✅ SOLVED Indian tool artifact

[NGAGIRL]

Hello, I found this in the coastal Pacific North West while searching for sea glass. Can someone help me identify it and roughly an age?

 

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[Garscale]

Cool find. It will be hard to assign it a specific age because of the wear. Maybe someone closer to you can answer better.

 

[unclemac]

Well, it is a Lanceolate point, specific type irrelevant, early to middle archaic I would say...so somewhere in the 5,000+ year range. But having said that it could also be way more recent as those sort of knife points were made throughout history. Lanceolate points are not easy to pin down with certainty. Yours shows a lot of beach tumble however leading me to say older. Where on the coast did you find it?

 

[NGAGIRL]

Wow that’s pretty awesome! It would be amazing to see it beforehand. I found it on the beaches of San Juan island, WA.
I’ve collected some beautiful beach glass and agates from there too.
I will send a picture of an arrowhead I bought at an antique store there. Paid $20 for it and I think the guy said it was from there.

 

[NGAGIRL]

The last few pics it’s just something I picked up between the bigger rocks on the beach. It kind of looked like a clam or fossil but now I’m thinking maybe it is a tool/artifact? Perhaps you can help on that too

 

[Robot]

A Sea Of Treasures...One Only Needs To Look For!

Welcome NGAGirl to the Show!

Nice Find...as others have identified...it does appear to be a Lanceolate point made from chipped Basalt.

What is of notice is its uniform shape... unlike the triangle shapes of this era.

I would believe this design was used on spears to do multiple unimpeded stabs to their harpooned sea mammals.

https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/olym/prehistory_ethnography/chap3.htm

 

[NGAGIRL]

Thanks Robot! That would make sense with the marine mammals and such. Did you see the clam looking stone in the last post? Do you think it could be a tool for something or just a perfectly edged stone?
I appreciate your time.

 

[unclemac]

The last few pics it’s just something I picked up between the bigger rocks on the beach. It kind of looked like a clam or fossil but now I’m thinking maybe it is a tool/artifact? Perhaps you can help on that too

well, depending on the beach, most clam fossils on WA beaches are agate and yours has the shape but is missing key details so I am going to say neither tool nor clam.

 

[Garscale]

I mentioned on another thread that it may he a Haskett

 

[NGAGIRL]

Thanks for checking it out

 

[Robot]

Now We Are On...The Point Of This Find!

I mentioned on another thread that it may he a Haskett

This is a medium to large lanceolate point with an elliptical to median ridge cross section. The blade is narrow and excurvate. The widest part of the blade may vary to the top one third of the blade for the type I to the top one half of the blade for the type II. The bottom one half to one third of the point contracts in towards the base. Basal grinding is usually present. The base varies from convex to straight. This point has a flaking pattern that ranges from parallel oblique to collateral.

 

[NGAGIRL]

Robot, that sounds official! Do you know when these lanceolate’s would have been used? Like 5000-6000 years ago maybe? That’s definitely the closest looking picture I’ve seen Thanks!

 

[Robot]

Time Is A Revolving Clock!

Robot, that sounds official! Do you know when these lanceolate?s would have been used? Like 5000-6000 years ago maybe? That?s definitely the closest looking picture I?ve seen Thanks!

I like what unclemac described as what he thought could be the age and how difficult it would be to give an age.

If you returned to where you located it maybe further clues could be revealed?

Any fossilized bones, pottery, or how far from the Ocean Shore was it was found.

It has been stated that these type of Spearheads were used back to 9000 B.P. (before present time) but as the Ocean waters rose early hunters were forced to make their camps farther and farther away from the ocean..
By locating where on the shore you found this may indicate its age?

"It may be that the technological and subsistence shifts noted for the Middle Prehistoric in the Fraser River country occurred later in time on the Olympic Peninsula. Geographical isolation of large portions of the Peninsula has been an important theme noted in botanical, faunal and historical studies (Pike 1981; Gail E. H. Evans, personal communication, 1982). Also, major changes in relative sea level since the Pleistocene, both above and below the present level, have complicated the picture. These changes were caused by isostatic rebound of the land surface and a gradual world-wide rise in sea level. Between 9000?5000 B.P. (and possibly continuing up to more recent times) there was evidently a period of lowered sea level (Thompson 1978:55). Coastal sites on the Peninsula occupied during that time would now be submerged."

 

[NGAGIRL]

Robot, Unclemac, that’s a whole bunch of information and more than I could’ve found on my own! I wish I could go back but not likely another vacation there for awhile. I remember it was a bay called False Bay and it looked almost empty when the tide went out. Maybe they used to trap fish there or camped there? Who knows.
Thank you all for the help.

 

[unclemac]

false bay in the San Juans?

 

[NGAGIRL]

Yes.

 

[unclemac]

for what it's worth,,,

https://www.nps.gov/sajh/learn/historyculture/the-first-ones.htm

 

[NGAGIRL]

Oh my gosh! The history of that place. I love that they created 2 National Park sites there. That link really helped answer my questions I posed. I will mark this solved.. once I figure out how to do it.