Some more artifacts from Central Asia (as well as couple of Ill/Mo points)

[joshuaream]

I recently went to Ulan Bator, Mongolia on business and managed to find someone to sell me some rocks!

I bought around 800 pieces and got two or three real keepers in the deal.

The first piece is my favorite, a compound bone lance with three inset chalcedony blades set on either side.

The second piece is a compound knife that is missing the bone handle. It is comprised of two transverse oblique flaked blades, the material is thin enough and clear enough than you can see the flake scars from both sides.

The collector said this was a cache, and had a nice frame made for it, so I got the group as well. They are very thin chalcedony "adena" style blades and a large square knife. Average size is about 3 inches.

 

[joshuaream]

I ended up getting about 700 bird points. The first picture is a shot of 500 of them.

The second and third pictures are another 100 in hand.

The fourth picture is a better shot of 15 of them, workmanship and material is very good.

I asked about flake knives, hoping to get some long ones but he only had a 4 to 5 gallon sack of micro-blades/bladelets. I picked out a handfull of some colorful ones.

 

[joshuaream]

Finally, a couple holland/dalton cluster points I picked up at one of Jim Bennett's auctions a while back. They aren't really related to the post, I just figured I needed to post some that shows I actually collect american pieces as well.

 

[SoIll]

Very cool.
So how does that compound knife work?
That bone lance is so killer.

 

[Neanderthal]

Incredible pieces! It's not hard to see why those caught your eye, that's impressive workmanship and material. Question, Egyptian Gherzian (sp) blades commonly used flake-over-grinding, is that something that you see in the Mongolian blades also?

 

[joshuaream]

Very cool.
So how does that compound knife work?
That bone lance is so killer.

One of the edges has some hafting residue on it, I think it was probably set in a rib bone or something like some of the knives that Larson has posted.

 

[joshuaream]

good question. I saw a couple of pieces in the museum that could have been made with flake-over-grinding, but I think on these examples the combination of experience and an extremely pure/consistent material was enough to get the results. I don't know for sure, but I'd bet the civization had developed enough to have specialized artisans making pieces and trading vs everyone making their own tools and satisfying their own hunting/gathering needs.

Incredible pieces! It's not hard to see why those caught your eye, that's impressive workmanship and material. Question, Egyptian Gherzian (sp) blades commonly used flake-over-grinding, is that something that you see in the Mongolian blades also?

 

[Tnmountains]

I like it that you always take us to far away places with some of the most incredible artifacts posted. To see the diffrent cultures and styles it a very nice treat.
Thanks again for sharing your finds with us.
HH
TnMountains

 

[ohio]

Those bone hafted blades are amazing!

 

[pickaway]

Wow great artifacts thanks for the look...