Modren made Savannah River style point

[willjo]

This is a modern made Savannah river style point, not to be confused with a point made by an ancient knapper. It is made from some premo Brier creek chert, which is from the Allendale formation of Coastal plain chert, Brier creek variant.
It was picked up at a manufacturing site where the ancient people manufactured points and had an endless supply of material. while making points they discarded big spalls of usable material. I picked this piece up brought it home and cooked it for 24 hours at 500 degerees. After letting it cool for 8 hours I opened my oven and took the piece out. Using my modern made copper tools I began the process of removing all unwanted stone by the precussion method and knapped the piece into the shape of a Savannah River Style point similar to the ancient ones

[Ron Kelley]

Hey Johnny, Nice work on the point man. Johnny some people might still be confused: Not everyone can read. LOL
and some people drink.

[2ndoldman]

We should create a section called PRETTY PICTURES ONLY. NO COMMENTS!!! For those who can't read.😊😊😊

[Kyflintguy]

Nice point Johnny! Awesome to have a place to pick up chert so readily. Thanks for sharing!

[Havenhunter]

That's a really pretty piece!

[Hoss]

Nice one Johnny thanks for sharing the picture and story.

[sailorjoe]

Hi Johnny. Beautiful material and a dandy point you made. I admire you guys that can turn rocks into tools as the ancients did. Wondering if the ancients who made Savannah points heat treated the chert as you did? I'm pretty ignorant about the whole subject of who, when and under what conditions the old time knappers may have heat treated chert before knapping points for their tools.

[willjo]

The Allendale people who made the Allendale points and blades, heat treated there blades and points material before knapping it. Some of the Savannah River points were made from raw material which is harder to knap but holds up better in use. We have some Savannah river points or could be Mcintire points that were heat treated also. It looks like to me that sometimes they put the whole rock in the fire or coals because I have found some outer areas of the rock that was cooked to much and ruined and the inner layers would be good. Then some material was spalled into performs and heated. Hope this helps some not a scientific conclusion but years of searching and observing.

[Ron Kelley]

Thanks Johnny, I read that the ancients would bury the spalls and build a small fire on top with a couple of inches of sand between the spalls and the fire. I have not done very much heat treat. Each kind of chert needs to be heated differently. I made the mistake of putting a few different kinds of chert in the same kiln load. The Edwards chert was heat treated just right but the Tiger Chert was over cooked. The Tiger Chert was brittle and didn't flake well at all.

[willjo]

And on the spalled pieces like Ron said looks like the were buried under the sand and heated, not put directly in fire. Rocks will explode in fire so I don't know how they managed putting big rocks in fire. I say this because some of the outside of the rocks were charred Black.

[Jethro355]

That's nice!

[2ndoldman]

The story is almost, but not quite, better than your point Johnny.