# A thought.



## Beenslayin (Dec 15, 2019)

I have never found a point, scraper, knife or drlll. Just haven’t figured out where to look. Anyway, I often wonder what folks thought about finding this stuff before all of the studies and educational materials. Possibly 1700’s and 1800’s. I know they probably recognized they were tools. It just makes me curious what I would think if I didn’t know . I know this is a little philosophical, but I often wonder?


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## fishfryer (Dec 15, 2019)

When a commonly used technology such as mechanical firemaking, or stone projectile points are superceded by more efficient methods,the old methods are very quickly forgotten. After matches(Lucifers) were available to the masses most people quickly forgot how to start a fire by friction,flint and steel,or other means. Most everyday people refer to any stone point as an arrowhead. Much study and research got us to the understanding level we're at now. A really short time elapsed between Native Americans making all their points and knives from stone and using almost exclusively iron or steel knives from European traders. When a better way is found people tend to adopt it's use and not look back. Some of the people on this forum revere the past and seek that lost knowledge.


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## JustUs4All (Dec 15, 2019)

The more advanced European culture that first interacted with the stone age native culture was advanced and recorded much of what they found in writings and in pictures.  Fishfryer is correct, the stoneage technology was abandoned as rapidly as possible by the natives as they were able to adopt the newer technology.  The knowledge of the old implements has always been there but not distributed evenly through the new European population.  With the passing of years we forgot what we knew.  It has always been there for folks willing to find and learn it but most did not have the interest or the time to do the research.  I know that when I was a kid I considered all smaller points to be arrow heads and all big ones spear points.  I have since done some re-learning.

As far as finding them, just keep looking, I have found and re-found points and other things in strange places and in odd ways.  

Back in the 60s we were putting in a walk to our house from the street one block from the center of Thomson, GA.  A load of dirt was delivered so that we could raise the walk a bit.  While spreading the dirt, I found a point in it.  Thanks to the delivery driver.

In the 80s deer hunting I found a scrape in a pine thicket.  Most of the area was a complete bed of pinestraw.  I found a point lying on top of the unmolested pinestraw about 5 feet from the edge of the scrape.  Thanks to the deer.

About 15 years ago I retired and bought a part of my grandfater's farm and the farmhouse.  While putting a brick floor in the old smokehouse I re-found a good Bolen in the old dirt floor.  I re-found a large hoe near one of the stone foundation piers of the House.  Buried in the dirt under the back edge of one barn I re-found a morter in the shape of a cube about 1 ft square with grinding surfaces evident on two opposite ends.  Thanks to my forebears.


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## Nicodemus (Dec 15, 2019)

The art of flintknapping was lost in less than one generation, because as soon as trade was established with Europeans, everybody wanted steel and iron goods. 

As for finding points and artifacts, look anywhere you can see the dirt. If it`s disturbed dirt it`s even better. I`ve found them in some surprising places.


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## godogs57 (Dec 15, 2019)

Nicodemus said:


> The art of flintknapping was lost in less than one generation, because as soon as trade was established with Europeans, everybody wanted steel and iron goods.
> 
> As for finding points and artifacts, look anywhere you can see the dirt. If it`s disturbed dirt it`s even better. I`ve found them in some surprising places.


I've found one between third base and home plate at the Lee County baseball fields....right in the base path. 

Son Zack found a beauty last year on a walking track in downtown Albany. 

It happens!

Generally, look for farmland adjacent to waterways is the simplest answer to your question. Waterways were the stone age's I-75 and I-85 back in the day. Get permission to walk it out after a rain and walk slowly....that's too fast...walk slower.  Take a stick to flip over possible points and such so you don't have to bend over 50,000 times in each field.


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## fishfryer (Dec 16, 2019)

godogs57 said:


> I've found one between third base and home plate at the Lee County baseball fields....right in the base path.
> 
> Son Zack found a beauty last year on a walking track in downtown Albany.
> 
> ...


When you get to where you can tell a Water Oak leaf ain't a point,you save a lot of bending over.


