Posted on 12/29/2005 12:59:11 PM PST by Red Badger
So, the Indians in the northeast had atlatls now, too? I'd have thought quarts to be too brittle to fashion into tools.
BTW, wouldn't an "unfinished point" be otherwise known as a "rock"?
I think I just cut my tongue on my teeth.
Basically, when it's at the beginning of the word, it sounds a little bit like an ill-defined "khl-" (only with the action more towards the front of your mouth rather than the back); and at the end of the word, it ends up sounding like a raspy "th" or "lth". I wish I knew how to explain it better than that.
Bleh, it's alright. I have enough trouble prounouncing that R slash D slash L slash T sound in Japanese.
" What is it with gunmakers and the State that hates them?"
CT is gun friendly. It always has been. We've been a "shall issue" state for a very long time.
No, not that one; I mean that one that makes saying the "r" sound in "iruka" impossible for people whose first language is anything but Japanese.
Sounds like it was a fabulous place to hunt arrowheads. Some people just can't see them or they just don't care enough to try. I always wanted to find arrowheads and after I found my first one I got where I could really spot them. You just have to train your eye to see them, ya know? Fun hobby.
Norwich used to have a bunch. Hopkins and Allen and several variants on that company's product line were made in a factory that burned down early last century.
ping
" I have enough trouble prounouncing that R slash D slash L slash T sound in Japanese."
Just pronounce an R like an upper-crust English person in a Marx Brothers movie.
However, in Japanese there is no L, and D and T are distinct from the sound generally represented as R.
"I always wanted to find arrowheads and after I found my first one I got where I could really spot them."
I'd really like to have a couple of old arrowheads. They wouldn't have to be anything spectacular, as long as they were old and authentic.
In Las Vegas I met a woman who was wearing earrings made of arrowheads. They were well matched, but slightly different, made of some reddish brown stone with what looked like gold flakes. She said they were authentic.
A buddy and me were hunting in the Bitteroot. Right by camp a smallish lake up in the high country had sort of dried up. It makes for easy walking and not in single file. So naturally we was talking, he spotted it a millisecond before I did - and got it of course. A nice obsidion spear point just like you describe. Oh well. A cousin dug up by accident a nice hammer and pipe with a tractor down south.. I remember reading somewhere that certain surgeon's tools, the cutting blade is made from obsidion because nothing else can be made quite as sharp...
An intact spear point's a great find. I think I've read the same thing about surgeons' tools. I think they were pioneered by a guy from Twin Falls I was acquainted with years ago. He knew a lot about knapping obsidian and when he went in for an operation he arranged for the surgeon to use an obsidian scalpel. The surgeon was amazed by its sharpness and there was quite a bit of publicity about it at the time.
There's a beautiful variety of obsidian from Mexico that displays several iridescent colors when cut properly. I like to cut it but I'm scared to death of it because it can split unexpectedly when you're holding it to grind it to shape. I almost cut a finger off with it one time. I've developed special methods of handling it!
They still are brainless. Here in town, I regularly bounce rocks off of landscape destroying antlered rats in the yard from only 5-10 yards away. That is well within spear range. And the same 'dirty dozen' are back again the next day. The little brown pellets are almost a solid carpet on the lawn.
At the ranch, I've had 25-30 turkeys curiously walk up to within ONE YARD of me, when I've been sitting outside on the grass. Make a throwing motion when they're up to 300 yards away, and they will RUN to see if they're getting a hand out...and I DON'T feed them.
IF I were unscupulous/unethical, a club would be more than sufficient to not have to buy a Thanksgiving dinner. A net & handful of corn or whatever would have done the Indians more good than a spear for turkey, and wouldn't ruin so much meat.
I swear; I don't believe a word the guys in the hunting magazines write about the 'wary, brainy birds'.
Oh, back to the 'point'. I have a few really nice (and many damaged) obsidian Wintoon points from Northern California, that I found as a kid. They had a seasonal fishing camp on what has been part of my oldest brother's property since about 1955.
Great web site. I got two display cases for my artifacts this Christmas. I have over 100 nearly perfect points and now have a way to display them, rather than have to get my "box of rocks" and show them to visitors.
Chert, flint, quartz, and obsidian are all silicate rocks (as are most rocks, as silicon is one of the commonest elements in the earth's crust). Flint and obsidian, and chert (and glass) fracture conchoidally, making them ideal for making points. Quartz doesn't fracture quite ideally, but it can be used, and clear quartz can be made into a beautiful point. I've found a number of them.
The bottom lands of Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana are good places to look. When I was a small boy, I'd follow after the plow in springtime looking for that light colored flint against the dark rich soil as the earth was turned over. Many arrowheads were to be found this way. Also, after a rain, the soil would wash away from the pieces and they'd be standing out bigtime. Near streams especially good places to look. Look for places that might have been a campsite or village. Flat wide areas near streams, ignoring present day trees and clutter. Some metal detectors can trigger on the minute trace iron deposits....................
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