My Favorite Arrowhead Finds From My Youth

[Eastender]

I'm happy this site also includes some Native American artifacts. I know that when I am out detecting I also have my radar on for stone artifacts, especially when crossing erosion points. These are some of my favorite finds from my youth nearly 45 years ago when I was a teen picking the turned cornfields of rural upstate NY. I like the small game and bird points, more challenging to find. The large white piece was recently mounted by a professional jeweler and it is now a necklace for my daughter.

I grew up in Allegany and Cattaraugus Counties in southwestern New York State, home to the great Seneca peoples (and those who preceded them including Mound-building cultures). The hobby required and developed the skills of concentration and observation. This training became valuable later in my life when I worked as a professional archaeologist and completed graduate level studies in Cultural and Natural Resources Management. Back in the summer of 1978 I served on a research team as an Earthwatch Scholarship winner locating and recording Native American petroglyphs (rock carvings) in the Black Mountains of the high Mojave north of Barstow and south of Death Valley. In 1980 I returned as Camp director for three more of these petroglyph expeditions, cataloging hundreds of them. I also worked as a contract field archaeologist for the reopening of Fort Irwin in the CA Mojave, a huge piece of desert used for live fire training exercises. In 1980 the US Military was forming battle plans to counter Soviet-style armored infantry columns as a response to the invasion of Afghanistan. Essentially a game of laser tag using helicopters, tanks, and jets against a resident force trained in these tactics and led by a defected Soviet Commandant. US Rapid Deployment Forces trained here then progressed to operation Bight Star in Egypt. We had to make sure sites weren't blown up and in the process located several National Historic Register Sites. My best find was locating two perfect clovis spear points laying side by side on the desert floor. Other highlights included being selected to a crack six man archaeological unit tasked to survey the Goldstone Tracking Facility run by NASA and JPL. Worked in fields of parabolic dishes which moved to track satellites. I watched what I believe was the second Shuttle Mission land at Ft. Edwards, standing near to the runway.

I digress...Seeing finds posted here keeps me going. I have been putting in a lot of leg work detecting but have little to show for it lately. The sport is painful when you find some nice things then strike out for days. But I keep swinging.

 

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[antmike915]

Nice finds, good to see some from the New York area.

 

[A2coins]

Great story awesome post thats really cool Its good to see how much you appreciate all those relics. Thanks for sharing them with us and the back story

 

[Trezurehunter]

Those are some great looking points.

 

[xcopperstax]

Very nice stuff Eastender! I always appreciate your posts! Fascinating that you are / were an archeologist! I always wished I had gone in that direction. What do your colleagues think of your detecting? I have a ton of respect for archeology so it's always kind of strange to me that they are seen as enemies by many who detect. I absolutely love the historic nature of what we do but I understand that philosophical clash between the two. I think many paint it in black and white but there are so many shades of gray. The way I see it is that most metal detecting doesn't disturb historic sites and Archeology is crucial to our understanding of history. I think the real enemy is development... but then again how many amazing things have been discovered due to a site being threatened by bulldozers. Interesting stuff to ponder. Thanks for the great post as always!

 

[Tpmetal]

hey im in allegany county ny, still have not found an arrowhead. you musta scooped em all up!

 

[Eastender]

Tpmetal, if you go to the farm fields next to rivers, creeks, streams and bogs right after plowing you can hunt for points. If you see a farmer working out in the fields ask them for permission. If you are friendly and show an interest by making small talk about their crops quite often they will say sure and please take some of the big rocks if you will. Stop and chat a roadside vegetable stands. They just want to be sure people aren't dumping, stealing crops or firewood, or walking on freshly planted fields. Quite often they will introduce you to neighboring farmers. The first spring till is optimal, right after a fresh rain which will wash the flints clean and make them shine in the sunlight. If they till in the fall and let the fields sit you have all winter and late fall to look. And these fields are like metal detecting sites that keep giving. Over time the plow cuts deeper exposing older remains. I don't feel bad about collecting them because after many years of tilling and disturbance my favorite field sites were bulldozed for a hotel and sealed under parking lots. Of course you can't walk fields with crops growing, but sometimes you can look over the outside edges. Plus during growing is a good time to walk the waterways and look at erosion points to see a site getting destroyed in which case the artifacts will most likely be lost to silty water graves and never be found. It's a good way to stumble upon bottle dumps too.

