Traveling Lithics

[MAMucker]

This post follows Shortlobster’s post of a gorgeous Broad Point made of a very dark mysterious Black Chert (which likely traveled from a Delaware River outcropping to CT)
Regarding this one, I can never quite capture the dark shades of this point in a photo. The lighter shades always pop.
Regardless, (and pardon me if I’ve posted this one before. This is the 1st personal find in my collection. A large Susquehanna Broad Blade. Found outside of the Blue Hills Region of Massachusetts in Westwood.
The material has always been a curiosity to me.

 

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[Older The Better]

That’s a heck of a first find

 

[MAMucker]

That’s a heck of a first find

I know. Ridiculous right? That one kind of found me.

 

[Tdog]

I think I see those fractures again like in Shortlobster’s piece. Killer find.

 

[ShortLobster]

Wow, that does look very similar. Very interested to know where that material comes from.

 

[uniface]

WOW !!!!!!!!

 

[Tnmountains]

That one looks perfect. I like the edge work.. It deserves its own case. But if you are like me I prefer to be able to handle them. Once in a frame well there they are.
Very nice point!

 

[MAMucker]

That one looks perfect. I like the edge work.. It deserves its own case. But if you are like me I prefer to be able to handle them. Once in a frame well there they are.
Very nice point!

I do like to hold that one every once in a while. It’s an unusual find here. It looks to me to have very little rework, if any. So, it could have been lost soon after it was made. Or, it was a trade item that didn’t see use.

 

[Jeff H]

Hi Mucker. I think my heart would stop if I saw that piece laying on the ground.

 

[MAMucker]

My heart did stop! Momentarily.
It was a strange find. About 25 years ago. I really wasn’t hunting at all. I had tried to find arrowheads in the past. I took long walks in the woods and always came home empty-handed.
But, this day I was at work, driving a lawn care truck, treating lawns all over.
I had to pee so badly, it hurt. So I pulled down a residential development (under construction) to look for an opportunity.
I spotted a giant pine tree and saw my chance. Pulled over, and let it loose behind that tree. I noticed the soil around the root ball had receded and was eroding against the road’s berm; and I spotted what I thought was a sharp piece of black plastic (3/4” tip exposed) sticking out.
I almost didn’t pick it up. Haha!
My first find ever. A spectacular one too. And, I learned a great lesson about where to look for arrowheads.

 

[CloudKicker0]

My heart did stop! Momentarily.
It was a strange find. About 25 years ago. I really wasn’t hunting at all. I had tried to find arrowheads in the past. I took long walks in the woods and always came home empty-handed.
But, this day I was at work, driving a lawn care truck, treating lawns all over.
I had to pee so badly, it hurt. So I pulled down a residential development (under construction) to look for an opportunity.
I spotted a giant pine tree and saw my chance. Pulled over, and let it loose behind that tree. I noticed the soil around the root ball receded and had eroded against the road’s berm; and I spotted what I thought was a sharp piece of black plastic (3/4” tip exposed) sticking out.
I almost didn’t pick it up. Haha!
My first find ever. A spectacular one too. And, I learned a great lesson about where to look for arrowheads.

Thanks for the share! Good thing you let loose first. I’d have messed myself!

 

[uniface]

It's been too many years since I was seeing Susquehanna, Perkiomen et al. broadpoints, and aging memory is not real reliable, but I don't recall ever seeing that kind of edge curation on a broadpoint that was re-edged by the people who made it. Obviously an exotic, and probably traded in (FWIW, they also traded blanks of premium stone like brown jasper to places far from its source), which would be consistent with that supposition.

Broadpoints of jasper (fine grained enough to show flaking clearly in pictures -- rhyolite [most common groadpoint material, doesn't as a rule] rival Clovis points in the fakery dept., so proceed with caution. But I'd do some compare-&-contrast (both w/ real and known fakes). FWIW

 

[MAMucker]

It's been too many years since I was seeing Susquehanna, Perkiomen et al. broadpoints, and aging memory is not real reliable, but I don't recall ever seeing that kind of edge curation on a broadpoint that was re-edged by the people who made it. Obviously an exotic, and probably traded in (FWIW, they also traded blanks of premium stone like brown jasper to places far from its source), which would be consistent with that supposition.

Broadpoints of jasper (fine grained enough to show flaking clearly in pictures -- rhyolite [most common groadpoint material, doesn't as a rule] rival Clovis points in the fakery dept., so proceed with caution. But I'd do some compare-&-contrast (both w/ real and known fakes). FWIW

Here are good examples from A New England Typology of Native American Artifacts. I can’t show these with multiple lighting angles to highlight the workmanship (like I did with the one I posted)
Is there something specific that gave you a red flag?

 

[uniface]

Good show, Muck. Looks like there was a broadpoint culture in New England then. Years ago I stumbled onto an extention of it in upstate New York that for some reason didn't make it into the books I had. But didn't suspect it went further. Obviously out of the loop for too long a time here ! LOL !

 

[Tdog]

My eyes may be failing me but I still believe I see long running fractures in all these different points!?!? Is it just me, the pics or is this material layered such that the step fractures travel further than I'm used to seeing? Seems like it's too much of a coincidence for this to be an anomaly in all these pieces!