Pointy Tools

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Blades or flakes that were worked to have piecing tips (awls) at one end and generally multi-purpose. Various configurations.

Wish I could capture how neat this one is in-hand in a photo. Another black Buffalo River chert favorite.

 

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Early period(s) material movement between Kentucky and Ohio seems to indicate that carrying tools north was not uncommon, but not the reverse. This one is what seems to be an unusual example of Ohio chert brought back with a migrating group to Kentucky -- probably as winter was setting in.

 

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This one is only 1.5 inches long, but clearly valued.

 

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Carefully/skillfully made but subjected, as Paleo tools in particular were, to heavy use.

 

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Kentucky

 

[tomclark]

Oh Man keep 'em comin!!

 

[Tesorodeoro]

Not just the show, but the “tell” as well.
It’s a change up here.

In my area it seems there were primarily only a handful of lithics used for flaked tools.
Obsidian, red/brown chert (or jasper..not sure), agate, and basalt.

I’m not sure I could tell where any of it originated unless it was some sort of exotic material unique to a specific area. Interesting how out east everyone seems to know what county/state a particular material came from. Maybe there is more to it than I’m understanding at the moment.

 

[Gravelbar32]

Thanks! Love to see those tools.

 

[H.P.]

Good examples with high quality flint.

 

[uniface]

The sad part is the camera and the software en route sucks all the glossiness out of the flint, and shades everything to the rug color (greenish).

There's a soft luster that good flint that's ten or eleven K years old gets (even less) that I love. That doesn't much come across, either -- at least on this tablet I'm using to photograph them. It's velvety.

 

[uniface]

Withoft (Shoop Site, 1952) didn't have a name for them either. "Convergeant tools" if you need one. Will take a better picture tomorrow, but this conveys the essential.



"Sidescrapers" doesn't really make it when the edges are knives.

One thing to note is that, though it may be completely removed by re-sharpening (nrs. 1, 2, 3 & 5 here, all of Witthoft's), the bulb of percussion is at the tip.

 

[newnan man]

The edge work on those blades are something else! I like all the different materials and they do have their specific areas they come from. Ohio had several types and was easily identified.

 

[sandchip]

Those are great. I love tools like that as much as any point.

 

[uniface]

A flaw in the chert led to this losing its tip. Great example of parsimonious re-cycling of a scarce resource in what must have been a lithically impoverished area.

 

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From the fluted point site in Coshocton Co., Ohio mentioned previously.

 

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Heavy duty Coronet Graver

 

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Single heavy duty graver with knife edge (not the usual scraper edge) at the other end. Kentucky.