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Any Indian Artifact Collectors, Flintknappers or Blacksmiths on TSC

Blade-meister

Blade-meister

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I collect Indian Artifacts and wonder if anyone on TSC also collects any? I'm also into flintknapping and blacksmithing.

For me it all started when I was in first grade and my Dad took me out for the first time to look for arrowheads in a plowed field. He'd done it all his life and it was one of those passing it down moments. Here are the first arrowheads I ever found. Needless to say I was hooked.



Finding arrowheads got me to wondering how they were made so I began learning Flintknapping and have spent about 17 years trying to master this craft. Here's a spread of points I've made



I've been blacksmithing since 2016 roughly. I got into the blacksmithing because I was set up next one at a show we were both demonstrating at. I thought I might be able to do it so I started buying tools and a forge and got to it. I just made my first knife this year after spending 3 years learning how to do a lot of decorative things. Here's a picture of my main anvil a pre 1898 German Trenton. And no, I have no plans of going on Forged and Fire

https://d28lcup14p4e72.cloudfront.net/225400/4323014/DSCN5287.jpg

So if you are into any of these things or interested, feel free to jump in and just talk about them in this thread.
 
Have not found any in quite a long time and I know I don’t have any that I have found left. I have a bit of Native heritage and have always been fascinated by the culture and it’s art and artifacts. Thanks hank you for sharing!
 
Very cool about the blavksmithing. Did you take any courses,or have someone mentor you or was it self taught tile and error?
 
\"DocHoliday0831 said:
Have not found any in quite a long time and I know I don’t have any that I have found left. I have a bit of Native heritage and have always been fascinated by the culture and it’s art and artifacts. Thanks hank you for sharing!
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\n\nI have such great respect for how the Native Americans lived. They didn\'t waste anything. I guess I\'ve always tried to live that way. I\'m currently trying to figure out what can be done on the blacksmithing end with all my DE blades I\'m just tossing. I tried using them to scrape arrow shafts but they didn\'t do well with that. I\'m thinking I might be able to make metal sculpted roses out of them. I may try that. \n\n
Sharp's said:
Very cool about the blavksmithing. Did you take any courses,or have someone mentor you or was it self taught tile and error?
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\n\nI\'m self-taught for the most part. I read a ton on it before jumping in and joined a blacksmithing forum which helped a lot too. YouTube videos also helped. It\'s one of those crafts you just have to roll up your sleeves and do it. I had a 3rd degree burn almost to the bone on one of my fingers starting out because my first anvil was tiny and on a tiny stump and the whole system tipped over with the hot steel rolling onto my finger. That piece of steel just barely touched my finger. Didn\'t hurt - no nerves there to cause pain. \n\nIt\'s really a craft where you start out small making hooks and things then work up to the bigger stuff like knives. You can start with knives like Shawn has done (and done well!) but I\'m the type that likes to easy into things from the bottom and work up. With all that said, I\'d benefit from finding a master blacksmith near me and watching him forge or having him mentor me.
 
Really incredible! I have a huge appreciation for historical artifacts. I think people really under-appreciate arrow heads. If you find one in a field...it likely dates back to a pre-historic time! At the very least...pre-American history. It is just truly amazing! One of these days there will be no more arrow heads to find and then museums will be asking for any and all that people have!
 
dangerousdon said:
Really incredible! I have a huge appreciation for historical artifacts. I think people really under-appreciate arrow heads. If you find one in a field...it likely dates back to a pre-historic time! At the very least...pre-American history. It is just truly amazing! One of these days there will be no more arrow heads to find and then museums will be asking for any and all that people have!
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Having learned to make arrowheads, I appreciate them more. The rush I get is when I pick up the point for the first time in the field. My hand was the first to touch it since the ancient one who lost it thousands of years ago. When I find a hammer stone used by an ancient flintknapper I feel that connection as one flintknapper to another. Nothing hokey or spiritual, just a knowing that I share his or her skill set.

As you walk the rows of the fields, you usually talk with your hunting buddy about all things but your topic of running out of points to find is something that's come up a lot. I look at it like this: If I'm finding 11,000 year arrowheads as the oldest and arrowheads that date just before the white contact period, that's a span of 11,000 years. If one arrowhead was lost a year, that's 11,000 arrowheads to be found on that site! The truth is more along the lines of 20 or 30 broken or lost points a year. That's a lot of arrowheads to find. No doubt though, I've seen some sites produce less arrowheads over the years.

