Quartz Arrowhead

[Beckjhenry]

Hi. Found this white quartz arrowhead - or maybe it’s a short-stemmed “point” - on the banks of the Piscataqua River in Portsmouth NH.

Wondering if anyone can tell me how to determine age and/or what Native American peoples might have crafted and used this?

Thnx!

 

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[crashbandicoot]

Nice! Don,t know anything about it but nice! Welcome to Tnet from S.E,Arkansas.

 

[Tdog]

Looks like it's in the distribution range for a Morrow Mountain II. Check out some of the examples in this link.

Morrow Mountain Projectile Point

Description of the Morrow Mountain Point

www.projectilepoints.net

 

[newnan man]

I've never found a quartz point but it looks like a hard material to work with. Nice one you found.

 

[CaptEsteban]

I have found a lot of quartz points, but all were from the Southeast.

 

[Charl]

It’s a Wading River point. Before the establishment of many type names, collectors in New England referred to these, and other related points, as “small stem points”. Many of us, pro and amateur, still call them small stems.

They are not a good type to use for time constraint, as they were in use from the Late Archaic right into Woodland times. 5000-1000 years old would be the rough age range.

Quartz was the most common lithic for these points. Quartz was not quarried. These points resulted from a quartz pebble industry. Because quartz pebbles and cobbles are so common in New England, distant travel to quartz quarries was not needed.

Something I did not know, until I read an essay by the late Jeff Boudreau, who authored the best New England typology, is that most of these points were not used as projectiles at all. Rather, analysis by Jeff showed most were used in scoring, cutting, boring, or graving operations.

I had a field, since developed, that yielded hundreds of these quartz points. It is one of the most common types in our region. Always nice to find.

Here is Boudreau’s essay “Rethinking Small Stem Points”:

https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1185&context=bmas

 

[Beckjhenry]

It’s a Wading River point. Before the establishment of many type names, collectors in New England referred to these, and other related points, as “small stem points”. Many of us, pro and amateur, still call them small stems.

They are not a good type to use for time constraint, as they were in use from the Late Archaic right into Woodland times. 5000-1000 years old would be the rough age range.

Quartz was the most common lithic for these points. Quartz was not quarried. These points resulted from a quartz pebble industry. Because quartz pebbles and cobbles are so common in New England, distant travel to quartz quarries was not needed.

Something I did not know, until I read an essay by the late Jeff Boudreau, who authored the best New England typology, is that most of these points were not used as projectiles at all. Rather, analysis by Jeff showed most were used in scoring, cutting, boring, or graving operations.

I had a field, since developed, that yielded hundreds of these quartz points. It is one of the most common types in our region. Always nice to find.

Here is Boudreau’s essay “Rethinking Small Stem Points”:

https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1185&context=bmas

Super helpful! Thanks!!

 

[Tony in SC]

View attachment 2001221 Hi. Found this white quartz arrowhead - or maybe it’s a short-stemmed “point” - on the banks of the Piscataqua River in Portsmouth NH.

Wondering if anyone can tell me how to determine age and/or what Native American peoples might have crafted and used this?

Thnx!

Nice point! We find a lot of those down here. I believe there was a lot trading up and down the east coast.