What kind of artifact is this?

[smokeythecat]

I have a couple thousand miles on my truck, no fooling! E-Z pass tolls were about $100. Dr. said I was healed and I'm out to prove it and I have found more American Indian artifacts when I started this Great Adventure last Friday than in my WHOLE LIFE previously.

This rhyolite piece is kind of odd. I found a place a few rhyolite pieces were lying on top of the ground due to a small dirt slide, I suppose from the rains this year.

It is about 4" x 2.5". Square paleo knife, broken point reworked? Look at the basal flute on it. Any help appreciated.



The huge basal "flute" is shown on the pic on the left.

 

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[jewelerguy]

my first thought was the flint from a flintlock rifle until I re-read your dimensions. Now it's a head scratcher. I'm gonna go with broken and possibly attempted re-work of a spear head

 

[smokeythecat]

Thanks Jewelerguy. The photo shows it wet. If reworked, it was originally HUGE! (And didn't have orange hair.)

 

[unclemac]

that almost looks like a flute on one side

 

[flinthunter]

Quite honestly, I don't see anything that says it has been worked by humans. You might try the north american artifacts forum on here.

 

[Goldiver]

I would call it a square knife. Nice find!

Steve

 

[Nick79]

I can just say very cool find

 

[old digger]

I also agree that it looks like a halfted square knife.

 

[smokeythecat]

Aren't the square knives Paleo to early Archaic? I'll have to post the rest. Most are broken but they all came from the same little area, on the surface. I really don't dig hardly at all.

 

[Reanm8er]

Greetings Smoke glad you're well!

I've never had the good fortune to find anything fluted, but I know the archies found some artifacts
along the river south of here that were fluted and definitely Paleo.

Best wishes, and many happy returns!

 

[jeff of pa]

Probably My Minds-Eye, But I Think I see a Damaged Lion facing Right.
or Horse Turning it's Head to it's Right and looking this way

 

[smokeythecat]

No dear one, it's not an effigy! I can see a horse's head facing right, but still not an effigy. I don't think classic fluted either, but that one huge flake is crazy.

 

[smokeythecat]

Picture of it dry.

 

[unclemac]

i will say however, that i find a lot of rhyolite pieces in the desert that have those same big knock-offs and nice oval shapes but i doubt that they are artifacts. i think that perhaps the stone can fracture like that naturally. i never see the tell-tale secondary flaking on these objects and since there are FAR better stone types to use literally all over ... who would bother with this rhyolite stuff....so i leave them lay. I actually sent one off to monsterrack to see what he could do with it. if he is successful i will post it.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

Smokey, I really do admire you. You get out at it! And I've got to get out of my holler - but the 90's the last few weeks keep me imprisoned in my upstairs suite with an old window unit A/C that blows nothing cold - but blows, and a floor fan down to the right of my chair on high. Not sweating, but not freezing either! Cooler times to come!!!

 

[smokeythecat]

I have been invited to detect an old Indian trading post tomorrow am. Have to get up at 4. Might or might not go. I STILL have 20 pounds of flint and rhyolite lying everywhere!

Unclemac, out east here, rhyolite was one of the primary materials they made points out of. The other materials are hard, white quartz, the milky stuff, and an occasional point of Pennsylvania jasper or Delaware River black flint. The rhyolite since it is easier to manipulate is/was the best they had. I have numerous points out of it in several colors. I even found an Adena blade of Flint Ridge, Ohio materials, but that's 380 miles west of here. It was traded locally. We don't have good flint deposits here and no obsidian. Even jasper is hard to get. I have been to Flint Ridge, to the PA jasper location, to the Delaware jasper location and have read about two rhyolite locations in Pennsylvania, one in Maryland, and one in Virginia. All within trading distance. FYI.

Take a closer look at these.

 

[Goldiver]

The Flint Ridge material is some of my favorite, you can find some gorgeous colors. Interestingly the very first point I found in Ohio was a bird point made of Pennsylvania jasper. I found it on the shore of Lake Erie in Ottawa County. It is well worn from being tossed around in the waves for who knows how many years. I have not found any more points made of jasper or even flakes of that material since.

 

[smokeythecat]

One of my favorite artifacts I ever found was a tiny scraper in the Vera Cruz (PA) jasper. I found it when I was about 12. I haven't seen it since I was about 14. I guess my mother threw it out. I can still picture it in my head! I was impressed with some of the colorful flint I found this week at Flint Ridge. In this one area (the owner has a backhoe come in and dig pits), there were aboriginal worked items everywhere! But only in one small area. And if you tossed one in your bucket it "clinked"! A lot of the pieces were already fire treated by the Indians! I even found a total of 5 hammerstones (got 2 more broken ones on Friday.) One of the pieces from Friday even has a tinge of purple in it.

 

[Plug N Play]

I'm seeing a turtleback scraper, and not really seeing a flute.

 

[Venus333]

Owl Effigy/ tool... scraper, wedge. Granite or slate?