Preform Mecca?

[ealewis1]

As some of you may know, I live on a farm in NW Georgia and my daughter and I are obsessed with looking for arrowheads and also want to find the where the native Americans lived. Well, today I we

nt to the top of a large hill where there is an old family cemetery from 1800s as well as some unmarked graves. No, I didnt dig in there. Anyways, as I started back down the hill I noticed all these pieces of chert that sat in areas where we pushed aside some of the gravel road. My questions to all the experts out there. Are there burial spots of preforms? Do these appear to be preforms? There are hundreds of them. Next question, if preforms are hidden and buried is it usually next to where they lived? We felt like there were marker rocks too, or perhaps coincidence. I'm determined to find where they lived. As always, thanks for advice and educating me.

 

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[uniface]

You've got everything in that assemblage but the kitchen sink.

 

[Tnmountains]

My fields are chock full of chert like that. It is natural occurring item in them. Are you finding any knapping flakes? Pieces that have been worked? The one looks possibly worked but it a poor quality flint as you can see the crack in the middle. They would have thrown that away.
Do you have a creek or spring? You have the flint so I would concentrate my search near the water source.

 

[ealewis1]

So a big bunch of nothing. Darn

 

[Tnmountains]

I would not say nothing. You have chert some is better quality than others but it really looks like natural wear and tumble. I am betting that there are worked pieces on that tract of land.
Do not get discouraged. It is hard to judge some things not having them in your hand.

 

[uniface]

One procedure that's useful in evaluating intentional vs. natural is to look for repeating elements. In this case, at the proportion of pointy things, which is (IMO) higher than would be expected from unmodified rocks assembled at random.

Another is to determine whether what could be working edges would have been (potentially) useful.

I recall this same disagreement a few years ago over an assemblage of quartz found by a landscaper in New York.

FWIW

 

[uniface]

Still another determination -- one preliminary to evaluation -- is whether the material at issue is a natural component of the lithic background where they were found. If not, it was transported (establishing an element of intentionality).

 

[ealewis1]

Still another determination -- one preliminary to evaluation -- is whether the material at issue is a natural component of the lithic background where they were found. If not, it was transported (establishing an element of intentionality).

Thanks for your input. There's no doubt we have chert on our farm. But Never have I found such a concentration of chert in what appears to be specific places. This large hill where all this chert was found on is predominantly shale much like the rest of our farm. I don't disagree with your comment of the amount of pointed pieces. Maybe I don't understand preforms enough. Would they take potential point raw materials and bury them or save them for later use. Would they work on some as a preform and not on others? Granted, I'm not seeing chips in these areas, but I can't get over how it's grouped together. And the chert is not everywhere on this hill at all. It just seemed so completely random. This is not the side of our farm that has chert. You dig anywhere on this hill, it's shale. I have plenty of other areas where I do see chips and have found hundreds of points around the farm. We have this one area on the farm I would call like a chert out cropping, but they are just small pieces of chert, not pointed, not even the approx size of points, just simply pieces of chert. This IMO seems different to me, but obviously I'm not the expert. Historically, would they bury preforms close to their camps or not necessarily? It's funny someone mentioned the creek. I rarely, if ever find anything near our creek or in our creek. I think thousands of years ago almost my whole farm was under water based on the huge amount of boulder outcropping. As always thanks for opinions!

 

[Crumb]

If u have a tractor with a bucket or grader blade go scratch around at different places removing a few inches of the topsoil (probably better luck near streams) and wait till a few rains have came thru and then go look where you’ve graded. If u have no tractor to use I’ve found flint and points in creeks/streams ,places where water has cut ruts from erosion,right in old dirt roads. When my crops get to big to field hunt I usually do them methods and find stuff