Beautiful flaking on an old stone tool from Nevada

This was from the same small hill I started with on Saturday. Of the several items I picked up, this one was as nicely flaked as that blade I posted a few days ago.

This is a chunky item, that does not appear to be broken. I need to look more for use wear.

I find this flaking just gorgeous.

Stone Chamber in Arrow Canyon (Irish monks in Nevada - just kidding)

The following is slightly tongue-in-cheek:

But wait! It get's worse:

Later, I'll show you a manitou stone and a couple of alignments - completing the NEARA trifecta. It is as if, someone made their way into Arrow Canyon and decided to fake the presence of early Europeans. It does make me wonder about the local Natives.

My little hill north of Las Vegas - the ground cover and geology

Unfortunately, I am posting in reverse order. So I have already been writing about this place. Here is a one little "instructional video".

It took a while to conclude that the black shiny material is volcanic [nah! it is marine], and a bit like obsidian. It is a bit more crystalline and, actually, reddish underneath the dark brown desert varnish. The darker, the older - a convenient chronological metric. I found it was in layers between the gray "garbage" material. These must, in turn, be volcanic ash. It took a while to realize both soft and hard materials are layered together in the bedrock. I wish I photo'd one of the sandwiches of material. Here is a cliff of it:

Perhaps a geologist could tell me if nodules of "chert" can accrete inside volcanic ash.

Update: Apparently yes, and in sedimentary layers too. So chert it is.

Update 2: I cannot be sure it is volcanic. It could be an old ocean bed. 

A little low hill north of Vegas. For fun, let's call it "Peter's Hill"

I was actually looking for stone tools (see previous post) but found rock piles anyway. I thought this hill would be a good place for early people to be looking out over a glacial lake to the south. Half the hill was some kind of  "obsidian" and more on that later. This may be a place with very deep history and no single timeframe in which to interpret everything. I believe the term is "multi-component" - which is a snarky way of saying the archeological categories are meaningful in a place that has seen continuous occupation because of desirable properties. As if the people who lived there either fit into the categories or were 'transitional' between them. It would be simpler just to talk about the place.

[Update: After visiting the hill and doing a lot of examining of the stone tools, I admit that the above is wrong. There can be very distinct phases of people, clearly culturally different from each other. There can be a great depth of time over which "component" differences are quite meaningful. In other words: no, it was not necessarily a continuum of cultures. In that case, teasing apart some of the technology differences can be quite fun.]

As I climbed this hill, I noticed it had a lower 'bump' to the south and a higher 'bump' to the north. At the top of the lower bump I noticed this little 'U' structure [we are facing west]:

Is this an old fireplace (in the worst possible position for being out of the wind) or a prayer seat facing north or a who knows what? [It is faintly possible it is what is left of a small hunter's blind. A game trail passes, a few feet away.]

Continuing up the hill to the higher bump, I noticed this rock pile [we are facing northeast]:

Now don't tell me that is a fireplace! No, it's a rock pile. I am pretty sure I have seen similar ones on top of other bumps in the southwest. Anyway, the 'U' on the lower bump was not visible from this spot - you could not see the rock pile uphill from the lower 'U'.

Exploring the desert. Appetizer - a flaked stone tool

Who can resists nice stone flaking?

Pretty easy to miss:

"The Hidden Path to the Turtle" (VT)

 Indigenous Causeway to a Wetland Garden??

Mysterious Mountains  Nov 4, 2022

(I added some Turtles to the Capture from the Video - Tim)

“A buried stone pathway ends at a boggy mountain bowl with a possible turtle effigy.”

https://youtu.be/rcw3qdv5NCI

There's a whole lot more here that I will soon be watching: 

https://www.youtube.com/@mysteriousmountains

Requesting Content

This is a sort of "shot across the bows" for the future of this blog. Repeat readers will have noticed a general slowing down of postings, an increased number of non-rock pile related and non-original articles. I am no longer living in Middlesex and there are not that many opportunities, being on a glacial outwash landscape. There is no mistaking that one of us (me or this blog) is getting old. 

I am going to go on posting what I can but it would be nice if readers kicked in a bit of content from their end. I know you are out walking in the woods. Send some photos, so we can share your journeys, as my journeys get fewer and farther in between.

Norwegian Island Gathering Spot

I like this sort of article:

The perfect spot for gatherings for 10,000 years | The Independent Barents Observer (thebarentsobserver.com)

Rock pile enthusiasts may enjoy something in the second from last photo. I am thinking the researchers did not notice it.

Faye Rd Rock Pile

Seen next to Faye Rd, Woods Hole, an isolated rock pile:

Not much to see [Frankly, I took the above picture yesterday and cannot see the pile in the picture, today.]

Usually you should not trust a solitary rock pile as being ceremonial. In this place, with a road and a railroad track (not shown) cutting through the little valley that was once there, I expect there might have been a few other piles in this place. There might still be some left but I did not go scramping around - the car engine was still running, my wife was waiting, and it was a narrow road.

The lost berm of Lake Wachusett

I "lost" the reference. Just stumbled on it here.

Arrowhead madness continues

Found some nice little argillite points: 

Back home:

Comparing the placement of individual flakes, these could have been made by the same person. I found them a few yards apart.

I am quite taken with the nice proportions and careful flaking of this little point. 

You go out looking for quartz and try to block out everything that is not white. But I still spot nice flaking and, as they say on YouTube: "I'll take it".

Thick blades

Found in Rhode Island, these are quite similar:

They only look nicely flaked on one surface:

I was trying to figure out, how this 'tool' would have been used: Was it hand-held or hafted? Is it broken? It sort-of looks like the thinner portion, going up a step to the thicker portion, might be to accommodate a handle. I examined it closely and noticed a faint discoloration:

You may need to  click in to see the band of darker color. It runs all the way around the item, at the same place as where the back goes up a step to the thicker part. I have learned that this discoloration is significant and I regard it as proof hafting. That starts to explain it; and the similarity in shape between the quartz and red example makes them not seem like isolated designs. These are thick, working blades - nothing delicate about them. 

I would love to know what is the reddish material of the larger 'blade'? It is a bit like quartzite, very fine grained, colored somewhere between cranberry sauce and and coca cola.

A tiny heartbreaker

You can see it is fine flaking 

Pretty quartz.

The Ceremonial Stone Landscape Movement - a local perspective with Peter Waksman

Here is the ZOOM recording of my talk for the "Friends of Pinehawk" in Acton. It is a pretty scattered lecture but it gets some momentum towards the middle and ends better than it begins - if you have the patience to sit through it. 

 

I tried to say what I think, had too much to say, and only wince occasionally , as I listen to it now. Here is the link:

The Ceremonial Stone Landscape Movement - a local perspective on the history and topics of CSL - YouTube