Oklahoma finds

[rginn]

Went to visit my son in Oklahoma and he took me to a site he found that has been underwater for 50 or 60 years, but the lake was recently drained. The site stretches about a 100yds and appears to have never been disturbed or documented, as far as I can tell. Several fire pits were exposed, tons of bison bone broken for marrow extraction, lots of shatter and flakes, anvil stones, hammer stones, and lots of scraping and cutting tools quickly improvised from local material. I figure it's mainly from the Plains Village period, as we found a lot of things consistent with that time period. Some items were pretty crude but some had fine work. My theory is it was a popular hunting site. There's a feature that appears to be an old buffalo wallow. If so, hunting parties probably came here, processed the kills, then went back to the house. We did not find much of the things we find at established village sites. However, since we didn't do any digging, I'm not really sure how much lake deposited silt is still present. We found some imported lithic material, particularly shattered chunks of a very fine grey flint, that had signs of working, but no points from it. We also seemed to find more knives and cutting blades than projectile points. Just my theory, and maybe a few good rains will present more info. I got too many pics, but I'll post a few of our 'yee-haw' moments.

 

[naturegirl]

luscious! so glad to see some more Okie points. I know you're a whiz with the camera, those colors are a treat.

ng

 

[Jonzer]

The color on that blade is amazing.
Awesome find.

 

[latrans]

That blade is awesome.

 

[rginn]

Update. I'm back in Colorado, but my son is telling me wind erosion is revealing more artifacts that indicate it was a village site rather than a kill processing site. The presence of alibates, kay county chert, and Edward's plateau chert indicates they had a travel or trade radius of a couple hundred miles all around. More pottery sherds are showing up, smooth with no cord marking, so I'll place it in the Turkey Creek phase, probably about the time Coronado came through, but maybe a little earlier. My son has contacted the Oklahoma Archaeology Survey and reported it to them, as it's a site that appears to be in the same condition it was left. He felt it might be significant, and feared others would finally find it and start digging it up. The archy's may do somethin with it or may not. We're pretty sure the site is undocumented, and soon it will be back underwater. If he gets some pics of the rest of the stuff he's found, I'll post them. Right now, he's just watching the site, and the landowner has put up some no trespassing signs, so maybe we can protect the integrity of the site in case the archy's do want to take a look at it.

 

[naturegirl]

Cool!!!!! WTG rginn and offspring

 

[marinedad]

some great looking finds there.

 

[rginn]

Thanks ng. Maybe they'll come out and I'll get the site report. They probably won't, as they pretty much know a whole lot about that phase. I'll rate this at the top of my site finds, even though I didn't find it. It's only comparable to a place I found in 68 in SE Oklahoma. Anybody on here from around Pushmataha county wants to know a killer location, let me know. I ain't never gonna get back in there, so y'all can have it.

 

[docmann]

[color=maroon
That second group of photos are even more impressive! Doesn't it amaze you to find incredibly small blades with near-perfect serrations?! I guess they're typically pressure-flaked, but it's impressive to see such workmanship with do little technology. I've often wondered how others viewed the sale of artifacts. I believe I'm a bit like you in that I never sell or buy an artifact. I've given a few away on rare occasions, but even the broken pieces tell a story. Certainly told fault the reputable traders, but caught a young man and his friends kicking around one of my homey holes a few years back, and without permission or even much of a clue. He stuttered around a while before finally tlling me that there was a man in Clinton paying 5.00 dollars for arrow heads. Consequently, this guy who had no love or appreciation of the work done by the Washita People 700 years ago, was tromping around a boneifide pre-Columbian village looking for pieces of antiquity that he could sell for less than the price of lunch. He left shortly after I visited with him but I wonder how many other sites he visited. Fortunately, he found only a few small pieces on that occasion, and had little clue as to what hr even had.
Nonetheless, great find!
PS: au-seeker, no offense towards your offer to buy. I find no fault in those wishing to acquire a desirable piece from time-to-time. No doubt your offer would gave been more than the $5,00 this local knuckle head offers to would be grave robbers.