Artifacts in landscaping rocks: are gravel beds being exploited?

[BoilerMike]

I’ve been thinking for a long time about posting about this. I’m not sure which way to think about it, but it concerns me enough that I just want to get it out there for others to discuss. I found a fairly large artifact at my sister’s house a couple years ago in her landscaping rocks, and asked her how that could be. I asked her if the landscaping rocks may have been from a river, and she said it was sold as “river rock”. The rock was clearly sorted, and the artifact happened to have been some sort of flaked blade that was super thick, and would have been sorted along with the rest of similar sized rocks (3-4” oblong cobbles). A few weeks later, with eyes-peeled wide-open from that last experience, I saw something similar at a restaurant’s landscaping in Indianapolis. It reminded me of when I was a kid looking for arrowheads, and people told me to look in the road gravel that was brought in because it was mined from the local creeks and had “arrowheads”. A younger cousin of mine found one of those road arrowheads, and told me I should look in the road instead of in the fields.

I love rivers and creeks. As an outdoorsperson/canoer/fisherman who loves sharing the most beautiful natural gem close to most of our midwestern natural geographies (streams) with family and friends, it really bothers me that the most beautiful parts of these places (The gravel bars, and all of the natural biome attached to it) are permanently scavenged for some temporary landscaping that will get thrown in a dumpster within the next half century when that building is razed.

I want future generations to enjoy the same stream experiences as our generation, if we could ever get them to unplug and give it a looksee.

[sawatch]

Living in a massive lake bottom the artifacts are all over the place and when the county starts digging for road base they don't care much about artifacts. I've found many nice examples on the sides of the roads and in diggings filled parking lots...just keep lookin' down.

[Tam]

Well I am with you here but people move in and history is buried . I always said in a 1000 years or more when they start digging up old building in NY the artifacts they will find . The roads in Georgia cover thousands of artifacts and camps as I can only imagine .
Here in Hawaii there are archeologist on every building site . My niece dated one and he showed me gold coins found on a site that he

[Kyflintguy]

Definitely a possibility to find them in landscaping stones sourced from gravel beds or stone quarry sites. There was a thread once here where several people shared experiences of such instances. On a slightly different note somewhere likely in West Tennessee or Northwest Alabama they source ft Payne chert as landscaping stone generally in the 2-3 inch range, I've knapped a few points out of pieces of that, too bad it doesn't come in larger pieces lol, I think they must screen it for that particular desirable size.

[JoshinMO]

Sure The natural gravel is being used for all like You mentioned as has been for generations and likely will continue to for generations. An old Neighbor got gravel on Their long driveway and there was a few points on that driveway. Sometimes I pickup a bag or 2 from hardware store for parking area no real gems yet ha. Anything found would be out of context so importance of history lacking. These companies are just providing a needed "local" service and are likely under a surveillance to not destroy The Enviroment. Gravel dredging actually could be beneficial in some areas to the enviroment if were using anything is possible theory lol.

[Cecilia]

I will never forget finding an artifact in a gravel bed mixed with cedar chips at my dentist’s office.!