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.

Skunk River. Fossil Hunting in Iowa.

It was an Ames, Iowa kind of a weekend.  The Skunk River runs through the town and there have been rumors of a dry river bank.  A dry river bank makes for good fossil hunting so KP, the dog, and I decided to check it out.  Lo and behold, that damn river was dry.  We counted 2 puddles in a 2 miles stretch.  There were hundreds of minnows and frogs in each patch of water.  It was an interesting microcosm if not a little crowded for the poor guys. 

Here's one of the pieces I found on the river bank.  I believe it to be a solitary coral of some sort.  It looks unlike the other solitary corals I've found in the past (see horned coral).  I know it takes a lot of pressure to make a fossil so perhaps it's just a squished horned coral.  I'm not an expert, I'm still a novice but none of my fossil books have a picture of this fossilized fellow.  If any of you know anyone I could ask that would be great.  Maybe I'll put the image on a fossil forum website later today and get back to you.

This is the back of the same solitary coral (or what I believe to be a solitary coral).  It's about the size of a dime.

Left to Right: 1. a rock that looks like a silly profile. 2. This fossil was odd, I'm not sure what it is.  If you hold a magnifying glass up to it it has a pattern like some kind of a dense coral.  Lots of circular patterns. 3. A piece of a fossilized bone (the outside). 4. A piece of a fossilized bone on the inside, you can see the marrow. 5. A piece of a fossilized tooth.  This one was a heart breaker because it would have been so awesome had it not been broken.  The enamel of the tooth looks like pottery glaze.  Sigh.  Oh, well.  At least I still found it. 6. A piece of native American pottery.  This piece was found in Marion County.

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.

white pelicans in iowa.

The white pelicans i photographed (der.) on a rock hunting excursion in Chillicothe, Iowa.
Half of a spear I found on the trip. Its about three inches long and was buried in mud. Made by the original natives of Iowa many, many years ago.