Last post before you're bored to death.

[Gravelbar32]

Went down to a site on Lightning Creek in SE Kansas before I start back to work tonight. I hunted the adjacent field and creek bed as a kid often. Had a score of beautiful points that I have given or traded away over the years. So, tonight I see for first time a rising dome near the old creek bank channel in virgin timber. Never noticed it in my my life until now. Take my boot and scratch the surface in the top and all I see is burned sandstone and flakes! Walk back to my truck and get a shovel to scratch the surface. Nothing but burned stone, flint and pottery! So fun. nothing deep at all as time has worn the mound down. Tons of trash. Photos include a small sampling of what I found. Nothing great, just neat to dig straight into a virgin firepit.




For reference, here are a few pieces that I have left from childhood that came out of the creek below. Couldn't trade these off because they didn't have notches like "real" arrowheads,HaHa. Also have a bison or elk humerus (shoulder) that came out of the creek that has three clear chop marks on it where the boys tried to disarticulate it back in the day. It is like stone.

 

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[Tdog]

Where's the elk humerus?

 

[Gravelbar32]

Where's the elk humerus?

In a box amongst many boxes in a barn full of stuff that would make a hoarding episode! I will try to locate it as work will put an end to my hunting for a few weeks. Will post for you if I find it.

 

[newnan man]

In a box amongst many boxes in a barn full of stuff that would make a hoarding episode! I will try to locate it as work will put an end to my hunting for a few weeks. Will post for you if I find it.

It's not hoarding if it's cool stuff!

 

[Older The Better]

I’m not bored to death, I like seeing other stuff from the area. The pottery to me is impressive, out of all the places I look there is one small spot that produces pottery, or bone for that matter. I do find bone on the gravel bars from time to time though

 

[Gravelbar32]

I’m not bored to death, I like seeing other stuff from the area. The pottery to me is impressive, out of all the places I look there is one small spot that produces pottery, or bone for that matter. I do find bone on the gravel bars from time to time though

Glad you are not bored. Do you have any identifiable bones? Bone is a tough one. A steer bone that has been in the river 20 years can look quite old and I have been fooled. I used to take boxes of that stuff to the forensic anthropologist at KSU who loved to go through it and tell me what is what. What have you found in the river?

 

[Older The Better]

I got some buffalo/cow bones, strongly suspect buffalo but most are hard to tell from cow, have a handful of teeth that look good with the stylid. Have buffalo horns again confident because I actually dug them out of the lower part of a big cut bank. One elk long bone had that id’d by a professional. And one rib that I suspect is ice age because of it color and weight, it’s super black compared to the browns and chalky whites

 

[Gravelbar32]

Nice bone pile. My goal is to find a bison skull like you did! One was found near Chetopa several years ago that I hear was impressive. I was also with a guy fishing on a gravel bar South of Chetopa when he pulled most of a moose antler out of the gravel. Rock solid and beautiful. After saying all of that, sometimes I dont know what to make of these cow or bison bones and teeth. The ones in a field at a campsite are obvious but the ones in the river, unless identified like yours, not so obvious. Here is why. I found these rock solid large molars in the river gravel for years assuming they were prehistoric bison teeth until one day I found an equally dense and patinated horse molar! What to think? In John Matthew's book "The Osages" (I am pretty sure) he states that in a year around 1850 there was no recorded rainfall at the trading post in Oswego. The only water was in stagnant pools in the river where "a great many of the Osage's horses and cattle died". Is this what I am finding? As I stated earlier, I do have some stuff verified by the forensic dude at KSU. The rest is a mystery as to how old. Anyhow, you have some cool relics there. That rib has me excited, too.

 

[Gravelbar32]

BTW here is a hog from Lightning Creek yesterday. A pronghorn antler from Hickory Creek last Winter.

 

[Older The Better]

Yeah I’ve got some of the interior of the skull, but it wouldn’t display well, also some leg bones and vertebrae that eroded out. Some other stuff came from the gravel bar down stream, I assume it’s the same animal but you never know. I’ve been wanting to get a complete one but I’m very happy with what I got.

I agree they are tough to tell, I never find cut marks on the stuff in the river. I asked a lab one time how much it would cost for carbon dating and they asked what university I was with haha. I decided I probably have smarter ways to spend money but I’d love to know on my horns and my rib some day.

I’ve read that the Neosho had dried up too. that’s twice that I know of. The second time was 100 years later in 1952’ if IM not mistaken. That’s when they moved my house across the river to its present location.

That’s a cool pronghorn, just like elk and even white tail 100 years ago they were all gone from this area. When I found the elk leg bone I really wanted to jump in and feel around below where it eroded out see if I couldn’t find a nice rack in the mud

This is what I came home with on my best day looking on the river, I think the maxilla fragment might also be elk but it’s just a hunch.


The rib stayed black the other dark ones dried to a light grey

 

[Gravelbar32]

What a haul, Older! Love that blackish color. I dont have anything that dark. Point on the right, I dont have anything striated and that particular color. Thanks! I dont know what the molars are from for sure either but it was a young animal- the two premolars are just erupting.

 

[outlaws15]

Another cool post and information