 

[Eastender]

As far as the archaeology vs. metal detecting discussion it is something I often think about. I am a Professional Archaeologist but have not worked in that field in decades. I last filed a Preliminary Phase I Assessment report to Albany back in 1997. My dual major of natural and cultural resources management pulled me more towards environmental science. I have worked on research in East Africa, India, Nepal, Israel, Big Island of Hawaii, and California. Realistically it is doubtful I will ever work professionally in the archaeological field again. This is part of the reason why I picked up the hobby of metal detecting last August. I have a great interest in history and since I will be 60 in a couple of months decided I needed an official old man hobby (no offense to the younger set). So dry fishing it is. And approaching it as a scientist using maps and research I have made a good haul of finds. And I have made an effort to educate as many people as possible to the history under their feet which so many do not know of or appreciate.

But it is easy to see how amateur avocational archaeologists and detectorsits could be a threat to sites. Even heavily disturbed sites or even destroyed ones can still offer fascinating info with artifacts out of situ. The very artifacts, their manufacturing techniques, materials, and frequency. I recently scanned a National Historic Landmark close to home with permission of the Board of Directors with full disclosure. They wanted historical objects for their collections to be used for educational purposes. The finds were few because others had picked the property over. But being realistic, with public-owned lands and sites often falling into disrepair and suffering from budget cuts, how much money can be set aside for archaeological research? How much can some organic stains left in the soil at an old homestead site tell us vs. spending the money on building preservation or infrastructure? Rising sea levels are also destroying sites. Where I live the Hamptons has been under constant development pressure for decades. Taxes and cost of living are so high it isn't profitable to farm. If someone offers you ten million bucks for your potato patch you are likely to take it and run. Most farmers have. Huge pieces of land are being preserved through the addition of a real estate land transfer tax. Many of these properties are now overgrown tick infested lands giving homes to deer which get run over and destroy landscaping. We are literally in a situation where beautiful ten million dollar homes are being knocked down to build bigger ones. Humans tend to value the same land for the same reasons over millennia, so the native sites and colonial homesteads here now have McMansions sitting on top of them. I would love to read the detailed archaeological surveys because they probably don't exist. So many people benefit from development dollars down to the municipalities expanding their tax base. The last thing any of these developers want is for someone to show up and say "Hi, I'm an archaeologist." Human remains can stop a bulldozer in its tracks. Who knows how often historical remains are found then people look the other way. When I was working in CA during the late 70's and early 80's archaeologist could seize a portion of the budget of big projects for surveys, reclamation, or preservation. In the case of a large military base reopening that was a significant dollar amount. And it made sense, we preserved some important undisturbed sites, some of the oldest finds in the lower 48.

I could actually teach a college course on this subject. And I would invite metal detectorist's input. Looking at my situation, I must be closing in on a thousand hours in the field detecting my area and looking for colonial evidence. The town historians want nothing to do with me. They are left regurgitating written historical accounts and waiting for slow pick and shovel trench work to come out of college-led digs. I could save them a lot of time and money by telling them where materials were found. By digging target holes I have sampled the soils hundreds of times. They could hone in a preservation strategy with this info. But it really doesn't matter so much. Most of the settlement areas have already been developed.

I will end with a personal story. To mark the 500th Anniversary of the discovery of the Americas by Columbus in 1992 I drove with my wife and three year old son from where I was living on Long Island back to my homelands in western New York State. I intended to repatriate my artifacts, including the points shown above, to the newly-opened Seneca Nation Museum on Rt. 17. I made a 10 hour drive one way for this purpose. When I presented them to the Director he quickly replied without a close look saying: "We are not interested. They are just a bunch of rocks."

 

[clairehill]

That's one awesome find.

 

[Professor of Engineering]

Sweet finds, congrats!

 

[xcopperstax]

As far as the archaeology vs. metal detecting discussion it is something I often think about. I am a Professional Archaeologist but have not worked in that field in decades. I last filed a Preliminary Phase I Assessment report to Albany back in 1997. My dual major of natural and cultural resources management pulled me more towards environmental science. I have worked on research in East Africa, India, Nepal, Israel, Big Island of Hawaii, and California. Realistically it is doubtful I will ever work professionally in the archaeological field again. This is part of the reason why I picked up the hobby of metal detecting last August. I have a great interest in history and since I will be 60 in a couple of months decided I needed an official old man hobby (no offense to the younger set). So dry fishing it is. And approaching it as a scientist using maps and research I have made a good haul of finds. And I have made an effort to educate as many people as possible to the history under their feet which so many do not know of or appreciate.

