BosnMate
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More stuff I've found.
My previous post was about artifacts I found as a kid, while playing army in a WWII bunker dug in an extensive shell midden. I didn't find any "arrowheads" at that site, but, there was another site that came about this way. This particular place was more of a mound than a shell midden, and was also located at the coast, except probably 10 + miles north as the crow flies, from the shell midden at Avila Beach. This place is now the location of some high dollar homes and cranky rich land owners. But back in the day just after the war, it was out in the pucker brush for sure, and nobody from San Luis Obispo in their right mind would ever move out there and build a house, because it was always foggy, cold, or the cold wind was blowing a gale. Lots were $50 each, but there weren't any roads or services, so you got what you payed for. Anyhow, there was this mound, which was way off the paved road, on a sandy track that was very easy to get stuck, so one must carry a shovel. The mound was kind of a tan sand, with no black dirt for a give away as a camping site, but once out on it, there were plenty of chips and a few shells saying that it had been occupied at one time. I have no photos of the mound, in fact I don't think I owned or had access to a camera, except perhaps a kodak box camera. I was 15 years old, and my Uncle Sid, the greatest, most heroic Marine there ever was, my absolute hero, was home from the war and didn't have a car. But he knew about the mound, and I had a 29 A model Ford coup, with a 32 model B grill, and solid wheels. A dollar's worth of gas and a 5 gallon can of free used crank case oil would keep that car going all day. I might add that the car would hold 5 or 6 kids, as long as 3 or 4 of them were girls. But I digress, we're looking for arrowheads. I had a car and a learners permit, which required that an adult driver be with me, and my Uncle had the dollar for gas, the drivers license, and the knowledge of where the mound was. So off we went, and the photo will show what I found over the next several trips out there.
[attach 1]
On the right side of the frame are the points found on that mound. These points would be Chumash. In the lower right hand corner is a point or knife that doesn't come from that mound, and I'll tell more about it in a closeup.
[attach 2]
This point is probably the first one I ever found, and it was in our driveway. I was probably 7 or 8 years old. Our driveway was graveled with a crushed up red-rock of some sort, the garage roof sloped towards the driveway and didn't have a rain gutter. This point was broken when I found it. It's the same color as the gravel, and was lying in the drip line where the water came off the roof, right where the car had been running over it every time it went in or out of the garage.
[attach 3]
you can see where I glued the point together, using Testors model airplane glue, and it's worth noting that the the glue is still holding today.
The next close up is a drill from that mound,
[attach 4]
and finally a point, located in the upper right corner of the frame, that at first I thought was broken, but on a closer look it can be seen that the edge has been worked around the place that I was expecting a point. The large chip out of the other side is a head scratcher, and I wonder if that was put there on purpose, or if it's an accidental chip that came from someone walking or driving over it.
[attach 5]
In later years I've come to believe that this is a knife or scrapper, and I'm open to any ideas. At the time these points were found, everything was still being called an arrowhead.
Now we go to the left side of the frame. These points are from over the mountain, in the Salinas river valley. Hence, even though they look exactly like a Chumash point, these would be called Salinian. When I got married, took my new wife and moved to Atascadero, where we purchased a house on 9 acres of land. The property was bordered by a creek in the back, and smack in the center was a jumble of rocks and very large live oak trees. The house was along side the rock pile, and it was just a gorgeous piece of property, with room for us and our horses. After we moved in, I was out in the field, and along the edge of the rocks I found a bed rock mortar, then another, until I'd discovered something like 60 or 70 very deep mortars ground out of solid rock. So one thing leads to another, and by golly, I started finding flakes of flint and and then broken points. So go back and check the the left side of the frame, these are points I found on that property. By this time in my life I'd been hunting with a long bow, and realized that most of the points I'd found could not have been arrowheads, they were just too large to fit on an arrow. It took another bit of research to learn about atl atl's, but I'd guess that most of the Chumash and Salinian points I found were atl atl points, as seen by the size of the one pictured below.
[attach 6]
The driveway to this place followed down to the property line until it arrived in our yard, then it turned in, leaving a small triangle of land not in the yard, and too small to build a pen or building. So one day my wife and I were walking across it, trying to figure out what we could put there, when I found this round rock sticking out of the ground, with a very shallow depression in it. Just about all I could see above the ground was the shallow dent, and I hollered to my wife to "Look here, an Indian had started making a bowl." She came over and looked, then I kind of toed it around, and out popped this small stone bowl, probably one of my better finds. I know I really like it. The depression in the bottom was so the bowl would stay where it was set, without wobbling or rolling around. The next 2 photos are of this bowl.
[attach 7]
This is the part I saw first.
[attach 8]
That's all for now, I've got more good stuff to show you in another post.
