Site on my property

[Shrinkmj]

Other pestles.

[irishman254]

man, I dont even have the words. you are very lucky.

[Shrinkmj]

So, that's most of the really good stuff. There's many more end and side scrapers that I didn't post pictures of. There's 2 more pottery shards that I will post pictures of here. There's 2 bone fragments. There's more pecking stones. There's a couple of boxes of broken points, unfinished points, cores, and what appear to me to be large flakes (but could be scrapers). There is fire cracked rock all over the site. There are smaller flakes all over the place as well. Every time I go out and walk around, I find flakes, and usually something nicer.

I appreciate all your comments and reactions. It just solidifies in my mind that this really is a special site. I am just perplexed that I can't get someone from a university interested enough to come out and look at it. Most didn't even write me back!

Oh, there are also two places that look like they could be burial mounds (not that I have ever seen one). I've seen pictures of the well known, large mounds. These are just like 6-8 feet long, 4 feet wide, and just 4-6 inches higher that the surrounding ground. They are in the trees & bushes, so not very distinct. I noticed them (and wondered if they could be burial mounds) years before I knew about all the artifacts around here.

So, if any of you know anyone in my area that would be interested in coming out here and looking at this stuff, let me know!

Mark S. Jones

[uniface]

Fascinating stuff, Shrink.

Financially, archaeology is in rough shape, despite the confiscatory laws passed to "make work" for it. When they wanted to test the Clovis cache found in Colorado last year for blood residues, as one example, the landowner had to pay for it himself.

The bottom line is that while collectors see a lot of artifacts come from a site and assume it must be an important one on that basis, the archies are looking to fill in blank spots in the record of the past. And that kind of information does NOT come from artifacts, as a rule -- it comes from the dirt the points &c. are in : stratigraphy (layer on undisturbed layer), pollen, charcoal, &c. &c. &c. (This is, incidentally, why digging a rock shelter or site for trophies is criminal vandalism. Once the context is destroyed, any hope of gaining the potential knowledge that was there is gone forever. Some archies can admittedly be world-class jerks about a lot of things, but in this case they're right). (Not that this is going to change anybody's mind).

The information in the soil is cripplingly expensive to come up with, and unless something about the site promises new information, unavailable elsewhere, it's just another mixed component site like the couple of thousand others already known. The bottom line is that, unless it's something like a single component fluted point site with good stratigraphy and charcoal, they've pretty much been there and done that. There's no money (and probably no interest) in doing it again.

[Shrinkmj]

Thanks for the info, Uniface. Yes, I've studied on it enough to know that the real archeology is in the context. I've done some research and have found a lot of information (from around here) about the Woodlands people, but not as much about the earlier periods.

I guess it just frustrates me that those in a position to legally investigate what I have here have shown no interest, yet I can't go out in my yard and dig around myself.

Then again, from what I've read here, maybe I should just shut up and be glad they don't know about it!

[Indianasmith]

maybe you can't dig for artifacts . . . but, on your own property, you have the right to plow, to landscape, to trench for irrigation or sewer lines, to dig a cellar . . . in short, you can disturb the soil in MANY ways without "digging for artifacts" - and still find a good many!

[Shrinkmj]

I hear you, Indianasmith. There's this Hedgeapple tree stump I need to remove....

[Steve Valentine]

Your Pottery Shards all look to be grit tempered which would make them Early to Middle Woodland and Adena and Hopewell related. All the Ft Ancient or Late Woodland Pottery I have ever seen is always shell tempered.

[Shrinkmj]

So, that would take me back towards my thinking it is a site mostly inhabited by Adena. I know there are older and newer points, so others clearly passed through, and maybe stayed a while. But the Adena were the first to settle down in areas. I know the Adena became the Hopewell, but since there are more Adena points than Hopewell here, it seems more likely an Adena village, don't you think?

What do you make of these, Steve?