A lucky day

I spent all day on Saturday hunting for Indian relics. The weather was perfect, the bright overcast conditions were ideal for trying to spot arrowheads on the ground. I drove to a place where I have had some luck and was thrilled to see that the winter storms and melting snow had washed away all my old footprints from previous visits and left a clean fresh surface with every stone plainly visible. I felt certain that I would be able to find something, perfect conditions like that inspire a lot of confidence. But after two hours of careful searching, poring over the ground, I had found nothing but flakes. In such a situation I sometimes start feeling desperate and would be absolutely thrilled to find anything at all, even the most vague fragment; that was how I was feeling on Saturday. My eyes scanned a spot, I took another step, and something told me to glance back at something my eyes had just passed over. I was elated to spot this.

This really got my heart pumping. It is the base of a rhyolite arrowhead and it is pretty big. The part that is visible is undamaged but the fragile tip end is buried in the earth. Thinking back on my finds in 2012 I can clearly remember one time when I found one like this and it was a pristine point, and another time when it turned out to be badly broken, there is no way to know until you pick it up. I spent a lot of time looking at this before picking it up, I didn't want to be disappointed. I stared at it, took nine photos of it and a short video. If any amount of wishing or hoping could have made it whole, it would have been. But it was not to be.

Well, I will take it anyway. Any find is a good find for me. I like this material and the shape is one I do not find often, I think it is called Fox Creek. Reinvigorated by this find, I spent another hour walking in the cold in this place, but I didn't find anything else. I left there and in the afternoon I met up with my friend Dave and we decided to check a couple of other places. In the first place we checked, the conditions were just the opposite of where I had spent the morning. Vegetation covered the ground, the earth was only bare in small patches. We walked a little bit but there were hardly any rocks to be seen anywhere. We both agreed, it was hopeless. As we were heading back to the car we both spotted this at the same time.

Isn't that incredible? It is actually on top of a little plant, it is sitting on top of the surface of the ground. It looks like it was just dropped. I can't really understand it. This was near the base of a gentle slope so maybe it eroded out of the surface and then tumbled down the hill a little? I think this is what is called a Jack's Reef, it is my first like this. The base is damaged. It was resharpened in ancient times, it is super thin. I have spent a lot of time in this place but never found one like this there before. I am really happy with this find.

Dave and I got back in the car and went to my very favorite spot. Again, it was grass and weeds everywhere, tough conditions. But the little bare patches had been pounded by recent rains. We walked for a while and I pointed out to Dave a rock that looked just like an arrowhead. I picked it up and immediately wanted to kick myself for not taking a picture first- it really was an arrowhead! A Squibnocket Stemmed point made of rhyolite. Cude and chunky- but these local materials took a lot of skill to work.

I spotted this nearby amongst the clumps of grass. It was easy to spot.

Again, in a familiar place, a new and unfamiliar shape. It is argillite, I think it is what is called a Wading River. Dave found a broken piece of a large blade, showing nice flaking and made from a nice material. Here are all the finds from that site from Saturday.

We went to another place and looked there until it got dark but didn't find anything. Well, I can't complain! It was a lucky day and also atypical for me- no quartz and no triangles. Here is what my finds looked like after I brought them home and rinsed the dirt off. What a great day.