How old s my tube pipe?

[Wilson]

:dunno: I bought this from the show.. I wanted the oldest pipe form in the Americas hmy:  I sent it  to Butler, but cant really tell how old it may be?  Seems like a long time span? :dunno:

[garscale]

I like the pipe and the garscales. I fund a huge cache of them once. I took a bunch of insitu pics.

[Ron Kelley]

garscale wrote:

I like the pipe and the garscales. I fund a huge cache of them once. I took a bunch of insitu pics.

   :laugh:  :laugh:  :rolf:  :rolf:  :laugh:  :laugh:  :rolf:  :rolf:  :laugh:  :laugh:

[gregszybala]

This might help:

http://www.arrowheads.com/index.php/pipes/502-the-great-pipes

Unless you know where it came from and what artifacts were found in association with it you're not going to get a better date than given on the COA.

[clovisoid]

Nice looking pipe, I've seen a lot of bad ones over the years and that one looks good from the pictures.
Hmmm...  The Woodland period ended 500 years ago?  Ignore that typo and I think the authenticator did about as much as he could by going from late archaic to historic on the dates (as Greg mentioned.)  It's a bit like a celt or a simple knife form, if you don't have the context of a site collection or excavation, it's impossible to pin down the age.  (Some Universities have collected scrapings from inside pipes to date the carbon residue left inside, kind of interesting approach if you have a lot of residue inside.)
I think Moorehead started calling tube pipes the oldest form of pipe, but he was referring to slate pipes from archaic contexts in the Midwest.  (A lot of the long tube bannerstones are probable pipes.)  I've seen sandstone tube pipes from late Ft. Ancient sites (1400-1500 AD) in Kentucky, and lots of them from other Mississippian sites in Tennessee and Georgia.  When I see that "cloud blower" shape, I tend to think Woodland/Mississippian period.
I do love the line about "Good sorbed deposits and authigenic accumulations observed."  Calvin Howard wrote an article on patina in a journal a couple of decades ago about pedogenic and authigenic mineral deposits, as well as sorbed deposits.  Basically a good description of genuine patina vs fake patina using a dictionary's worth of $5 words.

[Wilson]

Garscales were found way up on a hill far from water by a surveyer. He saw one, and came back with a friend and dug it up. It was accompanied by a couple deer bones The head was missing hmy:







   Attached files 

[garscale]

Those are alligator gar scales.  Each one has a unique pattern on it just like a snowflake does. Longnose scales can be that large but they are smooth.  I have a few gator gar scales over 3 inches.

[garscale]

I almost never take insitu pics but here are a few caches of gar scales just as I found them.





   Attached files 

[2ndoldman]

Those are some mother loving big fish. WOW

[Kyflintguy]

Are those good eat'n? Just wondering,  haven't had my breakfast yet apparently   :unsure:  :rolf:
P.s. Nice pipe Dave!
Those NA must have had some tough lungs to fill that big ol' thing up and take a drag!

[Olden]

That's one honker of a party tube pipe Wilson: a real hand warmer! Nice find!!

Great pics Gar - can't get any more insitu than that!
Does Bill Dance really fall out of the boat a bunch, or is that just made for TV stuff??

[Wilson]

Holy macaroni!!