Spring arrowhead finds: Part 1

     So, it has been a month since my last post. I still don't have a job, and it's been very strange for me, trying to adjust to not having a set schedule. I used to work in an office and I had time there to sit and think and plan to do things like write blog posts about arrowhead finds. Now, I'm out doing things constantly, trying to make the most of my time. Of course I have made time to search for arrowheads, and I'm pleased to say that my long run of bad luck seems to have come to an end, I'm finding stuff once again. In fact, I have found so much stuff since my last post, it is too much to put in one new blog post and so this will be Part 1, with a second part to follow soon.
     I mentioned in my previous post last month that I had identified 10 new spots to search. Here is how that happened. I was out searching for arrowheads one day and a lady came by who knew what I was doing, she asked about my finds. She knew that people had lived in that spot in prehistoric times and she told me about another place, in a different town, where she knew arrowheads could be found. She said it was a place near a particular chain restaurant in this particular town. Well, back at home, I learn there is no such restaurant in that town. So, now I'm looking at Google Maps looking for areas around other restaurants in that town, also looking at other locations of this chain restaurant in other towns. And I don't know if I ever could identify the place that this lady was talking about, but I did identify all these new potential places, in towns where I have not looked before. I wrote them down in no particular order and then my friend Dave and I set out to start trying to get in to these places and search. Place number one on the list looked real good. Right on a river, a little high dry place. Unfortunately, no house nearby, no obvious way to get in touch with the landowner to get permission. We drove around the neighborhood, finally pulled into a driveway to turn around and a man in a truck pulls in right behind us. Amazingly, it was the landowner; he was friendly and happy to let us search. He told me that arrowheads had been found there before which was no surprise to me. At this point I am feeling really optimistic. We got out of the car and I started searching in the highest place closest to the river. Right away, broken chips and flakes of quartz and felsite tell me I am in a good place. Dave was the first one to find a worked piece of quartz, possibly an arrowhead fragment. I spotted this:

      It's tiny. So small, I thought it might just be a flake that happened to be shaped like an arrowhead. But, it is what it is.

     This is the smallest arrowhead in this shape (small stemmed, Squibnocket Stemmed, Wading River or whatever you want to call these narrow points with weak shoulders) that I have ever found. Here it is with another find from that afternoon, same area:

     That's a nice stemmed point missing the tip and the stem. You can see the shoulders, perhaps it was a Neville or Stark, an Atlantic, or something else- no way for me to know. This is a heartbreaker for me because I really like this material (red felsite, perhaps from Attleboro) and I don't have a whole point like this in this material. Heartbreaking, but also tantalizing. I will return to this place.
     On a sunny day, I went to a favorite place on the coast. This was a place I had been hitting pretty hard since the fall but usually going home empty-handed. I just wanted to take a walk and didn't want to deal with the hassle of knocking on doors to get permission to search a new place that could be void. I knew I could get some fresh air in this place so I decided to go there even though I had not found anything on my last couple of visits. Very quickly I had the thrill of spotting a whole arrowhead totally exposed and waiting to be picked up. A sight for sore eyes, to be sure. I was elated.

     It's nice. A typical shape for this site.

     Not far away, a base sticking out of the sand. Will it be whole?

     Well, not this time. But most of it is there. This shape, with these side notches, is unusual. I really like it.

     Here they are together. It was a thrill to find two decent points in one day, and I was not out very long, probably less than an hour.

     I also found these. The piece on the left is probably a broken crude point or knife. The piece on the right, I believe, is a hafted scraper. Not as impressive or pretty as the others, but that scraper is an unusual find, I am pleased with it.

     The very next morning, I got up early to go back and search more in that same spot. Incredibly, when I got there, there were two other guys already there, doing the same thing! I hate that, I don't like the competition and I really prefer the solitude of being in a place alone so I decided to search a different area nearby where I had never looked before, within sight of the first spot but separate from it. It's close enough to the first spot that I consider it the same site, it's just on the other side of the road and I thought it was further from the water and less likely to produce lots of tools. Also, the conditions are not as good, lots of weeds and rocks, not as sandy. But... what I hadn't realized, having never looked over there, is that there is water that comes around on the other side, too. And there is a sandy area there, near the water, where you can see the ground, the weeds are not too bad. So, a couple of minutes there, and...

     A broken base of a stemmed point made of a nice transparent quartz material. Pretty. Here's another broken base of a lanceolate or stemmed point nearby.

     Here's a whole one. Small, but all there. Perhaps worked down from something bigger.

     Yet another broken stemmed point, missing the tip.

     All of the above finds were from 30 minutes of looking in a productive spot. Here they are together with another little fragment I also found in that time. The broken point on the right is really cool, narrow with an incurvate base and interesting shoulders. I love mornings like these. It is really affirming to find things when you are looking for them.

     I crossed the road and stopped to chat with the two other guys out looking. They were friendly, one had found a projectile point tip, the other had a nice whole stemmed point. They were leaving, going to look somewhere else. I knew that there were productive areas there that they had not searched but I went back across the street to keep searching in this different spot- I'm glad I did. I bent down to pick up what I thought was just a chip, there was more to it under the ground and when it came out... wow!!!

