Years Of Experience Collecting Native American Artifacts

[Treasure_Hunter]

Thread is for information only, trying to get total years experience of forum.

How many years experience collecting Native American artifacts do you have?

I will start off, I started collecting in 1981 when I found my first point in a corn field.

Please end post with total years.


39 years.

 

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[LandSeig]

I've always like looking for points since I was a little kid. Now I am 78 and been knapping for sometime I still have a problem knapping points that are thin and similar on both sides .I can Knap the shape just fine but getting each side thin and similar is hard to go with my old health problems. I'd really enjoy learning more about this. Can someone direct me to a knapping class or book or just fell sorry for this ole man ! I have a 1/4 of a Mason jar of points that I knapped out but didn't get them thin like Todds Point display of beautiful points that he posted . I'd LOVE to knap like that ! what else is a old guy to do with his time THANKS for any advice ! I've been at it for 40 years and still Tring to get it right ! Hey old guy's take longer Disabled vet U.S. Army 10/67----8/ 70 RVN & Germany and proud of it !

Thinning gets me too, indirect percussion seems to help with it. If you haven’t seen it already, there is a flint knapping forum on tnet. https://www.treasurenet.com/forums/modern-flint-knapping.1001/

Thanks for your service!

 

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[Tesorodeoro]

Started prior to 1906. Hard to do that math.

 

[Oldrvrrat57]

Grew up on a small family farm close to the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, started picking up and bringing home artifacts when I was 6 or 7 years old, That was about 60 years ago.

 

[Eastender]

I'm at 50 years. Starting picking the cornfields of South Western New York State in my rural hometown as a teen as part of a high school archaeology course. Also trips with the Boy Scouts. It directly led to me becoming a professional archaeologist. Right after graduating from High School I was a field researcher on a Petroglyph research expedition in the Mojave Desert of Southern CA. This was largely due to my experience gained through avocational years picking fields. I became a National Earthwatch Scholarship winner. During my freshman college year I excavated at a registered site on the north central shore of Long Island in an archaeology course. I worked as contract field archaeologist in the Mojave on big government\military contracts. During Grad School, I completed a NYS Phase I Cultural Resources Report, as my research practicuum, for a site to be developed. And I completed field excavations in the Hudson Valley in graduate-level courses.

For decades I have continued to find surface artifacts in areas suffering coastal erosion on Long Island, NY. I have donated arrowheads to the regional Indian Museum and am helping document people's collections to enter in a database for further research. Out metal detecting I find copper contact era arrowheads and surface stone points and artifacts. Also pottery, lithics, wampum producing sites, and middens.

Included is a photo of my smallest points from nearly 50 years ago. It was the beginning of a great hobby that opened and continues to open doors for me.

 

[russau]

Question............ I have a good friend that has Indian Blood lines and he wants to find a small point to make a necklace ,I told him I'd take him out to do some "looking" or I would knap one for him BUT he said that he had to find it himself........ That's fine but what is the significance of him finding by himself ? I don't need to know why he needs to find it himself BUT I'm just curious and NOT wanting to be nosey !

 

[fishstick]

Question............ I have a good friend that has Indian Blood lines and he wants to find a small point to make a necklace ,I told him I'd take him out to do some "looking" or I would knap one for him BUT he said that he had to find it himself........ That's fine but what is the significance of him finding by himself ? I don't need to know why he needs to find it himself BUT I'm just curious and NOT wanting to be nosey !

It's that feeling we get when we find it and it only happens then.

 

[GirlWithWolf]

Question............ I have a good friend that has Indian Blood lines and he wants to find a small point to make a necklace ,I told him I'd take him out to do some "looking" or I would knap one for him BUT he said that he had to find it himself........ That's fine but what is the significance of him finding by himself ? I don't need to know why he needs to find it himself BUT I'm just curious and NOT wanting to be nosey !

It could be a feeling that the one he finds is the one that is meant for him on some sort of spiritual level. I can understand that but then again if one is given as a gift then technically it found its way too, just by a different path. But more than likely it is just a personal thing.

I don’t know him or your relationship, but if you’re curious I’m confident he would appreciate getting to explain it to you.

