My guess is the first examples shown may have been seal harpoons, bay seals were once abundant along the coast, and the ones shown in wmw’s frames, except for the socket piece in the second pic, were either the center points or side blades to fish and crustation spears. Like these crude examples here
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NE Bone Harpoon
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Alan, I echo Hoss, thanks for starting this thread. Great info and photos. Always been on my artifact bucket list, but as Hoss noted, around here our acidic soil isn't kind to bone, you don't expect to find them on the surface, most must originate in shell middens and shell refuse pits, where the lime in the shell neutralizes the acid. Here are a couple more examples from the Northeast.
Don't know the scale on this example from the Robbins Museum in Middleborough, Mass:
This one is just at 2". It was excavated in 1938-39, by amateurs Mr. and Mrs. K.O.Palmer, from a midden at the Jack's Reef Site, the site after which the Woodland point type was named, and located on the Seneca River, NY.
Last edited by CMD; 03-04-2019, 09:21 PM.Rhode Island
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Spectacular relics in this thread. Was the beach find example preserved in anyway? I have a lot of bone relics that came from the beach middens in the Caribbean, and they didn't really show any deterioration for the first several years but eventually humidity, salt imbedded in the relic, bacteria, fungus, etc. can sneak up on them.Hong Kong, but from Indiana/Florida
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So interesting . I believe ivory could have been in there as posted . Think of the tusks not just from mammoths .
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