other artifacts, and the knapping style was comparable to other artifacts on the same site. We were told by other folks in the area that it was a fish hook and they had found a few from time to time. My buddy and I were only 14 at the time and had no motivation to plant it and had no clue it was controversial til many years later. I believe it is an item that has been faked, but I don't believe what we found that day was used as a fish hook. Fishing in ancient times in that area was done by fish weirs, traps, poisoning the water to stun the fish, maybe spearing. They were interested in quantity in a short period of time. If for some reason you just wanted to go fishin alone and just catch one or two, a gorge on the end of a line would be better, cause a large fish could easily snap a flint fish hook. I figure it was actually some type of tool, and gut hook would be a good guess. If you could examine these types of artifacts under a microscope for wear use, that might help establish it as a valid sort of tool. And I would NOT buy one as a 'flint fish hook'.

I should say that I do not know if in fact they do exist. what I am saying is there has been no documented history in context recorded.

RGINN, "Freezco Coldorado" I think I know where that's at. I am on the other side of the divide, just east of being a Hoosier. and and hunt in the blues of Coldorado. I could be wrong!

 

[GatorBoy]

Mike, as the others have states, these would be modern. There has been no documentation of stone fish hooks found in context. There has been both shell and bone fish hooks found in context, and is what has been accepted as the material of choice for these artifacts.

Stone fish hooks, just like "Thunderbird effigies" were an item that as a bad reputation as being sold to unsuspecting artifact enthusiasts as real. There has been no documentation of these items being found in context. They have been knapped since the 1800's, but gained more notoriety in the 1930's and 1940's for drifters wanting to make a fast buck during the depression. Most artifact hunters during the time period had no clue, that items like this were fake, and bought them to enhance there collections. Many got passed down from generation to generation and were accepted as found by the original collector. That is the long or the short on this subject.

Well done

 

[NorCal Gal]

I beg to differ... Stone, knapped "hooks" have been found and well documented by archeologists -- especially in the extreme Northwest U.S. -- but they are "net sinkers" that have "hooks" flaked into the stone at a diagonal angle and are then "hung" around the top ring of fishing nets that are then cast -- flat -- into the water. The "net sinkers" then cause the edge of the net to fall down into the water faster than the rest of the net which "captures" anything [fish] beneath it that can't get away too quickly from it or simply don't notice it until it's too late. They don't look like exaggerated "hooks" per se, just stones that have definite hooks flaked into them.

I actually found what I believe to have been one of these -- albeit a very small version (the only ones available for study are very large -- but, then, they were used by NAs in Washington and Oregon to fish for HUGE salmon in the ocean and the mouths of rivers) in the "Laguna de Santa Rosa", a wetlands area in Sonoma County, Northern California, that lies between the towns of Santa Rosa and Sebastopol. I found it not 3 inches from a white chert "Houx point" in soil that had been excavated about 3 feet down for a drainage ditch. Both items are now housed in the Sonoma State University collection together because I insisted they be kept together after the Archeology Dept. expressed an interest in having the point. They called the item that I call a "net sinker" a "bifaced tool of unknown purpose" and scoffed at my suggestion that it was a net sinker. "All the net sinkers we know of are at least 4 times that size," I was told. Yah... But THOSE were used for KING SALMON fishing -- not lake fish, guys... If they had the technology to make ONE KIND, they had the means to duplicate it for other applications, IMHO.