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Shoop Site, Pa.'s Paleo Indian culture

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  • #16
    Bluemoose, You can live less than two miles from the Shoop Site and you won't find a single Paleo tool. You may accidentally find a fluted point that was lost from hunting, but the Shoop is a habitation site. It's restricted and confined to the area they inhabited. The site has defined borders, and isn't any larger than these, and the surrounding fields adjoining these invisible geographic borders do not produce tools, only an occasional point. A single fluted point was found by accident by a lady fishing the Armstrong Creek less than 500 yards from the Shoop. Your photos show a later eared Brewerton point, rough material, possibly silicified shale. The rocks are geofacts, they are natural, broken from larger rocks and shaped by wind, water, and a variety of erosional forces. There aren't any petroglyphs associated with the Shoop Site. Any cairns your finding are large piles of rocks that the farmers removed from the fields over 100 years ago. Back then when the fields were first plowed, the farmers would drag a wooden, flat sled behind the tractor and they would throw the big rocks on the sled. Then they would take these to the nearby woods and dump them in huge piles. When collectors see these, they are still thought to be Indian burial mounds, but, they are just piles of large rocks that would break the farm machinery if hit. The Shoop Site people were Paleo Indians who migrated into Pa. from the west, probably the Ohio Valley. They first found the Onondaga chert quarries in western NY, and that was thier source of chert. They wandered south, leaving behind several smaller encampments, until they reached the Shoop Site. This was a seasonal site, with three intersecting caribou migration routes. There's only 113 known fluited points for the site, between complete and broken, with most of those divided between the Hbg. Museum and the Smithsonian. Which direction is the two miles that you live from the Shoop Site?
    It's fascinating, but while the Shoop Site was occupied, there was another Paleo site of a completely different group of Paleo Indians living less than three miles north of the Shoop, and yet there wasn't any interaction between the two. This site, 36DA5, produced only Pa. jasper tools, and two jasper fluted points. Not a single chip of Onon. chert, and very oddly, on the Shoop., not a single tool of Pa. jasper. The jasper from the Shoop was obtained from the Houserville quarries in Center Co. to the west. As I write my thoughts go back to my research, and I can't seem to stop writing. Don't want to bore you, so I'll sign off now!
    http://www.ravensrelics.com/

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    • #17
      Greetings All - I'm new here, and looking to gain some insight as to the significance of my findings, seen in attached photos. I wasn't sure what I had stumbled upon, and after months of scouring the web for similar artifacts, finally came across this post and for the first time saw items most closely resembling those in my collection. Upon learning of the Shoop Site, its location and artifacts collected there, I understandably became more intrigued and confident I had come across something potentially significant. If not of great historical value, the site from which these items were obtained is at the very least extremely unique. This site is located on a high point overlooking the surrounding valleys, and an area of roughly 3,000ft² at the highest point consists almost entirely of artifacts and the materials from which they were manufactured. This is all completely exposed, and everything pictured was essentially plucked right off of the ground. What I've posted here accounts for <10% of the full collection, and the collection in whole probably took collectively 1-2 hours at most to collect. I'm no expert by any means, but it also appears that much of the geological material at this specific location is not native to the immediate area. I am somewhat confident that there is definitely Onondaga Chert among other variations of flint and possibly some jasper as well. Basically, I feel that if this site and the artifacts it contains are in fact historically valuable, it should be knowledge of and investigated further by somebody in the archaeological/ anthropological community. My hopes are at the very least to gain some personal resolve and insight, but ultimately to open the possibility of a new chapter in the ancient history of Pennsylvania.

      Pkfrey - I am hoping you can either offer your opinions, if not simply appreciate this, but I am ultimately hoping you can either pass this along or provide me with some direction as to whom I should contact to discuss further. I have contact info for various professors in anthropology - specifically at PSU - but seeing as you seem to be pretty knowledgeable in this subject, I'm curious if there is anyone more specifically to get in touch with. Hopefully you can enlighten me more - I will post more photos shortly. Thanks for any help!

      - Alex

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      • #18

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        • #19
          I'm not sure what you have there. Where are you located, and where is the sire? not exact spot, just in general. Like at least the county, and what part of the county. I'm asking because certain areas will have more Paleo sites, and also in relation to the Shoop site. on the tools, it looks like you actually may have some Onondaga chert tools, but a lot of these appear to be broken pieces of shale with a high degree of iron residue. This is commonly found in fields where the bedrock is very shallow, and the farm implements break up the shaly bedrock. Which would be common for south central pa., maybe Perry, Snyder, Cumberland Co's, or close to those anyway. If everything you have posted here are actually flaked tools, that would indeed be impressive, and would be very important, and should be seen up close and in hand. It would be great if you could pick out only a dozen of the various tool forms and post up close pictures, showing the flaking, and to determine the types of lithics. If you do have a site here that yields Paleo tool forms, I know who would be the most interested in seeing them in person from the Harrisburg museum. And of course i would also. Post a few more, as close as you can get, photos. Thx.
          http://www.ravensrelics.com/

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          • pkfrey
            pkfrey commented
            Editing a comment
            Yeah, but my spelling sucks! Ever since I thew the keyboard at the cat in a mini fit, it hasn't worked right.

