Scraps?

PaleIO

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Apr 1, 2020
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New Mexico
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Minelab X-Terra 705
Primary Interest:
Relic Hunting
So what do you all do with all the "extra" stuff you find? And what is your criteria for a piece you just can't throw back? I have several jars full but this is my most current "scrap" jar. Stuff I just can't part with for some reason. Most if it junk but I like it! Mine will probably sit in jars and collect dust. I just wish I could find a way to display it all...
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Oh wow!! That's beautiful....do you pour them with epoxy?
 

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That is exactly the response I was hoping for. Thank You!
 

I have a spot in my back yard I use. It's full of brokes and chips. When I'm out messing with stuff I enjoy seeing them.
 

We are talking debitage here - right? I hve two five gallon bucket full of chips and various colors.

I have a wall in the front of the house of field boulders. Behind these boulders is a massive amount of chips and flint picked up over the years.

We also use them to layer bottoms of flower pots.

My habit is to carry a field boulder out of the field when I am getting close to the truck. At least one a day of hunting. Over the many, many years of this the pile has gotten very large. Enough that after the boulder wall reached the entire length of the front of the house we built a 7 foot diameter fire pit in the woods, had rock rings around the trees in the front of the house, built a mound around the mail box post, and built a retaining wall in the front by the driveway ditch.
 

I saved a bunch of them but ended up dumping them in my woods. Couldn't think of anything worthwhile to do with them. Gary

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I also filled a old whiskey bottle with them and filled with water to bring out the color, worked great for a while but eventually the water started turning green and smelled pretty bad when I dumped it out. I need to revisit that idea with something that won’t grow microbes
 

I keep mine in boxes, when I have nothing to I study them for direction of the break, chipping styles. They make great study pieces. Also I have seen people make images of Native Americans, their state where they live and all sorts of shapes.
 

I keep some in large plastic jars and some I put at the end of my pea gravel driveway where they won't get run over (too much).
 

I also filled a old whiskey bottle with them and filled with water to bring out the color, worked great for a while but eventually the water started turning green and smelled pretty bad when I dumped it out. I need to revisit that idea with something that won’t grow microbes

What about using rubbing alcohol ?
 

What about using rubbing alcohol ?

There’s an idea, I thought bleach in the water maybe but I thought it might possibly do weird things to the rocks. I don’t think rubbing alcohol would have any negative effects maybe I’ll try that
 

99 % of my collection (90 % unifaces) are tools that many would assume were merely debitage and discard.

I used to be like a kid when school let out for the summer whenever Tom Davis' "junk box" arrived in the mail for me to pick through @ the rate of 50 cents each. He probably used to think I was crazy; as it turned out I was just ahead of the curve.

With finds of even small, nice points becoming more and more uncommon (fields going to no till, pasture, lost to development -- although it looks like that's about over now -- & just plain being hunted out), such tools are going to be, more and more, what there is to find & collect.

FWIW
 

My wife liked the look of all the colors of flakes, test pieces, and broke stuff, so she bought a couple of fairly tall, glass lamps that we're filling. One is getting all the flint, chert, and whatnot, and the other one is getting pretty creek cobbles of different sizes and colors. Here are a couple photos of the flake lamp (with a book for scale):

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Kindest regards,
Kantuck
 

I think we all have that pile of stuff that isn’t worth putting in a display but it’s still an artifact so you keep it. I had 2 glass end tables that I made into display cases it turned out good I also wrapped the inside with lights so it made them look really nice
 

Thanks to everyone for the input. Great ideas!
 

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