Old Gravel Pits

[JeffDNH]

In the town I live in we have a town forest that has two old abandoned gravel pits, one next to a decent sized brook that has an indian name. There are no rules against surface hunting and I think it might be productive. Has anyone found gravel pits to be worthwhile to search? Any insight will be greatly apreciated.

[John G. Scoggins]

The gravel pits in my area produce some really nice artifacts.I have personally found a couple of decent points myself.The pit close to the brook sounds like an excellent place to start.Good luck!

[zachMA]

Hey welcome from probably a few towns away! Though I've personally had no luck with them, I know some major sites have been exposed in gravel pits. A guy I know from around here found a lot of his collection in pits and often gravel piles on the sides of the highway. So yeah they're worth checking out.

[Steve Valentine]

The guy I got these from said the majority of them came from a gravel pit near the town of Mason Ohio. There was also a Birdstone just posted on here recently that came from a gravel pit near Springboro, Ohio, so yes you can find some pieces in them.

[marksimerson]

One local old timer in our area owned a sand pit near Vassar Mi. He found thousands..yes thousands of various artifacts there. When he passed his sons got the pit but never paid ANY taxes on it. It is a subdivision now.

[zachMA]

Originally Posted by marksimerson

It is a subdivision now.

Story of every site ever around me. Either that or a 50 acre mall parking lot.

[marksimerson]

Before I got into artifacts This guy (John) used to ice fish at the same spots as me. He always talked about arrowheads and the rare axe he had. He had a Michigan barbed axe and at his estate auction I was gonna buy it...NOT! I bid and bid and got left in the dust!

[Hoss]

OK so here is some sound advice be careful if it is steep because they can collapse on you. I used to walk the top edge first and the points would be sticking right out of the soil. Then I would try and cross below that for anything that had washed out. I have about fifty from one site and a gouge. The Gouge was at the very bottom with the larger stones. Keep in mind that the soils that bare artifacts are at the rim but what ever has tumbled down will be mixed and out of any context. On my website I have a 5" Gennessee point it is in the typology pages. A friend of mine found one just like it in another sand pit in town. He was playing and they would run off the top and see how far down they could land. When he put his hand down it was right on that big Genny.
I tried buying it for years but he ended up loosing it in a move. Story kills me!

[JeffDNH]

Gentlemen, thank you for your advice. I will definetly go there this week, we have rain forcasted so I will go there right after it rains, will let you know if I am lucky!

Best,
Jeff