 

[Eastender]

It could be a feeling that the one he finds is the one that is meant for him on some sort of spiritual level. I can understand that but then again if one is given as a gift then technically it found its way too, just by a different path. But more than likely it is just a personal thing.

I don’t know him or your relationship, but if you’re curious I’m confident he would appreciate getting to explain it to you.

I try to tell people that I "feel" an artifact the instant before I see it. Many think this is crazy, but it is a feeling that I have had since I began in my teens. To this day I can sense former settlement areas before I actually spot any artifacts. I believe that some of us are tuned in. Anyone can become tuned in with good intention.

Recently I asked an local Indian Chief, a highly respected and educated teacher, if he thought that I should take a photo and leave the artifact where I found it. He said yes, and maybe leave a tobacco offering if I felt compelled. But I told him that I wouldn't offer tobacco to anyone. I feel these arrowheads are gifts to me. Some were about to be washed away in the ocean. We were almost nose to nose in disagreement on this one, but there is mutual respect. I was donating my time trying to identify and protect a suspected burial site working with him. I try to use the artifacts for educational purposes and donate to museums whenever possible. I have discovered remains that stopped development and the US Military from blowing them up.

 

[GirlWithWolf]

I try to tell people that I "feel" an artifact the instant before I see it. Many think this is crazy, but it is a feeling that I have had since I began in my teens. To this day I can sense former settlement areas before I actually spot any artifacts. I believe that some of us are tuned in. Anyone can become tuned in with good intention.

Recently I asked a local Indian Chief, a highly respected and educated teacher, if he thought that I should take a photo and leave the artifact where I found it. He said yes, and maybe leave a tobacco offering if I felt compelled. But I told him that I wouldn't offer tobacco to anyone. I feel these arrowheads are gifts to me. Some were about to be washed away in the ocean. We were almost nose to nose in disagreement on this one, but there is mutual respect. I was donating my time trying to identify and protect a suspected burial site working with him. I try to use the artifacts for educational purposes and donate to museums whenever possible. I have discovered remains that stopped development and the US Military from blowing them up.

I understand where he is coming from and those that feel that way I respect their feelings, but I do disagree. I replied in another thread about an argument many of us had in an Indian group I’m in, and those of us that see artifacts as you do got blasted by the others that feel like this Chief does (age difference seems to be the biggest influence). Even my cousin that recognized my nickname here and there disagrees with me but my opinion is my opinion. You seem respectful about it and that means a lot.

 

[Eastender]

I understand where he is coming from and those that feel that way I respect their feelings, but I do disagree. I replied in another thread about an argument many of us had in an Indian group I’m in, and those of us that see artifacts as you do got blasted by the others that feel like this Chief does (age difference seems to be the biggest influence). Even my cousin that recognized my nickname here and there disagrees with me but my opinion is my opinion. You seem respectful about it and that means a lot.

It's a tough issue. As I told the Chief at the time, I am hunting for my ancestors and I keep coming across his. But that says a lot. The colonials moved into lands not just formerly inhabited by natives, but also lands that they manged and improved. In one case I was digging up a colonial iron spike, while just below was a broken quartz point and red pottery shards. For hundreds of years these lands had been plowed and disturbed these sites. In situ and spacial information has been lost. The only value is in what the artifact itself tells us. I find points thousands of years old sitting on the forest floor. And I am not looking for them. Rising seas and more powerful storms rip these sites apart.

And it's ironic to venerate objects left by peoples who were not valued throughout history. And that's putting it lightly. People who were often deliberately exterminated or displaced.

On the 500th anniversary of Columbus's supposed discovery of America back in 1992, I pulled together my arrowhead collection and drove 10 hours to the new museum opened by the Indian Nation in my region. My son was only two years and it was a long drive plus I took time off from work. When I got to the museum and presented my collection of fine points, the Director told me straight up they were not interested in a bunch of rocks. It really turned my head around. The irony here is that the farmland where I found these artifacts had since been bulldozed and a Motel 6 and asphalt parking lots now sit on top of it.

 

[russau]

Eastender that was a very generous offer that you made and that Director , of that museum , has a box of rocks for his head ! Anyone would have loved that collection and the offer you made to them ! That was a very special gift offer you made ! SALUTE to you !

 

[russau]

I asked for help and Landseig guided me to exactly what I needed to read ! THANKYOU for your help!