Texas site#1 Tools

texasriverdigger · Mar 11, 2007

This is a few nice pieces that I think are intresting.. I found 2 sets of nutting stones with the cracking stones together.. I have also been studding the poverty point culture regarding working Jasper stone beads and I will explain that later..But I have included a stone that has a obvious wear hole in it, in the bead study I have made and used many types of tools to try and recreate how they drilled the holes and ground such pretty beads.. I discovered that a bow drill was probably used and to work properly you had to have a way to hold the drill shaft or arbour of the bit.. This stone was probably used for this purpose?? the other semi holed stone is one possibly used as a fire starting stone? The group of different blades and knifes were found there aswell I have a jasper one I will show later..

Atlantis0077 · Mar 12, 2007

Morning,

I hate to sound like a doubting thomas, but most of that does not appear to be artifacts, but rather geofacts. I find quite a lot of that sort of thing mixed in a couple of paleo sites I search....most of it is iron ore or hematite. Naturally it occurs with a lot of small holes and depressions...it is also polished in appearance although not done by human hands. I have a fairly large collection of nutting stones...some with multiple holes some with one. Most are much larger and more substantial so that they would have both the weight and strength to allow for the breaking of pecans and more often hickory or walnuts.

Here are a few photo of nut stone I have on hand, a little other stuff as well. I am interested to see some of your jasper beads. I am very fond of the owls they found at poverty point. It is amazing to me how they could work stone that hard into such intricate shapes by polishing. I found one bead here made of Catlinite. The closest source of catlinite is quite distant from Louisiana. The trade network the indians had was much more widespread than most think about.

Happy Hunting,

Atlantis

texasriverdigger · Mar 12, 2007

Thank you.. You have found some very nice things! I have a couple of the big setting stones as well, someone spent some time to put that hole in those stones and they have my admiration.. I have been studding Jasper for some years I have found some nice jasper pieces over on a island not far from here and I dont know how it got buried there or in the quantity and quality that is there. I haven't found any beads just a couple of small beat up pendants,I know of a man that found a bead not far from where I have found my pieces, that is what lead me to try to recreate some of there work.. curiosity has always been a big drive for me and I had to figure out how they worked that hard stone..It doesn't work like the other materials chert's,flints ,etc ..I used only the type of tools and materials that would have been available to them, I had a man that is well respected in the trade to help work out a few details with me as I went, and the end lesson and experience was fun.. I dont know if I did it exactly as they did but I couldn't have missed it by much we dont think anyway.. I am also including some of tools that I used, to replicate the beads .... Thanks again....The pendant is the 3rd pic - my bad...

bean man · Mar 12, 2007

That's cool stuff you made there trd! I've seen folks on here make breastplates, dreamcatchers, knap points, make casts and pictagraphs. Now you with beads and effigies and I'm thinking, where is my artistic talent?

texasriverdigger · Mar 13, 2007

Thanks bean man, I have alot of admiration for the ones before me that was able to do this type of stone work.. It is a very time consuming and alot of patients is needed as well.. I went through many pieces of Jasper learning how to select the right piece, I learned one can spend alot of time on a piece just to have it blow out in the hole making process, or crack in the hand grinding process as well.. I now have a good idea of what a debitage or debris pile looks like, I have a good scatter site aswell with Jasper stock, broken attempts, spent tools, flakes and DUST... I learned all types of techniques that one could have used but the biggest lesson was alot of patients,time and muscle... I have included a Clovis type point I made just to see if I could make one.. PS we all have our own giving talents in areas that when we start have alot of dought as to being able to complete I think if one really puts his head to it one can do almost anything.. grab whatever it is you always wanted to try and jump in feet first sometimes we can suprise our own self's... Thanks again.. Mike