Re-discovered Cache / Collection?

[ncuke]

Hey folks,

Kind of a crazy story / mystery here. Was at a sports practice today, killing time, when I noticed a point sticking out of the dirt in the middle of an area to the side of the field - nothing special. Then I found another. Then my daughter found a handful. 15 minutes later we had more than a dozen fragments. Excited we had come across a cache or camp site, when we got back to the car, we noticed a few pieces had a rubber-Ish glue with a pattern sticking to them. Could it be that we found someone else’s past findings? Here in NC there is plenty of new construction and very well could have been a previous home site that was leveled at some point in the past. The points were embedded in the soil and not just sitting on top loose. So my questions are...

These points do not seem native to NC but appear to be made of jasper maybe. Not like anything I’ve found around here... you can see on the pic that has my ring where some glue is still attached. Are these even real? Very interesting pattern in some of the material - like polka dots... Thoughts?

 

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[ptsofnc]

Well, they do look like artifacts............not artifakes. But you're right. They do not look like the rhyolite that we find over much of the state. I've always heard as you go east, you start to find points made of coastal plain chert. And as you go to the southern part of NC you can find points made of Allendale Chert. Not familiar with either, so I don't know what that stone looks like. Some of that does look like jasper. I have found a few made of jasper in my area. Piedmont NC. Good luck to ya.

 

[Garscale]

100 percent authentic. I dont see what you are talking about on glue?

 

[releventchair]

Could it be pitch type glue?
A waste pit could contain a gob of pitch.
A pit or burial keeps feet from encountering sharp edges.
Modern folks should / can toss a "modern" coin in waste holes containing flakes and broken points /scrap to avoid confusion for later finders.

 

[ncuke]

100 percent authentic. I dont see what you are talking about on glue?

Here are two points with glue residue and what appears to be a cloth pattern attached. It’s gummy to the touch.



Also simply love this little red guy



Any thoughts as to ID on these? Material is all very similar. Maybe Kirk?

 

[ncuke]

Items were spread across about 20 feet across as far as we could tell. Might have been more but had to go.

 

[Tdog]

100 percent authentic. I don't see what you are talking about on glue?

Me too on both accounts.

 

[Garscale]

I dont know what might be on them. I'm guessing they got a that where they lay. Might be more there.

Looks like a killer paleo base top left on the green .

 

[dognose]

interesting dilemma.

they look authentic to me from reviewing the images. I understand the concern in these being made of foreign material.

Its possible
1) in the past the sports complex was a home or farm where the inhabitant collected relics both near and far. The lesser desired relics may have been decorating a rock garden or some sort of entertainment area. This could have been overlooked when the land sold and after years of farming which broke up the items further sold again and transformed into a sports complex.
or
2) just a crazy fluke of coincidence that some material stuck to broken relics in a manner to appear to have been affixed to a display

I have seen in estate sales broken relic glued onto boards for display along with complete relics.

I have a wide variety of broken relics strewn about my county home, and have in the past met folks when out and about who also have broken relics in their yard.

Back in the 80's when my old hunting buddy and I were driving in south eastern Indiana hills scouting for field we came upon a 1940s farm house which had celts and axes embedded in the concreate pillars of the porch. It was an impressive collection and an interesting manner to display them.

I don't know if this house is still standing. Its not too hard to think a bulldozer crew with orders to demolish the house could overlook them unless they specifically recognized them as native American relics.

If a relic with this material on it is placed in warm water, does the material come off easily? Is there any glue material seen under it? Does the glue turn whiteish from the water?

 

[DaveSmith]

Most I have from the western part of the state is different from those.

 

[joshuaream]

Soak them in water to see if that's actually glue.

Years ago I would pick up everything, and then routinely dump my broken pieces and ugly flakes in a pile before heading home. Lots of collectors used to do the same thing, and some still do if they are blessed with bountiful hunting grounds.

 

[Garscale]

Soak them in water to see if that's actually glue.

Years ago I would pick up everything, and then routinely dump my broken pieces and ugly flakes in a pile before heading home. Lots of collectors used to do the same thing, and some still do if they are blessed with bountiful hunting grounds.

Yep

 

[ncuke]

Well, gave it the ol hot water soak and - lo and behold - stunk like rubber coming out! Must be rubber cement that took on the pattern of the cloth it was stuck to. Still a bit stretchy - peeled off with a little help from a knife.

Thanks to everyone for you input!

 

[joshuaream]

Well, gave it the ol hot water soak and - lo and behold - stunk like rubber coming out! Must be rubber cement that took on the pattern of the cloth it was stuck to. Still a bit stretchy - peeled off with a little help from a knife.

Thanks to everyone for you input!

Interesting, then it looks like they were certainly part of a collection before. If you are finding broken bottles and other modern artifacts, or if you know the land was cleared of older homes, then it's probably just a good luck find of some points someone previously collected and tossed for whatever reason! Makes for a neat story.

I have heard of a couple of collectors intentionally "returning pieces to the wild" by dumping under appreciated finds back into a field or stream for whatever reason. (Maybe they wanted someone else to have the joy of finding something? Maybe they tried to sell them and couldn't? Maybe they wanted the frame for something else and didn't want to just toss the points in the garbage?) I have a couple buckets of broken pieces from the field behind my childhood home, most would have absolutely no monetary value if I tried to sell them, and they are really common so little archaeological value. So who knows, maybe someday I'll return them to the ground. Might spark the interest of some other Hoosier who wasn't very good at baseball.

I also know of cases where people who have salted construction sites in order to halt construction. Depends on the state, but in some places a handful of items like those would be a significant delay & an expensive archaeological survey at the bare minimum.

 

[monsterrack]

That stone looks like what we have in MS.and the red point is Jasper we call the brown chert. They all come from the same source which is ancient rivers from glacier melt. The material on the back to me looks like glue of some type that took on the imprint of what it was glued to.

 

[CaptEsteban]

There was a pile of artifacts found in a small area of a field, in upstate S.C. I was asked to look over the artifacts . Even though I am not an expert, I could tell that these artifacts were not from the area, & were dated centuries apart. The best we could figure out was that it had been someone's collection that was thrown away, a home in the area had been bulldozed, etc., etc.

 

[Trezurehunter]

Maybe they glued the points onto a board covered in fabric for display purposes ?