Flints & Stones – My collection

[cogar]

I just finished making a small glass enclosed display case for displaying my collection of Native American flints and stones and thought I would show you a picture of it. It is now hanging on the wall above my computer desk.

There are 13 flint arrowheads of different sizes, shapes, colors and condition, none of which are perfect. They all look like they were “well used” or a reject of the flint napping process.

The small black oblong stone @ center left is perfectly smooth and no flaws. I have no idea what its purpose was for but it looks like it might have been a small stone hammer head.

The large spear point is 6 ¼ inches long and is perfect, no flaws. It is the only flint artifact that I have ever found and I found it when living in Upstate New York. I was told by a SUNY Professor of Archeology that it was approximately 10,000 years old.
 
The stone axe head is 5 ½ inches long, 2 inches high @ the tapered end and probably 1 inch thick at it thickest part. It is quite heavy, probably weighing a little over 1 pound.

Hope you enjoy seeing said …… and comments appreciated. 

[talesofthesevenseas]

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aay cool!!

[hosman321]

DITTO! My husband's grandpa owns 400 acres in Arkansas and has buckets of arrowheads from the property. I'm bound and determined to go find some, I can't wait to go visit!
The axe head is super cool.

[waywardangler]

Very nice display, cogar!  The only piece I have ever found was an Arikara (spelling?) scraper in the shallow water of Lake Goldsmith near Brookings,SD when I was in college. 

Hosman, I cannot fathom finding buckets of arrowheads!  That must be an archaeological goldmine your husband's Grandpa is sitting on!  What fun that would be after a spring thaw or heavy rain to go searching for arrowheads.  I have been told children are excellent hunters because they are lower to the ground and see more of what is down there.

[hosman321]

I know wayward! I was just watching a Native American series last night (great one, by the way) and this episode was about the Cherokee and the trail of tears. I think most of his are from the Cherokee. There's a pond and a creek on his property so it's a great place to find artifacts. Maybe there was a village on his property since he finds so many? And you are right about children being lower to the groud, the grandkids have found tons of them. I'd love to have a collection like yours, cogar.

[Mr.Curiosity]

Truly an AWESOME display !I see no''rejects'' there.Through use,time and maybe farm implements(depending on where they were found) they tend to get dinged up a little.Although the largest point/blade is mounted with copper wire,thats kind of a no-no with the artifact collectors.That one point could be worth alot of$$$or$$$$.Some really nice pieces !!!!!!THey dont have to be perfect to tell they're story.

[regularjoe2]

Nice & cool buncha pointy & poundy things , cogar .

I'm gonna speculate that the small tapered stone may have been part of a small set ('mortar & pestle') for grinding pigments/medicines .

Very nice spear-point , BTW & especially fine , in that you got it with you own hands !

[cogar]

Thank you all for the nice comments.

And Wayward, you are right about kids, I live in central WV and my wife was born and raised here also and she tells me that when she was growing up they would find arrowheads and flints “by the hand full” in the plowed garden and fields, especially after a rainfall.

And Mr.Curiosity, that is anodized steel wire so I’m hoping it won’t be a problem. And that’s about the same as what I told the wife when she “questioned”  why I was wasting my time making that case. I told her that when I die and she auctions off all my goodies she’s going to be mighty surprised at just how high the bidding will go for it. 

And Regularjoe, I was also thinking the small tapered stone may have been part of a 'mortar & pestle' or for the end of a drumstick. And it was probably more like a “miracle” the way I got that spear-point with "my very own hands". I was using my little 1010 JD dozer to fix up some tractor/jeep roads on my “back 40” and being low on gas decided to head back to the barn. I took a short-cut across the cow pasture which was full of those “humpies” so I just lowered the blade to about 1” of the ground and cut/flattened them out in front of me, effective making another smooth tractor road. T’was a few weeks later I was out walking the “back 40” and came back that way and right in the exact center of where I pushed through one of those “humpies” laid that spear-point, flat & flush even with the top of the “cut”. If that dozer blade had been 1” higher or ¼ inch lower then that spear-point would still be a lost artifact.

The absolute truth is, I walked past it about 5 feet, stopped dead in my tracks, was absolutely sure I had just seen an hallucination and was afraid to look back to see if it was really lying there. Now talk about a “rush of adrenalin” as I lifted it up out of its resting place unbroken.

[wendy177]

Cogar love these!!!!! I also live on very old farm land  we still have all the stone walls the farmers made from all the stones they found while plowing surrounding our entire property they are beautiful & it amazes me they stay put without falling or moving over 45 years now of just my life time they go on for miles. We have done lots of work digging also but not lucky enough to find anything wonderful like you have!!!

[cherimarie]

There is a web site arrowheads1.com they have live chat and they will help identify these points for you.
Its best to go in there around 10pm ct.
Good luck and nice pieces!!!

[Skinny]

Nice collection! Like Hosman says, Arkansas is a good place to find Native American artifacts. We used to find quite a few on the hill farm I grew up on. The best thing I ever found myself was a grinding stone, a big flat stone with a deep round impression ground into the center, from years and years of grinding corn on it. My wife's uncle who live's in the bottoms (farm country) finds really good stuff. He found a really nice Clovis spearhead several years ago. He posted pics of it on the internet and said people came out of the woodwork trying to buy it from him. He sold it to someone for a few thousand dollars just so they would leave him alone lol.

[cogar]

I can believe that about the Clovis spearhead because everytime one reads about or sees a Documentary on TV it seems the "Clovis point" is the Holy Grail of ancient native American flint artifacts with some dated to 13,000 - 14,000 years old.   

[Texasbadger]

My 75 year old mother and her father would walk freshly plowed fields in East Texas Caddo Lake/Sabine river area and found these, my favorite is the polished black stone that someone obviously cared for a great deal.  Now I watch a guy across from me at the shows knock out outstanding examples while he sits at the shows, ruining the hobby in my opinion.

[cogar]

Oh my, those are nice, thanks for the pictures.

And telling about “a guy knocking out outstanding examples”, that was what enticed me to frame mine.

I recently had a problem with my right eye “bugging” me so I called an Optometrist who was also a flint napper and who had examples of his skills in frames hanging on the walls of his office.