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In response to George asking about posting a picture or two about flint arrows-- here's a few--

Here you go George---
The flintwork was done by a Pal, the rest of the arrow work by me. Mostly cane shafts with hardwood fore-ends, one with a footed shaft.

That's neat. Can you give a description of the materials and process for attaching the points ?

Thanks very much for posting! Very nice! Conjures thoughts of how the earliest Americans made a living. Very nice work! Certainly art and museum quality.

Absolutely neat. There used to be a flint knappers convention held in Central Louisiana many years ago and I loved to go watch. Those men made arrows, axes, spears, bows, and most anything to do with Indian lore. I have some arrows a friend made for me. In LA it is illegal to bow hunt with flint arrows or I would have done it.

At the NMLRA shoots in Friendship, Indiana there were always gun flint knappers from England and they were fascinating to watch. Great photos and thanks for the post.

Daryl, when I made primitive bows and arrows, I used hide glue and sinew to bind points to hickory foreshafts into rivercane. I fletched using wild turkey feathers bound to the shaft with sinew. My flint knapping was no where near the craftsmanship of Geo's. His work is as good as any you'll seen in NatGeo.

A local man killed a Pope and Young record buck using a primitive hickory bow, rivercane arrows and knapped point. Gil

Very nice work. Accurate reproduction of actual named point types. The work on the arrows themselves is excellent as well. What'd you use to lash'em on with? I started out with sinew but decided un-waxed dental floss worked better. No doubt in my mind the Native Americans would have used it as well had they had any...Geo

Nice work! I'm still at the Mousterian level, but I did skin a smallish (90+ pound) piggie with one of my obsidian knives last fall. I suspect it took me five times as long as a real Neolithic chap!

Our part of CA didn't have great cane for arrow shafts until us whiteyes showed up, but the locals in many cases made do with the carrizo cane, from which they also extracted sugar (not much, and no, they couldn't then re-use the cane for shafts!).

Keep in mind that actual arrow making is real new in the New World; most of our subarctic prehistory was spent hunting with an atlatl with REALLY BIG arrows--archeologists seem to agree (as if they ever really agree on anything) that the bow arrived in our neck of the woods about +- 500 AD).

Little stuff got netted or whopped with a non-return boomerang ("rabbit stick". I used to be OK with one of those before my folks let me buy a .410).

I had a neighbor back in upstate NYS who was truly deadly with an atlatl and (big) dart. As accurate as I was at 25 yards with a Bear recurve and modern arrows. Needless to say, he was kinda compulsive guy....

As a boy I picked up arrows points and other artifacts all over my fathers farm. At one time there had been an Indian village next to a small spring feed creek. I guess what I found were those points lost in hunting or discarded when no longer functional. Who knows how many I saw while cultivating beans or corn and could not stop the tractor before I covered them over. Many I did collect but some seemed to tunnel away if I covered them up. I also found countless segments of clay pipe and more than a few pipe bowls. I even found their local white clay source they used to make them out of. My pipes even looked a lot like the originals.

I admire the skill required to nap stone. Given time I'm sure I could make a decent point if I had a full mountain to start with. Perhaps it might take a little more. I knew a fellow who could make a very nice skinning tool which with he could skin a deer out with almost as fast as I could do with a steel knife. That edge he got was scary quick to cut a finger which got into the way. It was not so much a knife as a oblong curved tool. It stayed sharp a very long time and was fairly easy to control.

I enjoy searching for points and other Indian artifacts thanks for the pictures. Bobby

Thanks guys, my buddy has been knapping for years and can bang one out in a really short time these days. I tried doing it more than a few times and always came away a bloody mess with a pile of junk at my feet.

In the center of the top box are a couple of original points (the grey ones)I found while bowhunting for pigs and Javelina down in Southern Texas, near Catula. My pal made a replica of it and it's sitting next to it.

7 of us were on a 3 day hunt and found over 30 complete heads and many broken ones.
Can't imagine the activity that was going on there for us to find so many.

The material in the points are mostly chert and obsidian. A couple of points in the top box are made of Whitetail leg bone. I haft the points with deer backstrap sinew and hide glue. Sinew and hide glue for the feathers as well. Lately been smearing a bit of pitch over the sinew to help with water proofing.

Those are beautiful points, Rudy. I have been collecting local artifacts since adolescence, and have accumulated a rather large collection of points of many types and sizes. But, none of them duplicate any of the styles and shapes in your pics. Not surprising, as there were many different shapes and types in different geographical locations.

I read an article about the guy Gil mentioned. He lived between Gil and I, actually. I was very impressed with his abilities.

Most of the points I have found were made from a rock called chert, or Savannah River agate, which are both prevalent here.

Great post. Thanks.

SRH

I have been fascinated with Native American stone artifacts for as long as I can remember. When the neighborhood boys and I were walking to and from school it was always easy to find me because I was the one in the ditch getting my shoes muddy looking for arrowheads while everyone else walked in the road.

Even today, when a dove shoot gets slow I walk the furrows hunting points. Back in my "International Sportsman" phase, I would enlist the Mexican and South American bird boys to hunt the fields for 'fleches' and pay a quarter each for the points.

