HUNT Books in the Winter: Artifacts the rest of the Year!

[SevenOut]

Osmosis is great for Human Beans: "the process of gradual or unconscious assimilation of ideas, knowledge".

Reference Books and those Archaeological Societies for many States publish many excellent publications. Often you can search the Internet and use keywords beginning in the State you live. Or Archaeology... and see what comes up. Much like seeking artifacts in plowed fields, it takes some practice to find good publications. www.abebooks.com and Ebay searches will deliver a wide variety at very reasonable prices.

I scanned some covers to get you into the spirit. The more you understand about the subject, the better chance you can locate sites in your area.

A University Library is also a good place to look through the titles on the shelf, take notes and search the Internet. Before the Internet... it was impossible. Today access to anything is possible. Competitive pricing keeps pricing low and opportunity for you. Even complete sets are available on CD's. Thousands of pages on CD's. Hundreds of pounds of books on CD's. Technology has made a huge library available and on a Lap Top computer.

Smaller publications may never be on CD. But State Archaeological Societies and major publications are all available. You do not absorb experience watching television or listening to the radio. Focus on what your interest might be... and get to work. Spring is coming.

[Hal Gorges]

cool..Are you a knapper 👍🇺🇸

[SevenOut]

I had a Driver's Permit and a 1956 VW. A friend had a Driver's License and my brother was 14 and we all left Independence, Missouri on a two week adventure and headed to western Nebraska and Wyoming. This was in 1965. This was for Fossils as Indian Artifacts were something we had no experience until finding one notched dart in Missouri, by accident.

I found a nice Hopewell notched point east of Independence, Missouri, told my brother. He wanted to see how was that possible. Finding an 'ancient' artifact in a plowed field???? While walking the fields, he would pick up a chunk of Blue Missouri Flint and another stone and knock flakes off of it. He is an artist. I am not and had no artistic talent to be a Flint Knapper, for sure. But he worked with antlers where were scarce in Missouri to try to replicate this arrowhead. ... and later Sedalia Points and Celts and... you get it.

Antlers wore out too fast and we were no Deer or Elk hunters and knew none. He took a handle of my Mom's broom and cut off five inches or so. Drilled a hole into the flat end and inserted a Copper Hardened thick wire used to Ground Electric Systems. One three foot piece was good for a long time. When he began to Percussion flake, he figured out with an Elk base of an Antler and could knock off a chunk, look it over and began percussion flaking a rough Blank, and then the finer tip copper to pressure flake. You will get strong hands, wrist and muscles doing this.

He would come home with Blanks of Sedalia Missouri white chert from several Ancient Quarries we stumbled across while surface hunting points. And that is my story and I am sticking to it.

He never read a book about flint knapping, as there were none in the mid 1960's. He learned by doing. Then the Artifact Shows and Flint Knapping get togethers became popular in the 1970's and so on. He met all of the well know knappers that were now middle aged men. Celebrities he met wanted to see how it was done and he even taught one who is now a great flint knapper.

I tried some flint knapping at 16 and my middle finger on my right hand swelled up stiff... and that told me this was not going to work out for me.

[Hal Gorges]

Thanks 7.. So enjoyed the story..Your right, hardly anyone knapping in the sixties/seventies..

[Cecilia]

You may not knap, but you sure read some good stuff!
(p.s. I got same problem middle right finger. Doc said tendinitis from hanging on to Horses’s mane!)

[Mountain Girl NC]

Great suggestions, SevenOut! I still haven’t found ANYTHING but I do enjoy reading about sites and trying to figure out where and how to look effectively!