Schist Materials in NC

[rmartin]

Well done Hoss! To knowingly post a fake here is a violation of our rules. Then to admit/brag about is an invitation for banning. Who is the real "knuckle head"?

[Hoss]

OK Brandon it was your call. I just officially dismissed us from Y'all. They are rocks. go find a rock forum and have yourself a  nice day!

NC_Stone_Collector wrote:

I have no animosity here, but I'm going to dismiss this forum just like the other one a few years back.  Some guy from FL posting NC arrowheads trying to show me that they should look like this.  Dang, they look freshly made to me.  He called mine natural and then turns around and posts a rock that looks more natural than mine.  Not every thing is gold buddy'o!  Some are artifacts to me b/c of they way I found them.  They told me a story leading to my better find today.  I won't be proving anything to any one anyway b/c I find these for myself to describe the culture of these inhabitants that used to live here.  I see that they played and worked with rocks just for fun too.  You're old eyes just can't see it anyway.  I have actually had very little help or told wrong with this forum junk.  To tell ya the truth, the very, very first posting I ever had was a fake arrowhead with no patina and dirt on it.  I knew it was but I wanted to see what's going on here before I jumped in.  Well dang if yall knuckleheads said it was real.  So the opinion mess doesn't fly with me.  I'm in my prime right now and when there is something significant unfolding, I know it.  I started posting these until I get to that sweet one.  Just like a ball hitting a bat, you'll know when your swing meets the ball on that spot.  Same happened here.  You should know I'm not trying to find everything and you should know what any NC artifact collector wants to have in their collection.  I'm following the trail to the well known Clovis.  Been very empty handed many times searching and yet to put one in my collection.  I know how valuable the better materials are and they're rare for that reason.  It's tough to make a decent find here.  Let alone, trying to find the Clovis.  I don't think it's outta this ball park right yet based on my recent find.  I will leave here with that optimism.

[CMD]

NC_Stone_Collector wrote:

I have no animosity here, but I'm going to dismiss this forum just like the other one a few years back.  Some guy from FL posting NC arrowheads trying to show me that they should look like this.  Dang, they look freshly made to me.  He called mine natural and then turns around and posts a rock that looks more natural than mine.  Not every thing is gold buddy'o!  Some are artifacts to me b/c of they way I found them.  They told me a story leading to my better find today.  I won't be proving anything to any one anyway b/c I find these for myself to describe the culture of these inhabitants that used to live here.  I see that they played and worked with rocks just for fun too.  You're old eyes just can't see it anyway.  I have actually had very little help or told wrong with this forum junk.  To tell ya the truth, the very, very first posting I ever had was a fake arrowhead with no patina and dirt on it.  I knew it was but I wanted to see what's going on here before I jumped in.  Well dang if yall knuckleheads said it was real.  So the opinion mess doesn't fly with me.  I'm in my prime right now and when there is something significant unfolding, I know it.  I started posting these until I get to that sweet one.  Just like a ball hitting a bat, you'll know when your swing meets the ball on that spot.  Same happened here.  You should know I'm not trying to find everything and you should know what any NC artifact collector wants to have in their collection.  I'm following the trail to the well known Clovis.  Been very empty handed many times searching and yet to put one in my collection.  I know how valuable the better materials are and they're rare for that reason.  It's tough to make a decent find here.  Let alone, trying to find the Clovis.  I don't think it's outta this ball park right yet based on my recent find.  I will leave here with that optimism.

  Sir, you were provided with experienced and spot-on opinions. You are free to reject those opinions, but you are in error, not this forum. Why don't you show your finds to an archaeologist in your area who works in prehistory or perhaps a local archaeological society? I can assure you without any doubt whatsoever that he/they will tell you those are unmodified rocks. If you never learned anything on forums, it must be because you are simply unwilling to learn. So many good observations made here, yet your stated response is to dismiss forums.
Do you know how immature and silly that sounds? You don't get the answer you predetermined was the correct answer before you even questioned us, so you stamp your feet? Denial won't make those rocks artifacts. You came here completely unwilling to learn, IMHO. I hope you discover the truth somehow,  someday, and develop a better understanding of what is,  and what is not, an artifact.