          • SurfaceHunter
            SurfaceHunter commented
            Editing a comment
            When you get it fixed send me a pm I want to ask you about something on the raven site

          • SurfaceHunter
            SurfaceHunter commented
            Editing a comment
            Okay. I will send Hoss a message for you.

        • #20
          The swift response is greatly appreciated. The site is just outside Palmerton, Carbon Co., and is located on top of a ridge. The actual area containing the artifacts is literally the “summit” and edge of said ridge, roughly 100’ higher than the surrounding land. The entire site and mass of fragments and artifacts is completely exposed, and as this spot is definitely not unknown nor out of the way (at most 1/2 mile from the center of town), I believe its just better known for the amount of fossils that can be found there and has never been realized as anything more. Palmerton was established and built in the 1920's by the NJ Zinc Company, and would explain the large amount of iron oxidation found. There are a number of fields at the base of Blue Mountain (just across the street from Blue Mt Ski Resort) and along the Aquashicola Creek in which more recent arrowheads/points can be found immediately after being plowed, but the site from which i have collected is completely unique from any other location in the area. I did begin taking individual high-resolution photos of the best from the collection, and at some point in the next day or so I’m going to create a Dropbox folder to dump them all into. Once that's setup I have no problem sharing access info so interested parties can examine them in full and at will. I've gotten 130 individual items photographed out of around 1500, so it's somewhat of a slow process, but luckily, I have nothing but time currently. It’s definitely helped keep boredom at bay the past few weeks. Here are a few for you to check out for the time being and more to view in albums on my profile. Thanks again for the quick response and interest, and I look forward to learning more!

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          • #21
            The pieces resembling animals may or may not be intended as effigies/ figurines but the similarities are too striking to put the thought aside.

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            • Hoss
              Hoss commented
              Editing a comment
              Paul he is in Colorado . I agree with everything you wrote except the part about the locations you are offering.

            • pkfrey
              pkfrey commented
              Editing a comment
              Hoss, What locations are you referring to. If he's from Co., why is he saying he's hunting the palmerton, Carbon Co., area?? Me confused!!

            • pkfrey
              pkfrey commented
              Editing a comment
              Hoss, I can't seem to be able to clean out my PM folder. Can you do it? There's a glitch somewhere. Thanks, paul

          • #22
            Maybe you should start your own post Home. Probably get more responses.
            NW Georgia,

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            • #23
              Paul, the diversity of tool/point in that collection is astounding. I’m blown away.

              thank you for sharing!
              Wandering wherever I can, mostly in Eastern Arkansas, always looking down.

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              • pkfrey
                pkfrey commented
                Editing a comment
                Thank you. I was there just in time. The site hasn't been farmed in the last 15 years. There's so many artifacts still under ground, but will never see the light of day due to no till!!! It should be outlawed!!

            • #24
              I do have to thank Homeontheroad for bumping up this thread.

              Paul, an amazing assortment there from the Shoop site. Wow, the number of scrapers and tools blows me away, that was some long term habitation there. It's not the goal of modern archaeology, but sites like that are the best source of potential DNA material to identify who/where the fluted point makers came from (or at least who they are closely related to.)
              Hong Kong, but from Indiana/Florida

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              • pkfrey
                pkfrey commented
                Editing a comment
                Thank You C.oid, I was very fortunate in being able to surface hunt this site back when the farmers still plowed. And the original Shoop Site was believed to be about twenty acres. There was very little to be found on these 20 acres, after being collected on for nearly 20 years. So I expanded my search area, and found that the adjoining fields of about another 15 -20 acres was part of the site and never hunted. This new area wasn't known. This is the part of the Shoop Site that most of my collection came from. And then i learned of a farmer who owned about 5 more acres on the ridge top, which was cleared for farming. he had been finding artifacts on that land for ten years, but didn't realize what he was finding, and how important this was. I visited him, and saw his collection, and told him everything I knew about the Paleo culture, the fluted points and tools, and he was very interested. So much so, that he wouldn't allow me to hunt his farm!!! I don't blame him. But I had the new area to hunt, so I was ok with that. So we went back and updated the size of the site, new tool forms, where all the loci were located, and this gave a whole new perspective of the site, just due to it's enormous size. After this adventure, I was genuinely hooked on researching the Paleo culture, and specifically the Shoop site.

            • #25
              Wow PK. U are truly blessed to have been able to have hunted that area..... impeccably superb collection you have there. ...
              SW Connecticut

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              • #26
                Great collection.

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                • #27
                  Wow. That is quite a collection. Funny thing, I was born in '67, and the fact you still get out is inspiring. Thanks for sharing. Chris
                  North Carolina

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