Pre Smith & Wesson???

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Do any members like to hunt for Indian artifacts? I've looked since I was about 7 years old. My dad got me interested and sometimes we would hunt from dawn to dusk. It's pretty neat to find an ancient stone tool in a field and know the last person to touch it probably lived thousands of years ago.

I think these early Americans appreciated fine craftsmanship just like we do when we see for example a Registered Magnum or finely engraved Hand Ejector.

Here are a few pics of some of my finds...
 

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I've never gone looking for them but inherited one from my father a stone axe head similar to those on the bottom shelf in the two photos on the right. As a kid I liked to think it was a weapon, but I am more inclined nowadays to think it was a tool.

If you know something about them, I'd like to learn more.
 
Onomea, from what I've read they were primarily used for chopping / hewing. But If you look at the poles on most of my axes you can see they were used for other things as well.
 
lihpster, I believe atlatls pre date the bow and arrow so maybe as early as the Thebes period around here. I think in Europe they may be much older.
 
You have a fantastic collection there!
 
Wow, were all of those found in Ohio ? I have a friend who has made some nice finds in licking county near Flint Ridge. I once found a beautiful arrowhead while planting flowers in the flower bed for my mom.

I have always wanted to look, but from what I am told the best places are the huge fields after the farmers turn them over before planting. I have no idea how to get permission etc.

Once again awesome collection. I am near Newark and the Serpent Mounds, they say the Adena people built them over 2000 years ago. How old are the items you have or do you know ?
 
Wow, were all of those found in Ohio ? I have a friend who has made some nice finds in licking county near Flint Ridge. I once found a beautiful arrowhead while planting flowers in the flower bed for my mom.

I have always wanted to look, but from what I am told the best places are the huge fields after the farmers turn them over before planting. I have no idea how to get permission etc.

Once again awesome collection. I am near Newark and the Serpent Mounds, they say the Adena people built them over 2000 years ago. How old are the items you have or do you know ?
Almost everything was found in Ohio with exception of a few pieces in Virginia and yes plowed and worked fields after a good rain are prime places to look. Usually higher ground with a water source. Creeks and river flows change over time so ancient dried up water sources should not be ignored.

Permission sometimes takes a bit of work. I have friends that are farmers and have hunted groundhogs for a LOT of farmers for decades. This has opened doors for me.

Serpent mound is a bucket list must see for anyone interested in ancient history.

Age of finds run from Paleo, Archaic (Thebes etc.), and Woodland (Hopewell, Adena, and later) So several hundred years ago to as far back as 8 to 10 thousand years ago.
 
When I was growing up in southern Ohio, old Indian artifacts were easy to find almost everywhere. I had jars full of arrowheads, broken and complete that I found, and occasionally pieces of stone pipes. I don't know whatever happened to them. There was an area just a few miles from my childhood home called Tremper Mound which was a treasure trove of Indian artifacts and was extensively mined for them many years ago. https://sciotohistorical.org/items/show/148
 
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Not a collector of those artifacts but I thought I would show this. Wall painting near Seminole, TX from thousands of years ago.

Looks like R2D2 at the lower left, standing at the base of a being rising from the earth. The dark figure on the right appears to have some sort of weapon.
 

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When I was a kid, I spent many days roaming the woods and fields with my grandfather, hunting Civil War relics with a metal detector. At first I just carried his digging tools, but later graduated to his "old machine." One of the side benefits of that hobby, was finding Indian arrowheads (everything was an "arrowhead" to me).

My grandfather on the other hand, he knew his stuff. He carefully cataloged it, and kept records of where and when he'd found it. He had cigar boxes full of that stuff. No idea how many really. When he realized he had taken the white flag, he contacted I believe it was William and Mary college (then) and donated them to the school. It may have been another college, but W&M sticks out in my mind. They came to pick them up and he and a couple fellows from the school talked for hours about them as he told the stories.

As an aside. He had a fairly big field on his place, with a creek running another 25-30 yards over in the woods. At the bottom of that field, there was a vein of red clay. From time to time we kids would turn up a piece of broken pottery that must have been there for the Lord himself only knows how long. We figured the natives would come there for that vein of red clay, and the water nearby and make pottery. The pieces we found were the ones that didn't turn out right, or that got broken in the process. I often thought about how sad the person making it must have been when something didn't go as planned, and wondered what they would have thought of my mothers ball mason jars.

We also found bits and pieces of what we called "Peace Pipes" but I've since learned are more properly called "Trade Pipes" in the area too. They were just small pieces and inch or two long, but you could picture those long clay pipes you see men smoking in old paintings and such.
 
There was an old seasonal fishing village on the lower step of our ranch adjacent to the Fraser river
I would spend day after day scouring the area as a kid , there were a number of “kickwillie” holes and you could still see where their hearths had been by the red rocks that had surrounded their fires
I found a number of drills ,awls, arrow heads and scrapers
One of the arrowheads I had found was near perfect and anyone that saw it said it was exquisite. Ended up trading it off to the owner of an archery shop , I needed my gamo pellet pistol rebuilt and I had no dollars
It was tough to part with that arrow head , but I loved that pistol and the man that got the arrowhead really did appreciate it
I miss those days
 
Great collection...

Found this off an old Texas dry creek bed
near 60 years ago.
A subdivision sits there now.
DSC00513.jpg
 
I grew up in central Kentucky 20 miles east of Lexington. My brother and I would search the newly plowed tobacco and corn fields for arrowheads. I found several, but my brother had a better eye and more patience for it. He had a large collection similar to the OP. He sold it to a collector several years ago. He got several thousand for it. It was exciting finding something that old just laying in the dirt in a field.
 
Almost everything was found in Ohio with exception of a few pieces in Virginia and yes plowed and worked fields after a good rain are prime places to look. Usually higher ground with a water source. Creeks and river flows change over time so ancient dried up water sources should not be ignored.

Permission sometimes takes a bit of work. I have friends that are farmers and have hunted groundhogs for a LOT of farmers for decades. This has opened doors for me.

Serpent mound is a bucket list must see for anyone interested in ancient history.

Age of finds run from Paleo, Archaic (Thebes etc.), and Woodland (Hopewell, Adena, and later) So several hundred years ago to as far back as 8 to 10 thousand years ago.

There is a guy on you tube who does what he calls mud larking on the banks of the Ohio River.

He shovels rocks into a small basket, and he then cleans the mud off somewhat like a gold mining sluicing concept. Once the mud is removed from the rocks he picks through them for arrow heads. All it takes is elbow grease a shovel a canoe, kayak or small john boat.

He recommended choosing a spot with steep banks or where there is a drainage coming into the river. He said the erosion over thousands of years actually moves the artifacts to the riverbank.

Doubt you would find one of those ax heads, but he found tons of broken arrowheads and a couple of really nice ones.

Are they very valuable? I know they are valuable in terms of historical but curious about how expensive they might be to purchase.
 
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