July, 2009
In the process of sifting gravel and wandering through the woods
in search of fossils, it is only a matter of time before one has the
pleasant surprise of stumbling
upon an artifact.
The point was found by Steve and Mary Ann and the small section of
colonial pipe stem, while not impressive, is my first colonial artifact.
I've turned to the expert, JP on these two finds, and he came up with
some rather interesting information.
If you have not seen the pictures of JP's Indian artifact collection
yet, I've included a link at the bottom of this page.
Photograph by Steve
Jasper point found by Steve and Mary Ann ( Mary Ann did the
finding)
"In general, the earliest paleo era and early archaic points were made
out of high quality materials. As the archaic period progressed, and
this was 5 or 6 thousand years, local lower grade lithic materials were
used for most points. This is the argillite, rhyolitte, quartzite time
frame. Then, at the end of the archaic, higher quality materials were
again used.
My opinion, this point is from the earlier
time frame, from the early archaic. Perhaps a Kirk. Perhaps it was
originally longer and had been reused many times, resharpened." JP
Early Archaic 8,000 - 6,000 years ago.
Section of colonial clay pipe stem.
"These clay pipes were very common in the colonial era. My understanding
is they often got clogged, and the tip was then snapped off, the pipe
reused, again clogged, and the new tip again snapped off etc. So, the
pipe started out real long and ended up real short. These colonial era
pipe stems are common in archeological features and have been studied.
For instance, the bore on an English pipe is different than the bore
(hole size) on a Dutch pipe. The pipes were made of Kaolin clay and if
one wanted, one could take an exacto knife and make a little scrape.
Which would produce a consistent interior and clay powder". JP
Bowl from a colonial pipe.
This was purchased a while ago and I've included it just as an example.
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JP's collection on the Black River website
Black River |