But it is easy to see how amateur avocational archaeologists and detectorsits could be a threat to sites. Even heavily disturbed sites or even destroyed ones can still offer fascinating info with artifacts out of situ. The very artifacts, their manufacturing techniques, materials, and frequency. I recently scanned a National Historic Landmark close to home with permission of the Board of Directors with full disclosure. They wanted historical objects for their collections to be used for educational purposes. The finds were few because others had picked the property over. But being realistic, with public-owned lands and sites often falling into disrepair and suffering from budget cuts, how much money can be set aside for archaeological research? How much can some organic stains left in the soil at an old homestead site tell us vs. spending the money on building preservation or infrastructure? Rising sea levels are also destroying sites. Where I live the Hamptons has been under constant development pressure for decades. Taxes and cost of living are so high it isn't profitable to farm. If someone offers you ten million bucks for your potato patch you are likely to take it and run. Most farmers have. Huge pieces of land are being preserved through the addition of a real estate land transfer tax. Many of these properties are now overgrown tick infested lands giving homes to deer which get run over and destroy landscaping. We are literally in a situation where beautiful ten million dollar homes are being knocked down to build bigger ones. Humans tend to value the same land for the same reasons over millennia, so the native sites and colonial homesteads here now have McMansions sitting on top of them. I would love to read the detailed archaeological surveys because they probably don't exist. So many people benefit from development dollars down to the municipalities expanding their tax base. The last thing any of these developers want is for someone to show up and say "Hi, I'm an archaeologist." Human remains can stop a bulldozer in its tracks. Who knows how often historical remains are found then people look the other way. When I was working in CA during the late 70's and early 80's archaeologist could seize a portion of the budget of big projects for surveys, reclamation, or preservation. In the case of a large military base reopening that was a significant dollar amount. And it made sense, we preserved some important undisturbed sites, some of the oldest finds in the lower 48.

I could actually teach a college course on this subject. And I would invite metal detectorist's input. Looking at my situation, I must be closing in on a thousand hours in the field detecting my area and looking for colonial evidence. The town historians want nothing to do with me. They are left regurgitating written historical accounts and waiting for slow pick and shovel trench work to come out of college-led digs. I could save them a lot of time and money by telling them where materials were found. By digging target holes I have sampled the soils hundreds of times. They could hone in a preservation strategy with this info. But it really doesn't matter so much. Most of the settlement areas have already been developed.

I will end with a personal story. To mark the 500th Anniversary of the discovery of the Americas by Columbus in 1992 I drove with my wife and three year old son from where I was living on Long Island back to my homelands in western New York State. I intended to repatriate my artifacts, including the points shown above, to the newly-opened Seneca Nation Museum on Rt. 17. I made a 10 hour drive one way for this purpose. When I presented them to the Director he quickly replied without a close look saying: "We are not interested. They are just a bunch of rocks."

Eastender thanks for all the great insight in your response! It seems like something that people are always going to be at odds over but here and there we will work together and find common ground. That sounds like a pretty typical response from a museum. You hear about stuff like this sometimes. So crazy that they would diminish your finds to a "bunch of rocks" as we all know that artifacts are so much more than the material object. It's pretty amazing that even with your credentials they would not want the artifacts. I grew up on the cape and we had a local natural history museum. The cape has a rich history of native American occupation and the museum never had more than a very small display case of artifacts. But I know that they probably have a large collection of stuff. It seems like we are all collectors of some sort! The city of Boston has something like 10 million plus artifacts. The city archeologist put out a really nice book called "A History of Boston in 50 artifacts" it's a nice survey of the collection and one of my favorite books. I thought it was a cool way to kind of give people some access and info on what they have. If I had that potato farm I'd take that money too. I guess development is just part of what we do as humans it's too bad that it destroys historical sites. I wish I could get in a time machine and detect spots before they were developed!... oh wait I do have a time machine... sort of... my detector! One more thing there is a really great book by Bill Dancy (he's a Tnet member) called discovering colonial Virginia's artifacts. Excellent book that does a really nice job of covering everything we do as detectorists and showcases his extensive collection and knowledge of history. I'd highly recommend it. Thanks for your thoughts and keep up the great posts!