I learned to knap my own points many years ago and find that I can make them better than any I can find. If Dave doesn't zap this thread for being off topic, I'll try to post a picture of a few of my efforts...Geo

I would love to see them, Geo.

SRH

This is such a great thread for the outdoorsmen here. Love it!

It doubles are archaic then this thread should be fine as there are few things I can think of as being more archaic than flint arrows. Kind of brothers.

Stan,
I didn't realize that Thad has one leg out of the Stone Age and is making flintlocks. He has an interesting website. Gil
http://www.beckumoutdoors.com/

I didn't either, Gil. Also didn't remember that he held the Screven County record for typical whitetail. Did he take it with a flint point, or a flintlock?

SRH

I'm really trying to post some arrowhead pictures, but my cell phone is on the fritz and I can't get'em on my computer yet. My computer geniuses are all at the beach...Geo

Geo, it's those neolithic tendencies getting in your way. When you do get the pics posted, be sure to have some scale indicator in the photos, especially for the big Clovis points. Gil

Well here's one pic of a few of my home-made points. I-phone's not sending pictures for some reason. Had to go around my elbow to get to my knee to post this one. The coin at the corner is a quarter...Geo

Neolithic


Paleolithic (mostly Bolen Bevel type)


Look at'em quick because I posted the pic from PB!

Here is a pic of a few tools. The mano&matate is paleo, and I made the knife and hoe:



another knife & points

Bravo, Geo. Well done. Beautiful craftsmanship.

The last two in the closeup with the knife ............. I have a large point I found that was made from the same rock!! Colors are exactly the same!!

Thanks for going to the effort to post them. I appreciate it.

SRH

That was flint from the city dump in Dothan, Alabama...Geo

Kemo Sabe, is the lower left point a Bull-tongue Simpson?? Did you "fire" the chert first? Beautiful work. Gil

Yup and Yup. I ain't man enough to knap raw flint...Geo

Beautiful work George. What you guys can do with a "rock" is simply amazing!!

I heat treat our local raw flint (chert) in order to bring out color and to make the texture more glass like for knapping. A friend has a kiln for that purpose, but it can also be done in the aboriginal manner by digging out the sand in your fire pit and laying down the flint. Then cover the flint about two inches with sand and build your camp fire. One treatment with a good fire usually brings out the red color range from the iron naturally occurring in the rock.

I once asked my friend to heat a head size piece of agatized coral I had gotten out of the Withlacoochee river. Unfortunately the rock was not solid and had a hidden geode which must have been full of water. When he heated it the geode exploded and destroyed the kiln.

Thanks to all for the kind words..Geo

Anybody know if obsidian was ever heat-treated by users? We have lots of chert tools around here (SoCal) but volcanic glass was the prestige material and a valuable trade item here in the south where it wasn't a common natural occurrance. The prehistoric obsidian mines here are pretty well played out. Up north, not so much (Glass Mountain, Black Butte, etc.)

Mike, there's no need to heat treat obsidian or dacite. It is already glass. You could say the volcano that created it took care of the heat treating...Geo

I must say that I have enjoyed this interesting, if off topic thread. I have several arrow points I have found over the years, and a friend has quite a collection because he makes a concerted effort to walk local fields in the spring after a rain, when the farmers plow their land. My attempts to knap flint have been confined to trying to make flints for my flintlocks.

I did notice that Last Dollar was here this morning, but he did not do any whining about this particular off-topic thread. I'll bet he'd have complained several times by now if the Indians who left these artifacts were anti-gun Democrats. I know we're not supposed to notice the obvious. He's pretending to IGNORE me, so I don't have to worry about offending him.

Nice work Geo. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Obsidian is volcanic glass and needs no further heat treatment to be knapped. Beginners often practice on beer bottle bottoms or Thunder Chert aka Johnstone. TC and Johnstone aren't ideal but are easy to find. Gil

Gil is messing with us. Thunder Chert aka American Johnstone is the porcelain water tank on your toilet. I always try to leave enough rind on the point to reflect whether it is Delta or some other make before I toss the points out into plowed fields for my grand kids to find...Geo

My mistake

Gil, thanks for the answer: wondered if I was doing something wrong....now I know I'm doing SOMETHING right!

Anybody know when safety glasses were invented? Were there lots of one-eyed aborigines? I wouldn't touch stone, especially obsidian, without glasses....

Mike, I wear glasses, not safety though. Rarely something will get in my eye. Be very careful when that happens. When people watch my knapping, I try to shoo them off a good ten feet for safety...Geo

Thanks, George. Obsidian fragments are one of the sharpest natural objects. When I lived near RPI (engineering university in Troy,NY) the someone on the biomedical engineering staff there sold obsidian scalpel blades to cosmetic surgeons because they made the most delicate cuts then known. They use lasers for that now, I think.

I wear safety goggles when handloading, testing out a new gun, or knapping. Wonder if our ancestors used snow goggles or a mask or just left their vision up to the gods....