My previous post was about artifacts I found as a kid, while playing army in a WWII bunker dug in an extensive shell midden. I didn't find any "arrowheads" at that site, but, there was another site that came about this way. This particular place was more of a mound than a shell midden, and was also located at the coast, except probably 10 + miles north as the crow flies, from the shell midden at Avila Beach. This place is now the location of some high dollar homes and cranky rich land owners. But back in the day just after the war, it was out in the pucker brush for sure, and nobody from San Luis Obispo in their right mind would ever move out there and build a house, because it was always foggy, cold, or the cold wind was blowing a gale. Lots were $50 each, but there weren't any roads or services, so you got what you payed for. Anyhow, there was this mound, which was way off the paved road, on a sandy track that was very easy to get stuck, so one must carry a shovel. The mound was kind of a tan sand, with no black dirt for a give away as a camping site, but once out on it, there were plenty of chips and a few shells saying that it had been occupied at one time. I have no photos of the mound, in fact I don't think I owned or had access to a camera, except perhaps a kodak box camera. I was 15 years old, and my Uncle Sid, the greatest, most heroic Marine there ever was, my absolute hero, was home from the war and didn't have a car. But he knew about the mound, and I had a 29 A model Ford coup, with a 32 model B grill, and solid wheels. A dollar's worth of gas and a 5 gallon can of free used crank case oil would keep that car going all day. I might add that the car would hold 5 or 6 kids, as long as 3 or 4 of them were girls. But I digress, we're looking for arrowheads. I had a car and a learners permit, which required that an adult driver be with me, and my Uncle had the dollar for gas, the drivers license, and the knowledge of where the mound was. So off we went, and the photo will show what I found over the next several trips out there.
[attach 1]
On the right side of the frame are the points found on that mound. These points would be Chumash. In the lower right hand corner is a point or knife that doesn't come from that mound, and I'll tell more about it in a closeup.
[attach 2]
This point is probably the first one I ever found, and it was in our driveway. I was probably 7 or 8 years old. Our driveway was graveled with a crushed up red-rock of some sort, the garage roof sloped towards the driveway and didn't have a rain gutter. This point was broken when I found it. It's the same color as the gravel, and was lying in the drip line where the water came off the roof, right where the car had been running over it every time it went in or out of the garage.
[attach 3]
you can see where I glued the point together, using Testors model airplane glue, and it's worth noting that the the glue is still holding today.
The next close up is a drill from that mound,
[attach 4]
and finally a point, located in the upper right corner of the frame, that at first I thought was broken, but on a closer look it can be seen that the edge has been worked around the place that I was expecting a point. The large chip out of the other side is a head scratcher, and I wonder if that was put there on purpose, or if it's an accidental chip that came from someone walking or driving over it.
[attach 5]
In later years I've come to believe that this is a knife or scrapper, and I'm open to any ideas. At the time these points were found, everything was still being called an arrowhead.
Now we go to the left side of the frame. These points are from over the mountain, in the Salinas river valley. Hence, even though they look exactly like a Chumash point, these would be called Salinian. When I got married, took my new wife and moved to Atascadero, where we purchased a house on 9 acres of land. The property was bordered by a creek in the back, and smack in the center was a jumble of rocks and very large live oak trees. The house was along side the rock pile, and it was just a gorgeous piece of property, with room for us and our horses. After we moved in, I was out in the field, and along the edge of the rocks I found a bed rock mortar, then another, until I'd discovered something like 60 or 70 very deep mortars ground out of solid rock. So one thing leads to another, and by golly, I started finding flakes of flint and and then broken points. So go back and check the the left side of the frame, these are points I found on that property. By this time in my life I'd been hunting with a long bow, and realized that most of the points I'd found could not have been arrowheads, they were just too large to fit on an arrow. It took another bit of research to learn about atl atl's, but I'd guess that most of the Chumash and Salinian points I found were atl atl points, as seen by the size of the one pictured below.
[attach 6]
The driveway to this place followed down to the property line until it arrived in our yard, then it turned in, leaving a small triangle of land not in the yard, and too small to build a pen or building. So one day my wife and I were walking across it, trying to figure out what we could put there, when I found this round rock sticking out of the ground, with a very shallow depression in it. Just about all I could see above the ground was the shallow dent, and I hollered to my wife to "Look here, an Indian had started making a bowl." She came over and looked, then I kind of toed it around, and out popped this small stone bowl, probably one of my better finds. I know I really like it. The depression in the bottom was so the bowl would stay where it was set, without wobbling or rolling around. The next 2 photos are of this bowl.
[attach 7]
This is the part I saw first.
[attach 8]
That's all for now, I've got more good stuff to show you in another post.
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