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Arrowhead Hunters and Collectors


Yul Lose

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When I was a kid growing up in the panhandle of Nebraska my folks had a rather large garden, I thought it was huge because I had to keep the weeds pulled, and over the years doing that I found a couple of arrowheads. I lost them a long time ago but on Pinterest and YouTube I’ve been watching some of the stuff on hunting and collecting them and the Midwest seems to be the hotbed. The ranch where I hunt Buffalo up in Wyoming has a lot of Indian and old west historical sites and one of them is a hilltop with chert deposits and you can see the tipi circles and campfire rings and literally tons of chert chips from their arrowhead and tool making many moons ago. The ranch owner has a very large collection of arrowheads, spearheads and other stone implements that he found on the ranch over the years.

 

Post some pictures , if you would. I find these things very interesting.

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My dad had a big collection from his parents fields. Axe heads, arrow heads of all sizes, bowls, etc. Crockery Creek was not far off. All gone when he came back from the Army.

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I've done lots of arrow head hunting and Indian artifacts collecting over the years. Mostly on my wife's relatives lands in central Kansas called Paint Creek. Best time to go hunting is after the ground has been tilled and once the rain hits the fields. That exposes the flint on the surface. We have found everything from arrow heads to hide scrapers, pottery shards, spear heads to even a 1200 yr old dated skull. My best find was a 700 year old Kansa perfectly preserved large spear point in a sand bar on the Republican river while taking a canoe trip back in the 70's. I actually sent the skull into Kansas State University and got a complete synopsis on it. Results showed it a 40 year old women that died of natural causes, probably Pawnee due to the area found. We then returned it to the original site that it was found in respect.

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11 minutes ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

A6512406-3B4A-4F1F-AB71-48D1157CF0DC.jpeg

We’re those all found on your place there in Colorado? Nice collection.

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15 minutes ago, Yul Lose said:

We’re those all found on your place there in Colorado? Nice collection.

Yes. I usually go out in the spring after the snowmelt and before the weeds come up.

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1 hour ago, Highwall said:

I've done lots of arrow head hunting and Indian artifacts collecting over the years. Mostly on my wife's relatives lands in central Kansas called Paint Creek. Best time to go hunting is after the ground has been tilled and once the rain hits the fields. That exposes the flint on the surface. We have found everything from arrow heads to hide scrapers, pottery shards, spear heads to even a 1200 yr old dated skull. My best find was a 700 year old Kansa perfectly preserved large spear point in a sand bar on the Republican river while taking a canoe trip back in the 70's. I actually sent the skull into Kansas State University and got a complete synopsis on it. Results showed it a 40 year old women that died of natural causes, probably Pawnee due to the area found. We then returned it to the original site that it was found in respect.

Makes me think of a half bison skull that a friend gave me.  It was found about 8 feet deep in a wash by a pipeline project. I briefly tried to find someone who could age it but could not at the time.

Horace

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9 hours ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

A6512406-3B4A-4F1F-AB71-48D1157CF0DC.jpeg

Any authentication done on the possible tribes that made those? There are probably several possibilities where you’re located.

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1 hour ago, Yul Lose said:

Any authentication done on the possible tribes that made those? There are probably several possibilities where you’re located.

Yes, this area has been frequented by Navajo and Ute peoples in the recent (200-300 years) past, and prior to that the Anasazi (now officially called The Ancestors of the Modern Puebloan People. Yeah I know:rolleyes:), and Basket Weavers. There is one spot on the property I call the pottery shop that has thousands of pottery shards and another area that was used for tool and lithic making. In addition, there were trade routes per through the area. I have found some obsidian fragments which is not found around here. Probably came from much farther south according to a museum researcher I contacted. 

 

Note: Sir Otto Correct wants me to write Lithium instead of Lithic. I did find a battery once but I suspect it was from a Chinese tribe. :lol:

 

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Unless cataloged as part of an archaeological dig, arrow heads are impossible to date because those made yesterday are impossible to distinguish from ones that are several thousands of years old. 

 

I know several people that can knap out any design from any period in history. Folsom points are some of the hardest to make and many end up failing to turn out. However with a practiced eye the proper technique can be learned if you are willing to invest the time..

  

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7 hours ago, Sedalia Dave said:

Unless cataloged as part of an archaeological dig, arrow heads are impossible to date because those made yesterday are impossible to distinguish from ones that are several thousands of years old. 

 

I know several people that can knap out any design from any period in history. Folsom points are some of the hardest to make and many end up failing to turn out. However with a practiced eye the proper technique can be learned if you are willing to invest the time..

  

True. Stone is stone. But they can sometimes be dated approximately due to location where they were found and knowledge of tribal history and migrations in the area. If you have a point in a box with no other information, it’s anybody’s guess really. The souvenir shops are full of modern arrowheads for a buck or two a piece.

