Over a lifetime of farming, my father has collected several dozen stone arrowheads, spearheads and other tools. I would like to find identifications/descriptions of them so I could mount them up nicely for display. How would I go about this? Are there web sites? Should I contact the local university archaeology department for further info? Would I be expected to pay for a consultation?
Any help appreciated.
There are lots of websites that deal with knapping (i.e. making stone tools) but most are concerned with modern techniques rather than classifying old tools. (Knapping has enjoyed a huge revival since the 1970s.) This book by John Whittaker is a good discussion both of the history of knapping and the important techniques. It may well prove helpful.
At a guess, the archeology department of a university would be quite interested to see your father’s collection, and I’d be most surprised if they are quick to ask a fee. They will probably be less than 100% pleased if (as is typical of amateurs) he has not kept records of when and where each was found.
A good place to start is a local rockshop. Many also sell Native American artifacts. They can recommend the best field guide for your area as well as well as identify your artificacts. The people who work in a rockshop near me can identify just about any point within a few seconds. They can also explain why one arrowhead is worth $10 and another similiar looking arrowhead is worth $100 (hint: they are just like baseball cards).
Pictures located here if anyone is interested in looking at them.
Lisa, I didn’t get into Paleontology to get rich! Any little money you have in your pockets will be fine.
/Stephen Jay Gould
Where are they from? Same field(s)? Same general area? Same depths?
If the collection has some minimal provenience then I would suggest contacting the local university, find a grad student desperate for a thesis topic (i.e. ususally the 4th year MA students whose committee just squashed their first topic) and offer a trade - analyze my stone tool collection and then share the results.
However, this is only viable if you have some kind of control on where they came from.
Otherwise, find a point guide on Amazon. There are literally dozens available.
Pretty much the same area/fields/depth. Bear in mind that the fields have been under tillage for maybe 140 years, so the thought that anyone could do any kind of archaeological dig is pretty far out there. I imagine that the only thing truly interesting that could come up is if one of them is a type that has never been seen, or never been seen in this area.
Robert Overstreet’s book is the one that comes up most of the time on google.
WHAT did you say??? I’ve got two five-gallon buckets full of arrow points that have been picked up around here over the years. Is there actually a market for the things?
By the baseball card analogy, I assume you mean condition? I’ve got some that are perfect, some that are a little chipped, and others that are broken. Maybe I should check out the value of some of these. It never occurred to me that people would pay money for them.
The Center for American Archeology has been digging around Kampsville, IL since about 1953. Koster is one of their biggest, most important, and best known sites. They used to be connected to Northwestern University, but I think they are independent now. I have been to two of their digs, the Twin Ditch Site and the Ansell Knight Site, (neither turned up much useful information.)
Most of their digs are located in farm fields. They scout their locations basically by asking area farmers if they trun up anything when plowing. If the farmers tell of an unusual numbers of things (or a number of unusual things), they might do some test pits (a series of 1 sqaure meter holes) to determine the efectiveness of a complete excavation of the site. Anything found within about a foot and a half of the surface is of relatively little academic value, as it has been disturbed by plowing. However, anything deeper than this is studied very carefully.
You should not expect to pay anything to get someone to come look at the things you have found on the surface, though you should also not expect someone to come look at them immediately upon calling. I am not sure, but I believe that land owners are reimbursed for the land used (rent) and everything is restored upon completion of a dig.
I do not know if the CAA would be interested in your land, but they may know of another organization that might be.
I majored in cultural anthropology but took some archaeology courses.
From an academic standpoint, arrowheads in a bucket aren’t that interesting and there are gobs and gobs of them in closets around the country. My archaeology professor made a joke about people running up to him very excited about finding an arrowhead. Basically he said from an academic standpoint, unless the location, depth, etc is known most of them aren’t very interesting because the context in which it was found has been lost. The where, why and how are all important aspects.
Now yours that come from a specific field are a little different, but understand that the usual anthro department gets inundated with requests like this. Check the books first, if you do find something that is scholarly interesting, then go to the university.
Don’t underestimate the number of folks who claim “cherokee” in their lineage and collect all sorts of native american chotke, which will drive up the price of a rather usual, common item up higher. Almost everything is collected by someone.
Interesting stuff, Mr. Rosewater.