This will blow your mind......In 1983 my dad and I were looking for arrowheads at a field and he found a point split perfectly from tip to base in half. We always marveled at it. In 1991 I was alone at the same field and found a point split perfectly from tip to base. Dad always joked that he had the other half. In 2006 I was going through his collection to put them in a case for him and I came across the point so we had the conversation again. I went home and found my point like it and the next time I saw my Dad I gave him my point and asked him to go home and see. He called me a few hours later to tell me they were a perfect match! What are the odds of that? Firstly, finding the other half of a broken point rarely happens, but for two members of the same family finding the two halves 8 years apart is just a once in a lifetime occurrence.
 
Here's some photos of points just how I found them in the field just prior to me plucking them out of the dirt:





 
Wait what??? Sculpted roses out of razor blades? Talk about love hurting.
 
NurseDave said:
Wait what??? Sculpted roses out of razor blades? Talk about love hurting.
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Love Bites was a hit back in the 80's you know
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I'd definitely dull the blades before putting them in the forge. Just imagine presenting your honey with a black rose made of your old DE blades, what could state your love more?
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My favorite arrowhead find of all time was one where only a little bit of the base was sticking out so I thought it was just one of the thousands of flakes of flint you find on a site so I tugged at it and the clot of dirt moved so I took a picture quick and then removed it to find a whole pretty good sized point.

All I saw in the dirt:



What I found once I got it out of the dirt:


It was about a 3 inch point approximately 4,000 years old. I had a good day that day and here's what else I found.

 
I wish I could find some stuff like that. A few months ago, there was a collection of arrowheads at the local auction house. They went for a crazy amount of money.
 
Wow! What great instinct to see that "stone." I venture that most people would have just walked right over it not thinking much of it. It really is a beauty!
 
Spider said:
I wish I could find some stuff like that. A few months ago, there was a collection of arrowheads at the local auction house. They went for a crazy amount of money.
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Lots of fakes out there. Ebay is full of them. I only buy really super nice broken arrowheads on Ebay and then I have them restored. Flintknappers like me have to mark our work or some sleazy middleman will buy our work and sell it for an old artifact tripling his or her money. I've seen my work for sale as artifacts and it really is sad. I mark my points permanently with a diamond scratch pen and also with secret marks so that anyone who is a serious collector will find the marks when looking at the arrowhead under magnification.

Anyone who has arrowheads lying around there house, hey post a picture here and I will tell you what you have and how old it is. It's really not uncommon to have arrowheads that are 9,000 or more years old.

dangerousdon said:
Wow! What great instinct to see that "stone." I venture that most people would have just walked right over it not thinking much of it. It really is a beauty!
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We actually learn to find arrowheads by training ourselves to find flakes of flint. Once your eyes get tuned into flint you find the points easy enough. When I hunted ginseng it was the same way, you'd walk right past it untill you found your first few plants and then you'll never walk past ginseng again.

Here's a frame of some of the arrowheads and other artifacts I've found over the years:

 
The arrowhead in the middle circle at 10 o'clock is the point that my Dad found half in 1982 and I found the other half in 1991. We joked for years that we had the other half to each other's arrowhead but didn't get the two pieces together until around 2006 or 2007! Pretty amazing since a lot of other people looked for arrowheads in the same field. The long drill at 12 o'clock I found in 2 pieces. I found the bottom section in 2000 and the tip section in 2004 in the same exact spot. I never found the tiny bit of middle section. I had it restored professionally. Professionally restored points are worth about half the value of the same point if it were whole and undamaged. Lots of good stories behind many of the arrowheads in that frame.
 
Yeah Dave, it really doesn't happen much but has happened to me 3 times! The other two times the broken pieces where within 30 feet of each other and they were not recent breaks by the plow.
 
Just bumping this one back into the land of the living to see if any new members collect arrowheads. Here's some artifacts I found back in 2005 insitu the way I found them in the field.

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Here's a piece of pottery. One of many pieces I've recovered from this site.

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