I have a question on debitage. I recently hunted a new field with a fellow artifact friend I recently made, who is quite experienced. Upon arriving he looked around and pointed to a certain spot he thought looked good. Sure enough he finds three broken points. I found only some debitage, the closet I have ever come to finding any kind of point, broken or whole, in my year of hunting. It was a no-till field so there wasn’t much on the surface.
I got to looking at the various pieces of chert I have found, both from fields and creeks and got to wondering whether it was man-made or natural. After a little study on knapping (which I suppose can be misleading depending on the source), I learned that man-made debitage should have what is called a “bulb of force,” which comes as a result of a blow to the chert by a hammerstone. Looking at only the chert found in fields, I found that very few have such a bulb. None of these fields were rocky and what rocks were there were mainly limestone. So were these pieces without bulbs natural or man-made? My inclination is man-made for a few reasons, but I could be wrong and thus misleading myself in marking these as debitage sites for future hunting. Here are my reasons: First, these fields are deep in soil with no rock outcroppings, so chert should not be there naturally. Second, the chert pieces were in clusters and not scattered throughout, possibly indicating a campsite. What are your observations? Thanks
I got to looking at the various pieces of chert I have found, both from fields and creeks and got to wondering whether it was man-made or natural. After a little study on knapping (which I suppose can be misleading depending on the source), I learned that man-made debitage should have what is called a “bulb of force,” which comes as a result of a blow to the chert by a hammerstone. Looking at only the chert found in fields, I found that very few have such a bulb. None of these fields were rocky and what rocks were there were mainly limestone. So were these pieces without bulbs natural or man-made? My inclination is man-made for a few reasons, but I could be wrong and thus misleading myself in marking these as debitage sites for future hunting. Here are my reasons: First, these fields are deep in soil with no rock outcroppings, so chert should not be there naturally. Second, the chert pieces were in clusters and not scattered throughout, possibly indicating a campsite. What are your observations? Thanks
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