Broken Arrowhead, July 2013.

Crying Piece: Slang in a tiny community of artifact hunters.  A broken arrowhead that would have knocked your socks off if it was whole. 

I found a crying piece the other day, the tie off of an arrowhead.  The stone is gorgeous and white, it has beautiful pressure flaking, and would have been oh so very gorgeous if it was whole. 

Really, I should just be thankful that I found a broken piece. 

Arrowhead Hunting in Iowa, April 2013. Points, Scrapers, Knifes, Hematite Piece, and more.

April 26th was a pretty excellent day for arrowhead hunting. The Midwest has been dealing with a lot of flooding...which is bad for basements but excellent for artifact/fossil hunters. The rain raises the water levels in small lakes, creeks, ditches, and rivers, the extra water erodes river bank walls and exposes new sand/rocks/dirt.  Here are some of the pieces we found.  Enjoy!

two perfect arrowheads.

Left of Right to bottom:  A beautiful turtle back scraper, a broken long, thin arrowhead, a Madison triangle with a busted tip, and a crude arrowhead.

Left to Right to bottom: A hematite knife or celt (this one is confusing to me, you don't often see hematite pieces, the base of a spear or knife, a scaper, and two knife.

As you can see, it was a very successful day.  The only piece that has me puzzled is the small hematite piece.  It's napped like a knife or scraper but I think it's a small celt.  Who knows?  I'll upload the videos to a youtube account and post the link here later.

Thanks for looking.

Arrowhead Hunting in Iowa. April, 2013.

I had a good weekend.  I found a ton of fossils in a creek bed, went to a benefit auction and bought some cool stuff, and found an awesome arrowhead when Kyle and I went hunting on Sunday.

It took me three years to find a perfect arrowhead.  I've found other perfect artifacts...just never a perfect arrowhead and it felt amazing.  My stomach flipped several times when I spotted the piece.  I may have even let out a squeal of joy. (i also found a perfect mano, a broken drill, and a broken birdpoint in this field)

Watch the video.  It'll take a moment to load but should be worth the wait.

Thunderbird Effigy or Eagle Effigy Piece. Too bad it's a Hoax.

eagle effigy piece.

A few weeks ago Kyle and I went to an antique store in Oskaloosa during our lunch break.  I wasn't looking for anything in particular, I just really like antique stores and this one is especially excellent.  Since I'm into coins I sniffed some out and took them to the register where owner of the store was working.  She took my money and we made casual conversation about her history with antiques.  As it turns out she's a third generation antique dealer.  It runs in her blood.

She asked us about our collections.  Kyle told her that he was into arrowheads and she asked him to identify something that had her mind boggled.  She reached into a jar and pulled out a flint napped object. 

"Well, that's an eagle effigy piece," said Kyle, "They're kind of controversial."

"How much is it worth?" Asked the owner.

"....20 bucks?  Maybe." Answered Kyle.

I coveted her effigy at that point.  It had to be mine and I began to haggle.   I didn't care if it was controversial.  I needed it.

"I'll give you 7 bucks."

"Ha!"

"OK, how about ten?"

"Give me 12 and it's a deal."

Of course I paid the money. That piece felt so good to hold, worth every penny...and an arrowhead shaped like an eagle?  That blew my mind. It was worth the risk as far as I was concerned.  This is where the controversy begins.  Apparently, no archeologist believes that eagle effigies exist, they believe all of them are counterfeits.  Eagle effigies have never been found at burial sites or archeological digs.  Ipso Facto....they don't exist.  I did a little research and found that arrowhead books written in the 1800's had chapters about eagle effigies and why they were fake.  People have been counterfeiting them since people started wanting to own arrowheads.  Crazy.  A long time ago they were sold at tourist traps.  I didn't know what to think but... it's probably a fake.  The patina is believable and the flint naps looks unbelievably  authentic...but people that counterfeit are good at their jobs.  

Later in the day I called the woman at the antique store and told her the story.  I even told her I found a couple on Ebay.  (they sell for a lot on ebay...I didn't get ripped off).  She told me that she found the piece in a box of jewlery that hadn't been opened in 36 years.  So...it's old.  It's controversial.  It's beautiful.  It's art as far as I'm concerned and I keep it in my studio for good luck.

It's quite the conversation piece.

Artifact Hunting in Iowa: some broken pieces.

Left To right: 1. broken side of knife or spear 2. Broken Drill 3. Broken arrowhead 4. Broken knife 5. Not broken simple drill.

Here's some of the stuff we found this weekend.  I'd like to make a mosaic with all of the little, colorful flint-bits.  That's more of a winter project for when I go stir crazy.  Happy fuckin' Monday.

*update: Oh my god!  I was in a terrible mood when I wrote this yesterday.

Artifacts, Iowa. Bird Point.

1.  KP, Mudd, and I went on an artifact hunt ton Saturday. Check out what Kyle found, a perfect birdpoint.    It was hidden in tall weeds and he still managed to sniff it out.

2.  My buddy and her family just got back from an amazing California themed vacation.  They brought me back these wonderful smashed pennies.  This is my first smashed penny that proudly features a bottle of booze!  I'm pretty excited about that.