     I love it! Nearby, a large and well-flaked point, sadly broken (and with a very fresh-looking break, too).

     I looked for a while longer but found nothing else. I'm not complaining, though. This is a really good haul for me. That large broken point from the photo above has one shoulder and I really wish it was whole but the big ones are almost always broken.

      This one, though... I'm just thrilled with it. One good rock can make my whole day.

     Now, for my last hunt report for this installment. A hot, dry day; bright sun. A sandy place near water. Lots of exposure. I have a number of points from this site, but it can be hit or miss. Today, though... a hit.

     Two visible corners. What's under the ground? Something broken maybe? Let's take a look..

     That's a nice triangle. I am very happy with this find.

     Nearby, another triangle is sticking out of the ground. But I can see that it's broken. A shame- well made, big, with a sharp point.

     Here it is out of the ground with the rest of the day's finds.

     I'm definitely feeling like my luck has returned. That's it for part 1. Lots more to show in part 2. I think this week it will rain and I will be able to get out and search again. I'm feeling good about my chances.

Cronin Brook - Millbury

A nice area of opens woods, low rocky hills, and water. This is west of my usual exploration area. Saw a few things on the lowest slopes above the wet areas - not in groups- but one at the head of each gully - or something like that. This terrain:

 There are lots of things in there and I took a lot of pictures.

Some seemed "modern" like a causeway:

 But there was a rock pile with quartz a few feet from this:

In another place, some wells:

This was the first thing I saw that seemed reliably old:

See how this on the lowest slopes above the water?

Or:

Several had a white blaze at the center.

Of feldspar or quartz.

Rock Pile Mailbox (CT)

From The Voices Weekly Newspaper

(If I knew where it is, I could win a dollar, but I don't so I can't.)

http://www.primepublishers.com/

Wood Ducks

Best I could do:

Black Draw

About 50 miles east of Douglas AZ, north of the San Bernadino Wildlife Refuge, the largest water course is called Black Draw. So I am looking along it for "signs of life", switching between a Topo map view and a Satellite view:

The little hill you see at the lower right of the topo map draws my attention. Obviously it would stand out against the gradual slope down to the river from each side. This is a natural place to look for archeology.
Look at the bend in the river and look at the location of the cursor. On the Topo view it is an un-differentiated part of the gradual slope. But on the Satellite view there is a little dot just above the cursor. 
Please go look at a Satellite view of this bend and find that dot in your view. Then zoom in. Here is what I see:

Pretty sure that's a building (it is about 40 meters across):

Pretty sure parts of it are lined up with the hill:

Yup the main line of the "building" points at the middle of the hill. A solstice direction? It is like New England archeoastronomy played out on a different scale. The "dot" is a bigger rock pile. The Black Draw Pueblo.
Let's look around some more...about a kilometer northeast (darn Google forcing me into metric!) just above the cursor in this picture is another anomaly:

Closeup:

Stone walls starting at the lower left corner of the picture, and a water retention system.

Update: The outline reminds me of the Newark Earthworks. It is no wonder one thinks of the astronomical, seeing this shape.

 Newark:

Two-tone Hornfels

I thought this flake might be of interest to people who like stone tools. Found in Concord, this material sure does not come from around here. I think it is hornfels ("horn stone") but I have never seen beige coloring before, let alone this two-tone combo.

For whatever it is worth, in the past the site contained middle-archaic diagnostic "Stark" points as well as some things that look more "paleo". About 200 yards from the Assabet River, in a cornfield.

First Flowers of Spring

Can someone tell us the name of this flower?

Back to Townsend Hill Pepperell

Thought I would give this area one last look. It did not disappoint my expectation of disappointment. But there are things going on with the stone walls in this area that are worth noticing. After the previous visit, I posted a picture of a pile located where a short bit of wall ended. I kept thinking I was seeing it again and was actually seeing other examples. Here is the first example I saw the previous time, taken on this most recent walk:

Aside from the rock pile: note that the wall (back left of photo) actually continues to the right after a break. 
This pattern of a wall ending and continuing in bits and pieces after the ridge dies out, was repeated in other places.  Something like this:

Here it is again:

I was particularly taken with one bit of "wallism", where a couple of decrepit piles occur next to a break, and then the wall turns a corner, runs briefly down to the lower place, then stops:

Just at the left edge of the above picture, several old piles:

Let's have another look at that from near the break:

 

There were also some much older walls integrated in with these "fresh" ones. All worth a closer look.  

Added, to clarify the wall damage at one end:

Bow and Arrow Petroglyph (NH)

   Rich Holschuh posted the photo below to the ‎Nolumbeka Project's Face Book page (April 11, 2015) and wrote: “Went up Arrow Hill in Surry, NH today to find the bow and arrow petroglyph. The drawn bow points at Menonadenak- Mt. Monadnock... 1.3 miles from the road, elevation 1280'.”

 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=398690793668896&set=o.503964243028350&type=1&theater

Cascade in Pepperell