Starting to see more and more of these

Airborne80 · Jul 7, 2009

The more that I search the site, the more convinced I become, that many of what I had believed to be “heart Breakers” are in fact, a style of point. I am at work now and don’t have enough photos to post to demonstrate my idea, but this one is a good example of what I keep finding. Many points only have one shoulder. Now, as this was an Indian summer fishing village site and they used lots of stone tips to spear the fish in the river, they did not seem to be very interested in making beautiful points… but rather useful and disposable ones. Anyway… take a look and see what you think. Thanks.

Tnmountains · Jul 7, 2009

I dont know airborne. You know about survival. The only fish around here you could actually spear might be the carp when they are in the beds and gar. I have shot both with a bow. Of course a salmon run or something would require little effort.
I agree with you that it did not have to be perfect to get the job done though. Just a flake can skin a deer or rabbit. I can see those artifacts as being used and maybe exhausted. I am sure that the one shoulder type is classified somewhere as a point in your area?
Good point !!!

abarnard · Jul 7, 2009

Very strange.... Cool that you are finding similarities...

uniface · Jul 7, 2009

Hi Airborne80

As far as a lot of your points having one shoulder, a great many of them were, in all liklihood, hafted knives. Which kept getting re-sharpened as they dulled from use. With a knife, symmetry doesn't matter -- only the edge does.

Nearly any piece of the lithic scatter on your site could have been used, without modification, for some short-term purpose and pitched again. The twenty-five cent term for one of these is "expedient tool" but, like a lot of other terms, it's nearly meaningless. A better name would be ad hoc tool. Cutter, scraper, splitting wedge, whatever. Find one with the proper angled edge for the job, use it, drop it.

You seem to be developing the sense that a lot more of this stuff is significant than people generally regard it as being.

IMHO, you're right :headbang:

Airborne80 · Jul 7, 2009

TnMountains said:
I dont know airborne. You know about survival. The only fish around here you could actually spear might be the carp when they are in the beds and gar. I have shot both with a bow. Of course a salmon run or something would require little effort.
I agree with you that it did not have to be perfect to get the job done though. Just a flake can skin a deer or rabbit. I can see those artifacts as being used and maybe exhausted. I am sure that the one shoulder type is classified somewhere as a point in your area?
Good point !!!

Wow.... I logged on here at home and see some great responses. I love it!! TM....I agree 100%. In fact, the records that are available for my immediate area indicate that it was the Gar that they were most interested in, at least in terms of Woodland peoples. having picked up sooooo many items from the waterline and compared them with the ones up in the woods and the high ground... I see a clear difference. The ones "perfect" and far from beautiful (in most cases), while the ones higher up.... maybe used for hunting and/or defense, are made with visibly greater attention to detail..... even pride. It makes sense to me, when I think of "my point being used and lost fishing" as opposed to, "my point being used in a hunt or combat and being seen and evaluated by others." Sure its a guess, but it feels right, as I will explain in my responses below. Thanks again brother. You have motivated me and you did not even know it haha.

Airborne80 · Jul 7, 2009

abarnard said:
Very strange.... Cool that you are finding similarities...

abarnard... I am happy that you noticed that with just these poor examples. Thank you for that. The truth is... I have been so busy that I have had no time to post for a while but in June andbefore, I have found much more and your post motivates me to get a photo of them together. I hope that you follow this thread and you will see just how strange it really is. In addition to the single shoulder, they all have a tapered base. Since I only find these at this site and not in the other areas where i have found points, I just can't believe that its a natural occurrence. Thanks again.

Airborne80 · Jul 7, 2009

uniface said:
Hi Airborne80

As far as a lot of your points having one shoulder, a great many of them were, in all liklihood, hafted knives. Which kept getting re-sharpened as they dulled from use. With a knife, symmetry doesn't matter -- only the edge does.

Nearly any piece of the lithic scatter on your site could have been used, without modification, for some short-term purpose and pitched again. The twenty-five cent term for one of these is "expedient tool" but, like a lot of other terms, it's nearly meaningless. A better name would be ad hoc tool. Cutter, scraper, splitting wedge, whatever. Find one with the proper angled edge for the job, use it, drop it.

You seem to be developing the sense that a lot more of this stuff is significant than people generally regard it as being.

IMHO, you're right

uniface..... hey brother.... I really appreciate your detailed response to my post. It's not that I only want affirmation (its nice, but not required haha), but so many are very quick to write off such items as Geofacts, without considering the full picture, in terms of location, frequency of occurrence, etc. Please read above in my response to T N Mountains, as I added a few of the items I refer to. your information/thoughts on the subject make perfect sense and I appreciate them. As far as your observations about me finding these significant, you are right on target

That is for a number of reasons, not the least of which is....... I am starting to believe that my site has been way underestimated and under studied. The former is believed because of the quickness for so many to write off or disengage from any discussion regarding the items. true enough... when I began this hobby (addiction) two years ago, i did post my share of rocks and geofacts. Two years, thousands of mistakes, countless hours or reading, and common sense has done much for me. It has greatly filtered out the criteria for which I will bend over and pick an object up. It has also opened my mind to the reality that we (humans) do NOT know and/or fully understand every little thing. Point being.... I think that there are many new discoveries and types of tools and points to be found. The latter (reference the term "under studied" ) is believed due to the frustrating lack of archaeological material on points in Northern Virginia. Yes... the main players are identified, but... when a novice like me can come up with hundreds of single shouldered points, most made from the same material, it's simply strange that there are no references to them in anything published in paper or on the net. Now, if I have just missed the information and someone is aware of it... please send it my way. i am in a constant state of searching for material on the subject and have quite a collection of books and articles, such as they are.

Sorry for the ramble but your detailed thoughts deserved a detailed response :wink:

Anyway.... thanks again and stay safe.

oldgoat · Jul 7, 2009

Hey, Airborne80, over here in Texas, we call those pieces, killsite knives, used at a killsite for that season or kill and discarded...We go to a ranch near here and pick up quite a few of them...

Airborne80 · Jul 8, 2009

oldgoat said:
Hey, Airborne80, over here in Texas, we call those pieces, killsite knives, used at a killsite for that season or kill and discarded...We go to a ranch near here and pick up quite a few of them...

Oldgoat.... that is interesting information and makes sense. If you ever get bored and want to post a photo of one of them here, I would really love to see it. Mine are the only ones like this that I have seen. I always thought that they were broken blades and lance points and finally realized that they (in most cases) were made this way. Thanks brother.