3. Mudd got a bite of the garden carrots.  Look at that face...awwwwwww.

Vintage Coke Bottles and a Strange Owl.

Someone enlighten me.  I have no idea what this is.  It's an antique but that's as far as I've gotten.

The coke bottle was made in 1923.  The Pepsi bottles are pretty old as well.

A broken Native American Artifact and three fossils.

This summer has been horrendously hot.  The earth is dry and the water in the river is incredibly low.  There are some perks to having the water low, things that have been hidden under the water for years and years are finally exposed.  It's a good time to be a pirate and walk the river bank looking for treasure.

And treasure is what I found. We did some cyber sleuthing and found out that the Coke Bottle is ridiculously old.  The internet says it's from around 1923 (-1931) and I always believe the internet...

Along with the vintage bottles (and fossils and arrowheads remnants), I found this really strange owl.  I have no idea what it's origins are but I'm assuming it came from a bed post.  It was pretty cool to pull it out of the water, it's quite the find.

Artifacts, Iowa.

A bird point I was lucky enough to find.

A Madison Triangle, 2 broken Madison triangles, and a nice broken piece of pottery.

A thumb scraper and a broken spear.

I was sick with a 101 degree fever this weekend.  Yup, I was pretty much worthless.  I basically sat on my porch and looked at flowers and birds for hours at a time with a thermometer stuck in my mouth.  You can be sick inside or sick outside.  I chose to be sick outside.  Good times.

Because of my 24 hour flu, I wasn't able to get much done so the blog today is a catch up entry.  I found these artifacts about a month ago and failed to post them in a timely fashion.  I think they're all pretty great and I'm especially proud of my pink bird point arrowhead.  I found all of these pieces in fields that were tilled.

I hope you guys had a good weekend.

a good weekend for hunting!

 1.  I found a bunch of broken Native American Pottery.  If you look close at the pieces on the right you can make out ornamentation.

 2.  Look at all these flint chips.  By the end of the summer I'll have enough to tile my bathroom floor.  Or make a mosaic.

 3.  Here's a few of the broken pieces we found.  Notice the nap marks on each piece.

4.  And the best part of the day?  I found a perfect turtle back scraper.  Not too shabby for 5 hours of hunting.

Iowa Artifacts. 2011

Since arrowhead hunting is officially over for the season I'd better post a picture of all of the great pieces Kyle and I found. We started at Spring's first rain and ended after the leaves began to fall off Autumn trees. If you look close there are some pretty amazing pieces... It takes a lot of work to find this much stuff. Probably 3 hours of walking for every piece you see.

I found an arifact all on my own!

I've learned a lot about stone artifacts over the last two years. I've been on a lot of adventures and have found a lot of wonderful objects. But I never went out on my own to find an arrowhead...until yesterday.
Mudd (the puppy) was pooping in a ditch when I noticed a cache of small stones in the dirt. I picked through a few pebbles and found flint rocks. Flint is a hard stone that can be napped into shapes (you may have seen arrowheads napped in obsidian at fairs or rock stores), where one finds flint one finds artifacts. I was optimistic about finding a piece at that point. And, sure enough, I picked up a brown piece of flint and saw nap marks where an Iowa native (500-200 years ago) would have used an antler to bust off small pieces to make a sharp edge (see below for napping patterns).
Now, I know that it may look like "just a rock " but it's not. If you look at the top photo you can see the clam shell shape of the rock, a sure fire sign that the rock was shaped by human hands. So, there you go. I found a scraper...a scarper is a multipurpose tool used to scrape fat off hides, bark off tree, meat off bone...you get the idea. I'm freaking geeked about my find. All by myself!

Here's a video on flint napping. Check it out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bvl9662aVc

Iowa is an acronym. People around here joke that Iowa stands for

I diots
O ut
W alking
A round

This is one of the more truthful statements I've heard about the state. But, really, people just kind of walk around and look for stuff. Bait for fishing, arrowheads, fossils, wild asparagus, wild mushrooms, wild game...its pretty impressive. Iowa has a treasure hunting culture...so, I fit in in that respect.

While I was an idiot out walking around I stumbled upon a piece of Native American pottery. I reached down to pick it up and saw a bunch of pottery chips scattered by my toes...they were probably all from the same pot. I grid walked the area and found well over 30 pieces of broken pottery in a 10 foot area.

Yup, that was my day. Not too shabby.

The other night I had a dream that we were walking along the edge of a cornfield. As we walked, I looked down to stare at my bare feet buried the black mud. I saw something purple and shiny next to my big toe. I reached down and pulled a perfect, purple, three pronged arrowhead from the dirt. Then I heard a loud noise. Wha Wha Wha Wha. Alarm. I was groggy but the dream was a good omen. We put on our rubber boots, hopped into the truck, and off we went into the hills of Iowa to look for arrowheads. We trudged through the mud and the muck, through water and rocks and above is what we came up with. Three pieces, two of them...perfect. The dream was pretty damn prophetic...three pronged arrowhead and we find three arrowheads. Purple? If you look at these in the light, they are all shades of purple and reddish purple.