Multiple Arrowheads

[Brian H.]

My son and I found multiple arrowheads at an old Indian hunting camp near my parents cabin. It is in northeastern Arizona and supposedly the hunting site is about 800 years old. We also find tons of unpainted pottery there and an occasional painted piece. Can anyone give me any more info about these arrowheads? The big one looks like it may have been more of a spear point. In all my searching online, I've never seen a small arrowhead that has the three points at the base.

 

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[pepperj]

My son and I found multiple arrowheads at an old Indian hunting camp near my parents cabin. It is in northeastern Arizona and supposedly the hunting site is about 800 years old. We also find tons of unpainted pottery there and an occasional painted piece. Can anyone give me any more info about these arrowheads? The big one looks like it may have been more of a spear point. In all my searching online, I've never seen a small arrowhead that has the three points at the base.

The ones on the ends are very nice 👌, nice saves.

 

[PickTime]

Welcome to the site. Time well spent with your son.

 

[Brian H.]

Welcome to the site. Time well spent with your son.

Thanks! My 8-year-old is really into rocks, minerals, geodes and gems. Finding arrowheads is now his new favorite thing to do! He has really enjoyed reading through the posts on this website too.

 

[Older The Better]

You’re a bit out of my area but I’d say the big one was either a dart point, or a knife, the pieces between 8 and 12 look like debitage, and your point with the three deals I’d describe as a barbed point with a small contracting stem. Another way to search would basal notched arrowheads but I’m on the fence between calling it a basal notch or a stem, the serrations are interesting on it, maybe to really get the blood flowing for a faster kill?

 

[Brian H.]

You’re a bit out of my area but I’d say the big one was either a dart point, or a knife, the pieces between 8 and 12 look like debitage, and your point with the three deals I’d describe as a barbed point with a small contracting stem. Another way to search would basal notched arrowheads but I’m on the fence between calling it a basal notch or a stem, the serrations are interesting on it, maybe to really get the blood flowing for a faster kill?

Thanks! This is exactly why I posted on this forum. We are finding some cool stuff, but I don't know anything about it. The more I can learn about what we are finding, the better. I will search some of the terms you mentioned and see what I find. My dad's cousin is a big arrowhead collector and says that it could be a Columbia point with flint from Ohio. I did a search and found similar ones, but not anything exactly like this one. Here is another picture of it.

 

[antmike915]

Excellent 👍

 

[Tdog]

I think the first one is either a preform or an opportunistic, "quick & dirty" cutting tool/knife. It looks very thick from your picture and is not refined to the stage of being a projectile IMO.

The last one pictured I think is a Hodges Contracting Stem Hohokam arrow point (1500-1300 YBP) and part of the Snaketown cluster. When I first looked at it, I thought it was made of heat treated jasper. Now that I have stared at it for a while, I'm thinking it could be agate! I can't find any decent examples online but my hardcopy of Overstreet has some dead ringer pictures for yours. Here's a drawing of one...

https://www.swca.com/sites/default/files/az-projectile-poster_final.pdf

 

[unclemac]

good lord you ID could have been that very point! talk about definitive!

 

[Tdog]

good lord you ID could have been that very point! talk about definitive!

Thanks. A blind hog finds a nut every once in a while!

 

[Brian H.]

Thanks! I definitely think you found the exact one. I wasn't sure what it was made out of. Most of the flakes around there are more of a brown and tan flint. I assumed this was some type of flint as well. Definitely could be agate.

 

[Brian H.]

I think the first one is either a preform or an opportunistic, "quick & dirty" cutting tool/knife. It looks very thick from your picture and is not refined to the stage of being a projectile IMO.

The last one pictured I think is a Hodges Contracting Stem Hohokam arrow point (1500-1300 YBP) and part of the Snaketown cluster. When I first looked at it, I thought it was made of heat treated jasper. Now that I have stared at it for a while, I'm thinking it could be agate! I can't find any decent examples online but my hardcopy of Overstreet has some dead ringer pictures for yours. Here's a drawing of one...

https://www.swca.com/sites/default/files/az-projectile-poster_final.pdf

I thought the big one seemed pretty thick too and wondered why they didn't take the big chunk off on the thick side. Here are a few more pictures. Let me know if this helps you decide what kind of tool it was. I also attached a couple more photos of the smaller one. Most of the flakes and simple tools we find seem to be flint, but the better shaped arrowheads seem like the are made from something else. Maybe the better ones were made elsewhere and were traded? Thanks again for all the info!

 

[Older The Better]

Looks like the big one stacked up on them, when they struck it to remove a flake it didn’t travel far enough, if that happens multiple times you get a stack, those become very difficult to get past, looks like it was on its way to being a dart or a knife but they never could get it thinned down

Also I find a similar pattern here in Kansas where the flake material and point material aren’t the same proportions, the way I see it the points were made of good stuff they could have traded for or just grabbed as they moved around seasonally so the flakes from making them are elsewhere, and the flakes (at least the ones I find) are more local material that is a little lesser quality used when the good stuff became in short supply

 

[Tdog]

OTB is correct. The stack couldn't be removed so it was probably used as is IMO. If they kept beating on it trying to remove that stack, they likely would have broken it and got no use out of it. Hard for me to believe that after that much effort was spent, such a nice piece (even with the stack) would be discarded when it could be used as is for many cutting and scraping tasks.

After looking at the last pics of that point, I'm inclined to believe that it's some type of heat treated chert -- maybe jasper (yes, jasper is a type of chert).

 

[Brian H.]

Looks like the big one stacked up on them, when they struck it to remove a flake it didn’t travel far enough, if that happens multiple times you get a stack, those become very difficult to get past, looks like it was on its way to being a dart or a knife but they never could get it thinned down

Also I find a similar pattern here in Kansas where the flake material and point material aren’t the same proportions, the way I see it the points were made of good stuff they could have traded for or just grabbed as they moved around seasonally so the flakes from making them are elsewhere, and the flakes (at least the ones I find) are more local material that is a little lesser quality used when the good stuff became in short supply

Thanks again for the insight! Here are a few more interesting things we found the same day. The top 3 look like cutting tools. The bottom left is just a cool looking stone with stripes. I have no clue what it is. I am guessing it was imported because the woods around there don't have anything like it. The bottom right is a decent point, but the corner is broken. Any thoughts?

 

[antmike915]

Thanks again for the insight! Here are a few more interesting things we found the same day. The top 3 look like cutting tools. The bottom left is just a cool looking stone with stripes. I have no clue what it is. I am guessing it was imported because the woods around there don't have anything like it. The bottom right is a decent point, but the corner is broken. Any thoughts?
View attachment 2043017

The bottom right looks like a small blade , the rest looks like debitage.

 

[Tdog]

I'd say the bottom right is a repurposed point. Notice the patina on it's left side is much lighter in color where it was repaired. Also looks like the remnants of a small stack in the lower center of it's face and at bottom left, there's a step fracture that left it pretty thin in that area. It also has a different surface texture there and as you pointed out, the bottom right looks to be snapped off. It may have broken while the maker was trying to remove that stack. I agree w/antmike that the top three pieces are debitage but I'm not sure about the layered piece. It may be a fragment of petrified wood--possibly from a conifer. The striated layers may indicate it's growth rings visible in a cross-section of the tree from which it came.

 

[Laneybug]

I think the big one just didn’t quite get finished to it’s full potential it looks a little like a Nogales. The barbed one looks like maybe a Desert Stemmed or a Neff The other two that have been worked all the way around are just crudely made small blades/knives.