The three-quarter groove axe, I found 06/04/1989, a Sunday. Its 7 inches long, and three inches at the widest groove. The site is only a few miles from my house, but is no longer plowed. I started hunting the site in the early 80s, taking off of work to hit the field. Over the years the area has produced just about everything. From paleo to early historic. I found my first axe on the site.
My buddy Darrell and I had been walking the site for a few hours and had found a number of nice relics. I decided to go further from the creek than I had ever in the past for some unknown reason, it's the feeling you get when you are in tune to the relics, I guess. Darrell said I could smell the relics as many times I would walk straight to a nice relic. That why he called me Dognose - No joke.
There were a few nice-looking rises past the area where we normally found flakes, that I felt looked right as I envisioned the camp there.
As I walked up to the rise, still at least 10 feet away, I could see the axe laying on its side, fully exposed, about half buried in the dirt.
It was a thrilling moment, and for that reason, this is one of my favorite axes I have found.
It's got a few dings and bangs to its history, and a few minor plow strikes. I think the big ding on the axe was caused by the "perfect" plow strike hitting it just so and chipping the axe, resulting in underlaying color of the stone being exposed. If that is the case the original color would have had a more blueish cast. The overall color now, sans the chip. is a pleasant grey.
The bit, poll and groove are well polished. The face of the axe from the polished bit to the first groove has visible peck marks, as does the area from the poll to that groove.
This axe held a special place on my mantle and in my heart, especially after Darrell died in 2010, we spent a serious amount of time in the fields almost 30 years of friendship and relic hunting. In this time of remembering those we have lost, I recon its fitting to remember him here and all those we have lost as this year closes. I know I remember him and think about him often, talking to him about any topic you could think of while we hunted relics.
This axe can be seen on page 26 of The Collectors of Historic and Prehistoric Artifacts (CHAPA) volume 5 published by Bill and Linda Ballinger.
The damage on edge. Note there is mineralization in this area, indicating to me it was caused long before I found the axe.
My buddy Darrell and I had been walking the site for a few hours and had found a number of nice relics. I decided to go further from the creek than I had ever in the past for some unknown reason, it's the feeling you get when you are in tune to the relics, I guess. Darrell said I could smell the relics as many times I would walk straight to a nice relic. That why he called me Dognose - No joke.
There were a few nice-looking rises past the area where we normally found flakes, that I felt looked right as I envisioned the camp there.
As I walked up to the rise, still at least 10 feet away, I could see the axe laying on its side, fully exposed, about half buried in the dirt.
It was a thrilling moment, and for that reason, this is one of my favorite axes I have found.
It's got a few dings and bangs to its history, and a few minor plow strikes. I think the big ding on the axe was caused by the "perfect" plow strike hitting it just so and chipping the axe, resulting in underlaying color of the stone being exposed. If that is the case the original color would have had a more blueish cast. The overall color now, sans the chip. is a pleasant grey.
The bit, poll and groove are well polished. The face of the axe from the polished bit to the first groove has visible peck marks, as does the area from the poll to that groove.
This axe held a special place on my mantle and in my heart, especially after Darrell died in 2010, we spent a serious amount of time in the fields almost 30 years of friendship and relic hunting. In this time of remembering those we have lost, I recon its fitting to remember him here and all those we have lost as this year closes. I know I remember him and think about him often, talking to him about any topic you could think of while we hunted relics.
This axe can be seen on page 26 of The Collectors of Historic and Prehistoric Artifacts (CHAPA) volume 5 published by Bill and Linda Ballinger.
The damage on edge. Note there is mineralization in this area, indicating to me it was caused long before I found the axe.
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