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ive known folks that had great collections , ive never found one or much related , i do enjoy seeing what others have found , it fascinates me - it disappoints that ive lived most of my life in areas they could be found with no luck on my part , 

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I've never really hunted for them, but stumbled across these two whilst working on the place over the years. The white one about 15 years ago a few hundred feet from my house, and the red one among some tipi rings about three and a half miles away over on the far side of the place some 55+ years back. The white one is the middle third of one, and the red one the bottom two thirds of another - one more third, and I'll have a whole arrowhead!

I've got cousins down Arkansas way who have found hundreds, if not thousands, in the fields, and I have three frames of them hanging on the wall similar to those above. My daughter also found a hunk of obsidian half the size of a basketball a half mile from the house about ten years ago. That had to have been quite a loss to whatever Indian lost it, because it would have to have been carried quite a few miles from Yellowstone to get here.

Arrowheads.jpg

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I found a really nice arrowhead in a plowed cornfield in Wisconsin. I gave it to my son, I hope he still has it.

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Howdy,

If you find a stone that looks like a typical donut but solid in the center

That is a target.  

One fella would roll it along the ground and another would shoot an arrow at it.

The idea is to practice shooting rabbits and such.

I have no idea what they are called other than targets.

 

I know one fella who can find arrowheads almost anywhere.

He does go on vacations along rivers he finds a lot.

I havent seen him since the C19....

Best

CR

 

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As a kid on a family farm, I found hundreds of pounds of them. Arrow tips from less than an 1/2 inch long up to a couple inches. Spear points as long as 7 or 8 inches. Lots of Scrapers too. A very precious few were pristine, A few were 90% or more complete. Usually the tip was missing or a portion of the base. Most were fragments like 3FJ posted pictures of.

 

Only ever found 1 axe head. Never found any grinding stones though. 

 

 

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43 minutes ago, Chili Ron said:

If you find a stone that looks like a typical donut but solid in the center

That is a target.  

One fella would roll it along the ground and another would shoot an arrow at it.

The idea is to practice shooting rabbits and such.

I have no idea what they are called other than targets.

 

 

Those were grind stones not targets. Shooting an arrow at a stone would destroy the arrow. Good arrows took time to make. 

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On my farm here in TN we used to find them pretty regular when we still plowed and disked the ground. Nowadays since we no-till not so much.Back in 1919 my great grandaddy cleared a  bottom field below the house for cotton  and found a grindstone and pestle underneath a big old oak rootwad. He said they were still together. Ive still got them in my shop. Grandaddy over the years had found a 5 gal bucket full of heads and spear points. Years ago before he passed he gave them to a fellow he knew from town. Kinda makes me sick to think of what all was in there.

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Nice day. Walked up the ridge this afternoon. Found these pottery shards and worked stone pieces in about 5 minutes. 
Two grindstones I found a few years back. The big broken one looks to be granite. No granite around here for quite a distance. Probably a trade item. I found it down in the creek bed. Found one half and then the other half a day later.

D6A3A7B3-4D16-40C3-864B-813BCFBF7E47.jpeg

37AD7DA0-EB76-40EF-9799-AC3C04F97F93.jpeg

86D34ADC-FA23-470A-9693-3FFCD66D07EA.jpeg

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Back in the 80’s while doing two way radio service work for contractors building the Central Arizona Project delivery system I found quite a few mono and matate sets that were unearthed during the building process. This picture is of the matate and mono from an unmatched set. The handheld piece that I found with this matate was more rectangular in shape. This mono I found with another one.

D445BB89-51CA-4BE3-A73B-70ED7B9BA755.jpeg

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9 hours ago, Yul Lose said:

Back in the 80’s while doing two way radio for contractors building the Central Arizona Project delivery system I found quite a few mono and matate sets that were unearthed during the process. This picture is of the matate and mono from an unmatched set. The handheld piece that I found with this matate was more rectangular in shape. This mono I found with another one.

D445BB89-51CA-4BE3-A73B-70ED7B9BA755.jpeg

Very interesting metate!

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I've looked before, and always look whenever I am working on our place, but have never had any luck. Although my house sits about four miles as the crow flies from the site of the Battle of Piqua, and was a prime area used by the Shawnee, it has been worked over pretty well, and has seen use as a farm, horse farm and had an "interurban traction line" running on the property mine used to be a part of, about 20 yards behind our back property line. When it was part of the horse farm, Mrs. Doc used to ride and board on it, and reported finding the occasional railroad spike, but that's about it.

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I have found some when I lived on a Navy base inside of Ft. Campbell, KY. We had some erosion of our yard on base and my father asked the publick works people to bring him some topsoil and he would fix the erosion, They brought a bunch of topsoil and before my father could spread it around a few kids from housing played in the dirt with our toy trucks and cars. While digging around we found a few arrow heads and one spear point. My father asked where the dirt came from and was told down by the river. The Little West Fork Creek. We went down there and found some graves that were Native American graves. We looked around and found a few more artifacts. Supposedly this was one place on the Trail of Tears. I have not researched it but the last time I was in that area there were Historical markers in Hopkinsville, KY mentioning the Trail of Tears.

 

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