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  • Collecting Chips

    Do you guys pick up all the chips you find?I've always been leaving most of the smaller ones,and started leaving most of the larger ones for now,becuase my wife wants me to take her and our 4 year old daughter with me sometime and I want to make sure there is stuff for them to pick up.If I find a point,I won't be leaving it for them to find,I wouldn't want to take a chance on loosing it.lol!I'm thinking I need to start picking them all up after that,so I'm not seeing all the chips I've already seen,and I'm only seeing new ones that just surfaced.

  • #2
    Hey Bob, I pick up the obvious ones that were produced by knapping. Call me greedy but i don't want other people checking the spot's i have found before i can (working so far) and flakes are a dead giveaway of a camp. Also like you mentioned i want to see newly surfaced stuff and a flake i could have picked up last time is a distraction. in about a month give or take most field crops will be taken out and fields will be clear again (some might plant winter wheat though) over the rest of this year and beginning of next. Some chips are cool anyway and could even be knapped into small arrowheads.
    http://joshinmo.weebly.com

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    • Ashley1972
      Ashley1972 commented
      Editing a comment
      I have picked up flakes since I started and over the years as I gained some knowledge. I’ve gone back to check them out again. What is really cool is how many of what I thought were flakes are actually micro tools?

  • #3
    The old timers used to pick them all up where I hunted and leave them at the ends of rows of corn in little piles. LOL It was a tell tale sign I looked for . They were leaving me easy clues to follow. I on the other hand I would pick up every chip keep all the flint and throw all the quartz down the bank or into the woods. When I walked a field I only left footprints behind!
    Last edited by Hoss; 11-08-2016, 01:42 PM.
    TN formerly CT Visit our store http://stores.arrowheads.com/store.p...m-Trading-Post

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    • OBION
      OBION commented
      Editing a comment
      That what I do, no reason in me picking it up twice or someone else seeing it once

  • #4
    Originally posted by JoshinMO View Post
    Hey Bob, I pick up the obvious ones that were produced by knapping. Call me greedy but i don't want other people checking the spot's i have found before i can (working so far) and flakes are a dead giveaway of a camp. Also like you mentioned i want to see newly surfaced stuff and a flake i could have picked up last time is a distraction. in about a month give or take most field crops will be taken out and fields will be clear again (some might plant winter wheat though) over the rest of this year and beginning of next. Some chips are cool anyway and could even be knapped into small arrowheads.
    Thanks Josh,I was thinking about the greedy thing as well.lol!But I also wanted to make sure I would rember where the best chip areas was.I have picked up some of the same chips so many times that I know them at a glance now.lol!

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    • JoshinMO
      JoshinMO commented
      Editing a comment
      You could just name them. Sent you a personal message btw.

  • #5
    I suppose if was hunting sites that produce very little ( such as certain Early Archaic or Paleo sites) then I might be inclined to pick up flint/chert chips, examine them and perhaps take them home and log them into the site as proof of a site. However, most of my sites were such that if I picked up all the trash that was left behind by the original inhabitants (including broken pot sherds) then the chore of hauling all that back home and storing it would have taxed my resources. So the quick response is that I did not pick up the trash left behind. Normally once I flipped a piece with my stick then I made the decision at that time whether I would bend over to pick it up. Some of my sites would have hundreds of chips on any particular walk through of only an hour or two. The way I usually searched a site was to walk back and forth at no more than four or five - foot spaces between each cross walk. That is the only way that a field site can be thoroughly searched. On river bank sites I used a different technique but I still did not carry back all the trash chips. If one is digging a site methodically then collecting everything is extremely important.

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    • #6
      Sailorjoe - I'm with you. There is sooo much debitage and lithic chips/flakes on the road that I hunt that I'd spend days trying to pick it all up. For awhile I was bringing it home for the flower garden but my wife started gripping about having to dig around all the rocks - so I stopped. Now, unless it's unusual or large, once I flip it with my stick I make the decision right then and there. Also, like Bob, I try to leave something for the grankids to sort through. ...Chuck
      Pickett/Fentress County, Tn - Any day on this side of the grass is a good day. -Chuck-

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      • #7
        Also Bob I thought this was just a flake, before i picked it up anyway.
        Click image for larger version

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        http://joshinmo.weebly.com

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        • #8
          Originally posted by JoshinMO View Post
          Also Bob I thought this was just a flake, before i picked it up anyway.
          [ATTACH=CONFIG]n225654[/ATTACH]
          ​Josh,I pick up or look very hard at anything even close to being big enough to be a bird point.lol!I think I sent you a pm,if I did it right.lol!

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          • #9
            Thanks for all the info.I'll probably start picking up the ones that would make it easy for someone else to find my site.

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            • #10
              I used to pick them all up, but I toss them now. I don't need to worry about other hunters around here.
              South Dakota

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              • #11
                The progression for me was to pick them up and pile them. I have gone back to sites to see those same piles yet a little scattered. Now I just flip them over.
                My sister picks them up and takes them home. She likes them just as much as arrowheads.
                Piling them up for the short term works, but like some sites I hunt they scatter, getting rid of them will not stop other hunters from hunting you cant find all the flakes. Why not give them more to look through to find arrowheads
                So that is why I progressed to flip and leave where lay.
                Look to the ground for it holds the past!

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                • #12
                  Originally posted by JoshinMO View Post
                  Also Bob I thought this was just a flake, before i picked it up anyway.
                  [ATTACH=CONFIG]n225654[/ATTACH]
                  ​Thought I'd update alittle.I've pretty much been picking up all the chips my back will let me when I go out.lol!I haven't been as lucky as Josh was on this one by doing it,but almost every time I brought the chips home and cleaned them up,I realized that I found a small part of a point.I have lots of chips,and I'm thinking maybe one day I'll get some pottery bowls and put them in them.

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                  • #13
                    Wouldn't blame You if You stop, I'm probably gonna stop picking them all up, but You never know what that glimmer of flint just peaking out of the dirt might be.
                    http://joshinmo.weebly.com

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                    • #14
                      I take 'em all. It's a record of the site (but then again, I only hunt one site!)

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                      • #15
                        I usually pick up and keep the interesting ones a good sampling of the materials used at that site. I'd advise keeping your materials in seperate site boxes and record where found. The artifacts themselves and the debitage & materials do tell a story.

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