Southwest Pennsylvania Advice

[nicholasw1890]

I live in southwest Pennsylvania, in Westmoreland County. I have been looking for years without any luck and was just wondering does anybody else look in Westmoreland County PA? Is it worth the time? I cant find a whole lot of info about the area. Just wondering what material to keep an eye out for and if anyone has success in the area. The type of searching I do is creek walking. Thanks in advance for any responses.

[fldwlkr]

Welcome to the forum from over in Ohio. I can't give you any advice on Penn. but maybe a little about creeks. I find two types over here in the Miami Valley. 1) Ones with gravel bars and eroded dirt banks. 2) Ones with shale and limestone bottoms making large angular flat rocks. The first type give up a point or pottery now and then. The second type give up fossils from the Ordovician period. So I spend my time in the gravel bars and stay clear of the big flat rocks. During high water the banks erode and wash stuff into the stream. Last night's rain has me wanting to go check out a few. Creeks are so frustrating but they give up the best artifacts (little or no damage). Any stream might be worth a look. I have a few tiny ones that produce and the rivers work as well. In my experience a plowed field is an easier place to find pointy rocks but a stream will hand you the pretty ones... rarely.
Good luck and don't spare the deet, fldwlkr

[paohrocks]

Welcome from Mercer County PA, fldwlkr gives good advice. Some of the sandy and gravely creeks do produce.

[RegerE]

Hi. I'm from westmoreland county. This is my first year looking. I started in mid may this year and I picked up my 30th projectile point two days ago. I do a lot of trapping, so I am well aquatinted with about 30 farmers. I just asked them if I could look their fields and all of them said go ahead. I had never seen a piece of chert before in my life until this spring. I buzzed through many fields until I found some that had obvious concentrations of flakes and big ground stone tools that were easy to spot for a beginner. Then I focused on those areas for the rest of the spring looking season, til now when its just about over. I've done a fair amount of creek walking this year too, but had much less luck. If you actually want a good shot at finding projectile points, look in fields. I'll continue to hunt creeks, but I haven't figured them out yet.

So yes, there are plenty of artifacts sitting out there in westmoreland county fields.

Keep an eye out for monongahela chert, ten mile chert, loyalhanna chert, brush creek chert, and flint ridge chert. Check out some local museums and read a ton of local literature to get acquainted with local lithic materials and artifacts.