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## mamatried (Dec 16, 2019)

fishfryer said:


> When you get to where you can tell a Water Oak leaf ain't a point,you save a lot of bending over.


True. But thats what a good walking/flipping stick is for.


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## transfixer (Dec 16, 2019)

We've found them in dirt roads in NE Ga,  logging roads , especially after a hard rain washes the loose dirt away,  stream/creek beds,  etc.


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## fishfryer (Dec 16, 2019)

mamatried said:


> True. But thats what a good walking/flipping stick is for.


True dat!


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## NCHillbilly (Dec 16, 2019)

Nicodemus said:


> The art of flintknapping was lost in less than one generation, because as soon as trade was established with Europeans, everybody wanted steel and iron goods.
> 
> As for finding points and artifacts, look anywhere you can see the dirt. If it`s disturbed dirt it`s even better. I`ve found them in some surprising places.


If not for Ishi, a lot of it would probably have been lost forever.


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## JustUs4All (Dec 16, 2019)

No doubt.  The advanced civilization that encountered the stone agers had no desire to know how they had made those things that they were throwing down as fast as they could replace them with modern implements.


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## trad bow (Dec 20, 2019)

You can also say that about the new generation we have now wanting to know the skills we used just around farms back in the sixties and before. That knowledge, skill, and experience is not respected in the least by most in this latest generation. We, as in country folks, even in the sixties were isolated from the changes taking place on a national level let alone on the world stage. I was ten years old before we had a tv in our home. I still trust in the old ways and do not place my future and welfare in today’s technology


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## fishfryer (Dec 22, 2019)

trad bow said:


> You can also say that about the new generation we have now wanting to know the skills we used just around farms back in the sixties and before. That knowledge, skill, and experience is not respected in the least by most in this latest generation. We, as in country folks, even in the sixties were isolated from the changes taking place on a national level let alone on the world stage. I was ten years old before we had a tv in our home. I still trust in the old ways and do not place my future and welfare in today’s technology


I was 7 when we got our first tv. I had been uprooted from farm life and moved to town. I was not impressed by living in a town tied to an airforce base. What impressed me was farms and woods,and animals. Planes that flew over me didn't thrill me at all,but birds and wildlife did. I used to hear older men in my family talk of farming and old days,that was my thing. I've lived a good life probably made possible by technology,but my thoughts keep going back in time to what I see as more real and worthwhile. I've done things that many people can't understand,keeping a milk cow raising hogs,bees,chickens,making peanut stacks,on and on for my personal experience. To live close to the earth and enjoy simple things are a good way for some people.


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## Nicodemus (Dec 22, 2019)

fishfryer said:


> I was 7 when we got our first tv. I had been uprooted from farm life and moved to town. I was not impressed by living in a town tied to an airforce base. What impressed me was farms and woods,and animals. Planes that flew over me didn't thrill me at all,but birds and wildlife did. I used to hear older men in my family talk of farming and old days,that was my thing. I've lived a good life probably made possible by technology,but my thoughts keep going back in time to what I see as more real and worthwhile. I've done things that many people can't understand,keeping a milk cow raising hogs,bees,chickens,making peanut stacks,on and on for my personal experience. To live close to the earth and enjoy simple things are a good way for some people.




I`m glad my Grandfather had a major impact on my upbringing. Some of his lessons seemed tough at the time, but with age I understood. And I wouldn`t change a thing. It was a completely different word than the what is out there now.


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## Beenslayin (Dec 22, 2019)

My grandpa taught me a few good lessons. Like the time I didn’t close the gate all the way on the chicken yard. All the birds got out. We were on the front porch after breakfast and they came pecking up beside the porch. He just said “Well you better get them up”. I chased them for a couple hours with no luck. After getting his morning’s entertainment he got up and said follow me. We went to the chicken house. He grabbed the feed bucket and threw a load of feed in the pan. Within 3 minutes all of the birds were back in the yard and he closed the gate, dusted off his hands and headed for the porch.


