Flint fish hook......

[Owen70]

From what I’ve read this opens a proverbial “can of worms” pun intended. I was doing some general reading on artifacts and ran into this paper from the university of Ky website. It appears from the url it was written by funk and Webb. If I remember correctly there was a Webb that was a quasi archaeologist who made many discoveries in Kentucky.
I was thrown by the last paragraph of page 18 which states, true fish hooks made of flint are not uncommon in Ky.
Does anyone have an idea of when this was written or who the authors actually are? Has this issue been completely dismissed as a hoax?

http://www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/KPS/books/funkwebb/funkwebbch11.pdf

[Kentucky point]

I am very familiar with UK, and I am surprised by the report. The way they portrayed flaking and spalling, would have impaled the hand of the knapper, and would have done absolutely nothing useful in the way of making arrowheads. That part is total bogus.

I wouldn't know about the fish hooks though.

[Hoss]

https://www.gustavslibrary.com/ancientlifekentucky.htm Looks like it was written in 1928

https://www.gustavslibrary.com/ancientlifekentucky.htm

[Owen70]

Ok. I figured it must be old literature. Thanks

[OnewiththewilD]

Their calling these arrow points in the article, goes to show how inaccurate and out dated it is.

[Owen70]

Yeah that’s weird. To be fair, in the body of the paper they did make mention of how few were actually arrowheads and that most were knives. They did theorize there were probably very few spears🤔

[OnewiththewilD]

I don’t think I can buy into the idea of a flint hook, I see them cutting right thru a fishes lip or snapping in the struggle

[Owen70]

I struggle with the idea also. I have fished all my life and the sheer size of the hooks would eliminate smaller fishes. That would be a 5/0 or bigger size and a fish large enough to engulf that with bait attached would put a lot of pressure on the bend of the hook.

[OnewiththewilD]

I agree

[Owen70]

It’s odd they would make such a statement. It’s as if it was common knowledge or that’s how it struck me.
Is it true that hand made rock fish hooks have been found and listed as artifacts in Europe? Seems I read that somewhere.

[OnewiththewilD]

Ya gotta remember, back then anything they didnt know what it was ended up being “ ceremonial” and they also thought dropping boiling water on flint was a thing too

[Warren Matthew]

I was shown flint fish hooks in the J. J. Pickle Research Center in Austin Texas. They were hook shaped, I don't remember if I was told they were actually confirmed as "fish" hooks. They were in the morgue, recovered with burials.