[NC_Stone_Collector]

I have no animosity here, but I'm going to dismiss this forum just like the other one a few years back.  Some guy from FL posting NC arrowheads trying to show me that they should look like this.  Dang, they look freshly made to me.  He called mine natural and then turns around and posts a rock that looks more natural than mine.  Not every thing is gold buddy'o!  Some are artifacts to me b/c of they way I found them.  They told me a story leading to my better find today.  I won't be proving anything to any one anyway b/c I find these for myself to describe the culture of these inhabitants that used to live here.  I see that they played and worked with rocks just for fun too.  You're old eyes just can't see it anyway.  I have actually had very little help or told wrong with this forum junk.  To tell ya the truth, the very, very first posting I ever had was a fake arrowhead with no patina and dirt on it.  I knew it was but I wanted to see what's going on here before I jumped in.  Well dang if yall knuckleheads said it was real.  So the opinion mess doesn't fly with me.  I'm in my prime right now and when there is something significant unfolding, I know it.  I started posting these until I get to that sweet one.  Just like a ball hitting a bat, you'll know when your swing meets the ball on that spot.  Same happened here.  You should know I'm not trying to find everything and you should know what any NC artifact collector wants to have in their collection.  I'm following the trail to the well known Clovis.  Been very empty handed many times searching and yet to put one in my collection.  I know how valuable the better materials are and they're rare for that reason.  It's tough to make a decent find here.  Let alone, trying to find the Clovis.  I don't think it's outta this ball park right yet based on my recent find.  I will leave here with that optimism.

[Butch Wilson]

Stone collector  you posted your "finds" asked for information. You were given it by people well versed in Native American artifacts, and. Lithic material. There seems to be two choices accept the information presented or dismiss it ! Why don't you choose one. You don't need to prove anyone wrong !

[NC_Stone_Collector]

Well if you really want to know Mr. Martin, their use was to scalpel.  There are more here too but I picked out the best forms for observations.  The fine tuning of these are not apparent, the crisp edges are blunt on some.  Probably due to age and geological change that occurs to stones of this nature and composition.  There is not a single example of these compositions anywhere else on this land, in the creek, or along that creek.  All artifacts are situated up hill from there.  From my speculating, the paleos I found are in the creek and along the edge of the creek.  I went up the hill 50 yards and found the Kirk today.  Then about 2 years ago I found a Morrow Mtn about 100 yards up the hill from the Kirk.  I'm definitely reading a story that these rocks are telling me here.  So right now I'm dead convinced on this discovery until I show this to the superior expert of materials and archaeology in my region of NC and he gives me the okay.  Maybe this chapter will never end.  Hopefully I won't see the day when there is nothing left to learn about this subject.

[rmartin]

You are convinced these are worked pieces(tools of some sort) so my (our) opinion means nothing. I realize I hunt in an area rich in raw material and wouldn't give this stuff a second look, but I have seen some pretty nice artifacts from your area. All I see are naturally shaped rocks. That is a nice little point you found but IMO it does not substantiate any of the other natural stones you have posted. What kind of tools do you propose they were, what was their function?

[Bill]

That's a pretty good post Plainshill. You might also be lithics wonk like me too!
Schist around here is primarily bedrock, however some of it has metamorphosed to the extent that it might be a little knapable. The fact it has a slate like fracture property means it still would have been pretty tough to work.
It seems that only the Middle Archaic/Late Archaic folks worked it and I'll bet only when they had to. Most of the time, I'm sure, that the knapper ended up with his hard effort splitting into two ruined pieces.

[NC_Stone_Collector]

I do live in Yadkin County though.  From what knowledge I've gathered from some older people around here, they were the ones that told me that Mother Nature made stones intended with a purpose for work.  The Yadkin River deposits materials of better quality for work and some are of worse quality but people made do with what they had at that time to find.  Some tools were probably used once and just left laying there at that spot.  Therefore, the better quality materials were valued more and they are rare for that reason.

[NC_Stone_Collector]

No I'm hunting in Surry County right now about 2 miles north of the Yadkin River and about 7 miles or less from Pilot Mountain.  This land is the border of Stokes and Surry about a mile away from the main road.  I walk out of the house and into the back yard and I'm in Surry County.  The terrain changes here into slightly mountainous while Yadkin (Yadkin Valley) has more valleys and river bottoms.  There is the Little Yadkin River that flows close by and it began on Sauratown Mtn.  Seems like this land was a traveled route to get to Pilot Mtn and/or Saura Mtn from the Yadkin River.  The Donnaha Village is about 5 miles south from here.

[CliffJ]

NC_Stone_Collector wrote:

There is a soft form and a hard form.  One has more quartz, both types I see here.  However, that doesn't matter b/c I will be proving yall wrong just like the TreasureNet guys.  There is one guy on there that agrees with me on these finds.  I told him to just sit and watch this story unfold.  You may have more knowledge than me on these specific materials, but what explains a better quality arrowhead found here?  I found this Kirk today just up the hill about 50 yards.  I used a piece of broken quartz to scrape the ground.  I'm not the regular artifact hunter, searching plowed fields. It does yield more artifacts though, but I prefer to try different techniques to mix things up a bit. I'm speculating that these fresher pieces were left in a field in a position where they didn't make it to the bottom of the hill. There is pine woods there now.  I'm glad I had today off work to do some surface digging b/c I think this will put an end to this chapter.  Just my opinion, but there is apparently been a flow of inhabitants here some time or the other.

