doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com So how did the season start out for you?

The guys I was shooting with when I found the nutting stone got a big laugh out of me walking all around the field, after we finished our limits, turning over every rock I saw. But I figured if a nice big rock like that was right there on the top there might be other good ones so I wasn't about to leave till I'd had at least a short look around. Didn't find anything other than a few flakes but I was plenty happy with the one I'd already picked up. None of them had ever looked for indian rocks in their whole lives and all had been raised as sportsmen.

My favorite piece is a crude arrowhead that a friend picked up and gave to me years ago. We'd been duck hunting together on the point of Little Grassy Lake where my childhood Boy Scout camp was located and he spotted it in the mud on the shore. How many Order of the Arrow ceremonies had I participated in near that same spot? And to know that there had really been indians camped in the same place at one time made that rough flint point a really special one to me.


Destry

I've always wondered about whether nutting stones were actual artifacts or just the result of what is called "Pot-lidding" which is what happens to some kinds of stone when a prairie fire rolls over it. The heat pops a characteristic circular pot-lid shaped piece out of the stone and it looks man made. I am looking at one now on my desk that I picked up on a goose hunt in Saskatchewan. Artifact or Naturefact, I still don't know...Geo

I have noticed the very same result when I have heat treated flint for knapping.

Destry & Mr. Newbern, HERE is some of the artifacts in my collection.

Skip

It rained a little too much to have a great dove season here in New Mexico. I never got my limit of doves, however, since there are no limits on collards I killed a bunch but not as many as last year.

I've seen some nutting stones in collections that I thought were natural so I know exactly what you're talking about. But a friend had one years ago that was a perfect loaf shaped stone with three depressions in the top very evenly spaces. Just had to be man made, it was too perfect to be an accident. The one I picked up is just a single depression, but again the stone is rounded off all the way around and the depression has all kinds of little peck marks around it like it's been used for a long time.


Destry

P.S. to Skip: Just had a chance to look at the photos of your collection. Your stuff sorta makes mine look sick, you've got some really nice pieces. My dream has always been to find a nice grooved axe, best I ever found was a half finished one in a friends field that I let him have.

Skip, you have a fantastic collection and great pictures to show it off. The transluscent pieces are very special; bay-bottom coral maybe? With all the bolen bevels, you must be located in middle or north FL. No hillsborough batwings, so it must not be the Tampa area.

Thanks for sharing that...Geo

Not doubting the one you have, Destry; just wondering about the one I have. The little town I stay in when I'm in Sask. has a local history Museum with lots of these nutting stones along with the grooved axes and grooved hammer stones they find around the local buffalo jumps. My nutting stone looks just like the ones in the Museum, but I still wonder; shoot, there aren't even any nuts up in that area that I know of...Geo

Mr. Newbern, I am less than 1/2 hour from Georgia so that puts me out of Hillsborough (batwing) range. Nothing made from baybottom chert in my collection. I only know one man this far north and in your area (Donalsonville) that has a decent collection of points made from baybottom chert. I have a few coral points but there are only two coral in those pictures. In the picture with the serrated kirks there is one (at top left) made from tallahatta quartzite. On the top row of the bolen picture, second from the right is also a point made from tallahatta. You might be a couple of counties too far east for it but I find a little at the farm over by Dothan. Most of my points from this area are made from good old coastal plains chert from quarries along the north Florida rivers as well as the Flint. I don't know how far you are from Kinchafoonee creek but one point I have uploaded is from there. I also have an expanded center gorget that was recovered from there in two pieces. Probably the two best or most unique things I have uploaded are both drills. If you go to the last page there is a picture with tools including a full groove ax, gorget, and atlatl weight. The long drill left of the ax was found on an early archaic site on Hwy 319 south of Thomasville. It is a once in a lifetime find and better than 4 1/2" long. It is pictured in the book Best of the Best, Vol. 2. On the right side of the ax is a Boggy Branch drill. Boggy Branch points are rare as hen's teeth but that is the only drill form I have seen and I don't know anyone that has seen another one either. Most of the items I have are somewhat common but those are two that I feel most fortunate to be the custodian of.

I have a chungke stone that also has indentations like you see in what people commonly refer to as nutting stones. On one side it looks like a run of the mill convex-sided discoidal but on the other there is a deep impression in the center and five shallower depressions around the perimeter.

Skip

Skip, the artifact shows you referred to must have been the Kolomokie Society shows. I used to frequent them myself, but haven't heard of one lately.

I'm located between the Alapaha and the Withlacoochee rivers. I do have some tallahatta points I've found locally, but I know the material is not local. I believe there must have been a pretty sophistocated system of trading routes in prehistory.

Another of my hobbies is flint-knapping. I've gathered material from the Dothan area...lovely blue chert with lots of reds and pinks after heat treating. It is lots easier to knap a great point than it is to find one, especially if you stick to surface collecting.

Nice to know of like minded folks about...Geo

I live right outside of Dothan in Pinckard. We have always found several arrowheads around the local farms. My dad's friend owns a couple hundred acres about one mile from the Georgia state line and about 15 miles north of the Florida line. There are 2 Indian mounds on his property. His place is LOADED with all kinds of artifacts and he has quite the collection. His living room is full of the stuff that he has found. Really neat stuff.

I remember going on a field trip in the 4th grade to Kolomoki Mounds. That was a neat experience. Whenever we got to the top of the big mound, we looked out over the field and along the woodline there was a group of about 5 deer.

Adam