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## Beenslayin (Dec 22, 2019)

trad bow said:


> You can also say that about the new generation we have now wanting to know the skills we used just around farms back in the sixties and before. That knowledge, skill, and experience is not respected in the least by most in this latest generation. We, as in country folks, even in the sixties were isolated from the changes taking place on a national level let alone on the world stage. I was ten years old before we had a tv in our home. I still trust in the old ways and do not place my future and welfare in today’s technology


We are losing a lot of those skills and knowledge. I remember being at my aunt’s in West Virginia complaining of a headache. She told me to go peel some bark off of that willow tree and chew it. Just like that my headache was gone. So much of this knowledge is being lost everyday as the old timers pass on to the other side.


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## ghadarits (Dec 23, 2019)

As has been said any exposed dirt is a good place to keep an eye out. Exposed disturbed dirt is better, exposed disturbed near any moving water is even better and lastly exposed disturbed ground near a creek meeting another creek or river (high ground close by is an almost guaranteed camp site) is about as good as it gets for surface collecting. Get a good walking stick and put a point on it. I have a nail cut off on my end for flipping.  That is going to be your rock flipping stick. It will save your back.


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## splatek (Jan 12, 2020)

Got nothing for finding artifacts, but certainly see the relationship between new technology pushing the old out. With the speed of technological innovation it now takes less than a generation. Think about new phone versus old phone. And kids are subject to that technology and learn it quick. 

I once heard a quote
Humans have been fascinated with technology since the forest stone tool, forest harvesting fire. Modern man’s obsession with computers, video games, cell phones streams from our love affair with technology.


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## MissouriBoy (Jan 14, 2020)

fishfryer said:


> making peanut stacks,


Okay help a Missouri Boy out here, what’s a peanut stack...?


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## fishfryer (Jan 15, 2020)

Peanuts were plowed up/pulled up and needed drying so that they would keep and not rot on the vine. After plowing up the peanut vines with the nuts attached, were hand placed/pitchforked around an upright pole sunk into the ground.There was a crossarm near the bottom of the upright pole to keep vines from contacting the dirt. The bottom sides of the vines holding the peanuts would be placed next to the pole so that the vine would shed any rain fall after digging, and keep birds and animals from getting to the nuts. After the nuts were dry they were separated from the vines and stored/eaten/or sold. The process of separating peanuts from the vines was called threshing and could be done by hand or machine. That was hot,hard, dirty work at the hot part of the year.


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## GeorgiaBob (Jan 15, 2020)

Add to the "lost and found." 

We were all taught in school that "Indians" had only stone tools and were always primitives. That sure "knowledge" has been challenged by finds of copper tools in sites thought to be 3,000 years old.

Because of the diverse locations where copper tools, decorations, and weapons have been found there were arguments about the age of the artifacts, and about where the copper came from.

Now it seems those questions may have a provable answer. Field researchers, along with a whole bunch of folks who toe the dirt and wonder "what is that?," have found an enormous number of 4,000 year old copper "pit" mines in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. If their working hypothesis can be proven, about 4,000 to 3,000 years ago there was a society on the North American continent that used refined metals, traded across most of the continent, and may have had contact with North Africa or Europe BEFORE Egypt built their first pyramid!

Keep looking. The first stone point you find may be the one that connects Clovis people to Europe thousands of years ago. (or it might be one of Nicodemus' cast offs)


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## MissouriBoy (Jan 15, 2020)

fishfryer said:


> Peanuts were plowed up/pulled up and needed drying so that they would keep and not rot on the vine. After plowing up the peanut vines with the nuts attached, were hand placed/pitchforked around an upright pole sunk into the ground.There was a crossarm near the bottom of the upright pole to keep vines from contacting the dirt. The bottom sides of the vines holding the peanuts would be placed next to the pole so that the vine would shed any rain fall after digging, and keep birds and animals from getting to the nuts. After the nuts were dry they were separated from the vines and stored/eaten/or sold. The process of separating peanuts from the vines was called threshing and could be done by hand or machine. That was hot,hard, dirty work at the hot part of the year.


Interesting!


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