Have any hafted lithics been found intact in North America?

[Styles]

I was reading about Otzi - found in Europe with a few hafted tools preserved dating to ~3500 years BP, and was wondering if any examples of spear shafts or knife handles have been found in North America that date past ~3000 years before present. I'm particularly curious about older cultures like Clovis, Folsom, Dalton, etc. Additionally, is the only chance for preservation ice or permafrost?

[CMD]

Well, here is a hafted celt found on one of the Elizabeth Islands of Ma:

https://forums.arrowheads.com/forum/general-discussion-gc5/native-american-culture-lifestyle-questions-discussion-gc141/283935-perishable-artifacts

In general, the desert Southwest, in the United States, has a climate that permits this. I do not know the age of the artifacts seen in this photo, but the points are from Az., and were found in dry caves, the knife is from Oregon:

[Styles]

Very cool! These are absolutely wild to me. Cool to see some context behind the points we find.

[CMD]

https://escholarship.org/content/qt5xx4k29b/qt5xx4k29b.pdf?t=krnptl

[Styles]

Awesome - thank you. I quickly browsed - will read this morning.

[Lindenmeier-Man]

A really great question. I think Doc above has shown about as good a answer as can be made! The search continues .

[Mattern]

Hi Styles, To answer that question, Yes All over the Country! But they almost all are found in caves, rocksherters, or overhangs. It has to be a constantly dry place or the organics would just rot away. Occasionally proper excavations will show the outline of a handle, shaft and so on. How ever the excavator has to be extremely careful and be looking for this outline or it can be easily missed. I personally saw an outline of the knife handle that was attached to a knife as shown in the above picture. Unfortunately we could not remove the handle. It just disintegrated. We even tried to stabilize it with watered down elmer's wood glue. This was a Professional dig. Kim

[Styles]

Thanks - you actually touched on a second part of the question I had in my head. I’d imagine even if depositional conditions werent right to preserve a shaft, we should still occasionally find a line of stained dirt next to an undisturbed piece. Your example of the shaft disintegrating is right in line with that thought. Really cool. Thanks.

[Jethro355]

Occasionally finds are found in northern climates, (think Alaska and the Yukon, Tetons, Rockies, High sierras,) where people occasionally find them in melted glaciers.

Colorado is a prime hunting ground for such items....

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20190916-a-race-to-rescue-frozen-artefacts

[Narrow Way Knapper]

I love these finds. It's really interesting to see how these tools were fashioned. In many cases the person chose the best possible wood for the application.

I have a hafted adz my dad gave me. I think it's from Papua New Guinea, where some folks still live in the stone age. I'll try to post a picture of it some time.

[Mailman]

Fascinating. Great thread