Matt- what ya think?

[Cannonman17]

Matt- I would like to discuss the waubesa/dickson relationship more- did you say you thought the dickson points were older but not as old as the stemmed varieties?

And.. here's a point/blade I found that has been resharpened a number of times.. make from Hixton, the quarry is about 80 miles or so from here... I know it's damaged and all but what do you think this was and what do you think it might have looked like originally? As it is now it's still a good sized piece at a little over three inches.

 

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[Hill Billy]

Cool find Cannon,That point almost looks like Quartz.Congrats.

 

[Cannonman17]

Hixton is pretty close to quartz- many call it surgar quartz around here but that's really not an accurate term. The material itself isn't as compressed as quartz is but the individual grains are much better fused together than sandstone... it's actually half way on it's way compression wise to becoming quartz. Makes for some beautiful points and blades!

 

[Neanderthal]

I'm not quite sure what that point is paul. It's been used and resharpened to near exhaustion, which is typically what we do find. Dickson is a stemmed point, same age as the Hopewell (middle woodland). There are both earlier and later stemmed points. When Dickson get resharpened they are usually confused with Florence, Hidden Valley, Standlee, Petite Jean and a few Adena variants. Florence (over east) are probably 99% of the time called Dickson by collectors, mainly due to not being familiar with the type. Over this way, it's Hidden Valley and Standlee that usually get called Dickson.

Hixton silicified sandstone is some killer stuff! Have you had the opportunity to check it out under a scope yet? You should, it's a trip! It's much more homogenous than quartzites and the grains are bonded together with some agate looking matrix material. With the naked eye it can look alot like quartzites, but not when you scrutinize it close. It knaps a whole lot better than most would guess and was used extensively for a damn long time.

 

[Cannonman17]

You know what's funny... when it came to many of the stemmed points like the dickson and others I usually referred to them as middle woodland, late woodland etc etc.. I think maybe I was better off assigning them a general time period vs. a specific culture period- sure was easier! LOL

Hixton is some neat stuff, I have looked at it under magnification, another thing is how much it varies quality wise. In this area most of what I find is made from hixton (probably close to 50% in a lot of sites) so I get to see tons of it- some of it was very nice material but some layers were pretty crappy stuff, a lot more grainy.

The reason I posted that resharpened hixton peice is because in hand it has a unique feel/look... both the shoulders and ears are broken and the base is ground pretty heavy.. I think it was an older peice (up here I get excited about archaic things even) and thought maybe you would have some input... that's ok though. I don't have the time right now but I'm going to scan some of my stemmed peices on here. I'll try to show you some other classic wisconsin point examples as well... I have one or two real nice Radataz side notches and stuff like that. I'll see if I can't borrow my friends hixton blade he found a few years back.. about 6" long and paper thin, one of the most amazing hixton pieces I've ever seen in my life and I know you would appreciate it's beauty.

 

[stryker-one]

Interesting discussion about the Hixton. Do you know anyone doing a study or studying traded material and or trade roots of the ancient people through lithic matieral 'typing".

I.E. Hixton, can I find Hixton out here in Oregon and look at it under magnification, find identifing charactheristics that can be determined from Hixton quarried from your area and only from your area?

Or is this a question that has been beat to death?

Stryker

 

[Cannonman17]

I don't know what work is currently being done on the subject. I did in the past find out some super interesting things by saving all the various lithic materials I would find from a site. Some sites that weren't used for a long time aren't completely packed with flakes so I was able to save them. Then I sorted them all by time and broke down into percentages... did that at a few different sites and found out some things I woudn't have known. Found out that certain materials were being used much more frequently in certain time periods and even found out that there were gaps where certain materials like our local ryholite were not being used for a period of time ( I have yet to see any middle to late archaic points or blades made from it) but some paleo and lots of woodland. Anyways, if you want a sample of Hixton to look at I would have no problem sending you some! You or anybody that wants a sample for cross reference.. just send me a pm with address and I'll send you some flakes/chunks of it.