In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.
Indian Spear Point
Toolman286
Member Posts: 3,214 ✭✭✭✭
I found this some months after I dug up my side yard to make a parking spot. After several rains, it was just laying there. It survived being run over that with a back hoe & vehicles. It seems too big for an arrow head so I'm thinking spear point. Opinions? (Oh, so. west Va.)
Comments
nice find it may still be a arrow point thay did have some small ones called bird points and of coure larger arrow and spear points regardless congrats you can do a internet search with your location and search arrow heads artifacts in your area for a better history
I had a BIL and his dad who had hunted collected them for many years most of the lifes most from there own fields my BIL had a impressive collection however his dad had one room it was visiting a museum packed full of artifacts of all descriptions it was like a early man cave with stuffed animals albino racoon and such and related items also I was only there once but it left a wonderful memory of what one old fellow had collected
they got me interested so one day at my inlaws place that had the remints of a larger place that had been parted out and sold off over many years by all the previous owners what was left one field below the house maybe 12 acres borded a small creek there was a small field on a small hill in front of the house just above a creek I went looking it was a small maybe 8 to 10 acre place that had been farmed for years . any way I found my fist one then a few more over the years when we would visit if the field had been plowed I would take a little time and look I never found nothing great and most had damage from years of plowing and tractors when my FIL passed two of his kids build houses on the small field that ended my arrowhead hunting days .
My dad used to hunt for them along the Yellowstone River, and beneath any cliffs that could have been used as buffalo jumps. He has quite the set, all stored in a long box with gauze, the deeper you go in the box, the better they get.
My 2 cents, most 'arrow" heads over say 1 1/2" are spear points.
Don't think anything bigger could be effectively "shot'" from a bow.
I think it is a spear point. I used to pick up lots of them in the fields along the Oconee River in Georgia. Up here in North Carolina I haven't found a single point ,nor one shard of pottery.
Could be either, as the tribes of the region (e.g. Cherokee; Monacan) used both bows and short spears. Like us modern day archers, they used different weight heads for different purposes, with larger/heavier ones (on thicker shafts) being utilized for tougher jobs (e.g. deer, black bear). It also could depend on the age of the point, as arrowheads in general got smaller over the ages.
When I was growing up, we used to find gobs of the things along the river-bottoms of the James and New Rivers in SW Virginia. I had a friend who could just spot them everywhere right off like it was nothing. It was always a much harder process for me.
Most of the time, when we would find one, we would find a bunch. Apparently, chipping those heads is a tedious and mistake-prone process. Picture an Indian sitting on a log with a pile of “blanks.” Chip, chip, chip, chip, DANG IT! Throw the now blemished one aside and start again. By the end, he’d have a handful of good ones, and a bunch of blemished ones left on the ground.
So….keep your eyes open. May be a bunch more around.
The only perfect arrowhead I found was after the loggers had cut a few acres of our property in Laurens Co. SC.Where the skidders left ruts and mounds and it rained a few days,I found a perfect small arrowhead made of quartz.
If you squint you can make out the outline of a rock! Don
For much of the time the Indians were here, they hadn't invented the bow and arrow yet, but they had the spear thrower, or atlatl. The atlatl spear was 4 or 5 feet long, sort of in between a hand held spear, and an arrow. Many of the points that we find are atlatl points.
Thanks all. I'll keep looking.
Cool find
Deer hunting down near Peoria, Ill., I found what l thought was an "Ax" head. Was told it was a "grain grinder" tool! Whatever, it's in really great shape.
This is an axe head that I found in a corn field along the banks of the Oconee River in central Georgia. Also a point, and a piece of jewelry. This jewelry is 2 inches wide. You can see where it had two holes drilled in i, before it got eroded away, I can just see a Creek princess wearing this around her neck on a leather thong, in her village there a thousand years ago.
Those sure were the good ole days when you could gift rocks to your sweethearts and they wouldn't slap you upside the head! 😁
well diamonds are called rocks in slang ya know LOL
I found this one in my front yard when a gopher turned it up from 16-18" deep. Had it ID'd and dated--Dawson point, 4000, 5000 years old. Extreme SW Arkansas.
Allen-That's my find!! Appears to even be the same type of stone. Found mine in a plowed field. I always thought of it as an ax head but someone told me it was a tool used for grain removal and grinding🤔
As a child they were a common find in the fields of our farm. There is some evidence ,now disappeared that there may have been a village on the land back in history . Due to the way land is prepped for farming now ,very few of them turn up now
Al, your house is probably built on sacred Indian land. You may wake up one night with a warrior standing over you, ready to take your scalp.
my best one was my first one I found it after a big rain and my BIL had shown me his collection so I went out it was sitting on top of a small mound of dirt the rain had washed away all the dirt around it it is a dove tail but sadly has a small chip ( not suppose to be there ) no photo but looks like this
I know a few flint knappers that I buy flints for my muzzle loaders from that also like to make reproductions of these points. They are so good at it that experts in the study of ancient pieces can't tell the difference.
The field behind my house backs up to a swamp . According to the topographical maps the swamp used to be the course of the river . As a child it was not unusual to plow up largest amounts of fresh water mussel shells in.mounds . As I said arrowheads were plentiful and abundant . Also found a few are heads and such. .I don't have any of them now . My younger brothers played with and lost the bulk of them 50 years ago