This is about rock piles and stone mound sites in New England. A balance is needed between keeping them secret and making them public. Also arrowheads, stone tools and other surface archaeology.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
I found this yesterday after hours of searching.
Based on the size, shape, and material, I believe this is what is called a Levanna point. These appeared around 700 A.D. and were used until the Contact period. This is made of what I believe is red felsite, my first find in this lovely material which is said to originate in Attleboro MA. This arrowhead has been rather extensively resharpened/reworked, probably it was originally an equilateral triangle and it either broke or simply became worn and was resharpened into this stubby shape. Good toolmaking materials in this area were scarce and the people who made this were very thrifty with good material, sharpening and reworking tools until they were used up. The tip and blade edges of this are worn, it was actually used like this, probably as a knife. I might guess that this had gotten too small to be resharpened further at this stage and it was discarded. I am very pleased with this find, the fine material and unique shape add variety to my collection of mostly broken quartz triangles. The area where I found this was very dry and dusty and this point was covered with dust, I almost stepped over it and only spotted it as a flat rock with a triangular shape. I didn't recognize it until I picked it up and wiped the dust away to reveal the flaking. I did also find my usual assortment of broken quartz tools and fragments.
The large triangle in the center is a "heartbreaker," it would have been a really great point if not for the missing corner. The crude triangle at bottom center is thick and it is flat on one side and convex on the other with steep edges, probably it was used as a scraper rather than as a projectile point. All the pieces in the bottom row (projectile point or blade midsection, scraper, Lamoka-type stem fragment) are from a new place for me, a coastal site in Rhode Island.