You are in Yadkin County, NC, a place with no shortage of rhyolite and quartz to be worked. They had little use for the natural rough rocks you are finding, which all appear to be worked by the natural processes over tens of thousands of years. You obviously have a site there if you are finding rhyolite projectiles. It sounds like it is on top of the hill, so look there.

[NC_Stone_Collector]

painshill wrote:

I think I may have covered this before, but there is really no such rock as “schist”. Rocks referred to as schists are medium-grade metamorphorphic rocks formed at relatively high temperature and can be derived from clay or mud (most common), but also from fine grained igneous rocks such as basalts and tuffs. What distinguishes them is that the mineral grains are “platy” and elongated, such that the rock is foliated in sheets or layers (sometimes undulating) which can be readily split off along the planes in which the minerals lie. Any rock formed that way which has more than half its mineral content as elongated grains is a schist.
Typical minerals would be micas, chlorite, talc, hornblende, graphite (but many others too) and those are often finely interleaved with quartz and feldspar. The quartz grains are also sometimes elongated. Inclusions of exotic minerals such as garnet, tourmaline and glaucophane are also common.
It’s always a tough call identifying rocks from pictures, I don’t believe those are schists I’m afraid. Although I can see a few elongated phenocrysts in some of the samples, there’s nothing like 50% mineral elongation and the matrix doesn’t have that classic foliated texture. I also doubt that those inclusions are garnets.
I’m with Cliff, Hoss and Butch… I’m not seeing any intentional shaping – whether as preforms or artefacts. Just some breakage along natural cleavage planes.

  You certainly know your mineral properties, however, those inclusions are garnets.  There is forms with more quartz and they have garnets imbedded also.  Then there is a softer form with garnets and it bears more mica minerals.  I've plucked out pieces of garnets the size of my thumbnail and then some are the size of specks.   That is the two main forms of garnet schist here.  They do appear to be broken along their natural cleavage plane to resemble a blade.  I think they knew what they were making and how to break this material anyway.  I've been finding more of them here shaped like that, so is that something that would naturally occur too?  Especially when I can't find no other examples anywhere else here.

[NC_Stone_Collector]

Here's two more unusual forms I found today.  How come most things in this spot have shapes like handles and tips?  Here is the pile I left laying on the ground.  Some do look natural I know, but what would explain finding these rock here and no where else on this land or creek?  I've searched it for 5 years and I'm try to learn more this landscape.  I've found a black rhyolite Kirk today, a Morrow Mtn made of speckled rhyolite and a black rhyolite Hardaway: they're the better materials I found on this land so far.

[NC_Stone_Collector]

There is a soft form and a hard form.  One has more quartz, both types I see here.  However, that doesn't matter b/c I will be proving yall wrong just like the TreasureNet guys.  There is one guy on there that agrees with me on these finds.  I told him to just sit and watch this story unfold.  You may have more knowledge than me on these specific materials, but what explains a better quality arrowhead found here?  I found this Kirk today just up the hill about 50 yards.  I used a piece of broken quartz to scrape the ground.  I'm not the regular artifact hunter, searching plowed fields. It does yield more artifacts though, but I prefer to try different techniques to mix things up a bit. I'm speculating that these fresher pieces were left in a field in a position where they didn't make it to the bottom of the hill. There is pine woods there now.  I'm glad I had today off work to do some surface digging b/c I think this will put an end to this chapter.  Just my opinion, but there is apparently been a flow of inhabitants here some time or the other.

[painshill]

I think I may have covered this before, but there is really no such rock as “schist”. Rocks referred to as schists are medium-grade metamorphorphic rocks formed at relatively high temperature and can be derived from clay or mud (most common), but also from fine grained igneous rocks such as basalts and tuffs. What distinguishes them is that the mineral grains are “platy” and elongated, such that the rock is foliated in sheets or layers (sometimes undulating) which can be readily split off along the planes in which the minerals lie. Any rock formed that way which has more than half its mineral content as elongated grains is a schist.
Typical minerals would be micas, chlorite, talc, hornblende, graphite (but many others too) and those are often finely interleaved with quartz and feldspar. The quartz grains are also sometimes elongated. Inclusions of exotic minerals such as garnet, tourmaline and glaucophane are also common.
It’s always a tough call identifying rocks from pictures, I don’t believe those are schists I’m afraid. Although I can see a few elongated phenocrysts in some of the samples, there’s nothing like 50% mineral elongation and the matrix doesn’t have that classic foliated texture. I also doubt that those inclusions are garnets.
I’m with Cliff, Hoss and Butch… I’m not seeing any intentional shaping – whether as preforms or artefacts. Just some breakage along natural cleavage planes.