Saturday, June 17, 2006

HM, Archaeology Woman (Not So Much)

Heh heh! I've captured your attention. Stay with me...I have more
photos. Next week, y'all can come over and watch home movies
of my children. Wait...WAIT! C'mon back. You don't have to.
What I have today are some more lovely rocks from my creek.
The pictures aren't so good, because we had a cloudy day and
I took them out on the porch.

Scribalist was kind enough to tell me that my first set of rocks are
(drumrolllllllll) rocks from the creek. Yeah. So here are some
more. I'm trying to keep them small so the page will load faster.
If you click on them, they'll get bigger.

This set is some odds and
ends. Two are arrowheads
that one of the older boys
found in the same place I
found my not-treasures.
One popped up out of
some gravel on the creek


bottom when HH drove his tractor across the flat rocks and
stirred it up. I don't know which one. That third one is a mottled
gray, black and white shiny kind of rock, but it looks dull in this
photo. One side is flat, and the other side is humped up, and has
been chipped at. Don't you like my scientific lingo? Here is the
other side:

That one on the bottom left
is really heavy, and the short
one next to it seems like the
stuff you could sharpen a
knife on. That little dude with
the hole in it is very light.



This next batch are heavy and smooth. They're thick, not flat,
except that pointy one in the middle. It has a flat side.

The one on the bottom left
has a hole in the top, which
should be visible in the next
few pictures. It's at a right
angle to the flat sides, so it
was hard to get a picture.





Here are these things flipped
over. They are more round
and triangular, so they're hard
to balance. That middle one
has a groove in it.





Now you can see the hole.
I had to lean them together
to show the third edge.
That bottom left one with
the hole has a thin groove
that runs across under the
hole. I tried a close-up.



You can only see the it
on the right side, if you
enlarge it.







From the fourth side here,
you can see the groove go
all the way across.






Stay with me! Only two more sets of pretty creek rocks to go.
But with multiple views.

This is my flat, pointy, heavy
collection. There I go again
with my scientific lingo.







This is their bad side.
They begged me not to
photograph them from
this angle, but I said,
"Hey! I'm the bad
photographer here!
Deal with it!"



They are actually quite
svelte, these prima donnas,
for being so heavy. I hope
they haven't been up their
anorexia shenanigans again.





This guy on the right is
mad because he thought
he belonged with the
flat heavyweights, not
the clunky triangular
creek rocks who have
been masquerading


as archaic/woodland tools. Hey! He can get his own act when
he can carry himself up here from the creek. I don't want no
more of his lip! And for that little snit fit, I will now show you...


his posterior. Look. He's
blushing. That'll learn
him to mess with me,
by cracky!





And there you have it. Today's lesson in why Hillbilly Mom
should stay out of the creek. Should I toss them all back from
whence they came? Except the arrowheads. Those things didn't
chip themselves while bobbing down the creek.

Advise me, Scribalist. Dump the whole lot? My rock garden
is full already.

And whichever one of you came here this evening looking for
'hillbilly corncob pipe chair on porch', you'll have to come back
another day. My porch is full of creek rocks.

3 Comments:

Blogger Rebecca said...

Hi Hillbilly Mom,
They don't look like rocks from the creek to me. They look like rocks layed out on a blue cloth, with ruler.
HooRoo
Rebecca, leaving no stone unturned, I've got to find my spare house key somewhere.

6:07 PM  
Blogger Scribalist said...

Hey HM:

Well; except for the two points you've got in the upper left hand of the top photo, yeah, you can probably chuck 'em back in the creek. (Aren't a nice girl?) I can't tell for sure, but does that one on the left have shallow notches on the side of the blade but down near the base? And if you run your thumb over the base is it sharp or has it been dulled (careful, if it's sharp you could cut yourself)? I think it might be a Matanzas point, and so made between 8000 and 5,000 years ago. It's lopsided a little because it's been reworked. (Sorry if you already know this, I just felt like I had to be useful so you don't think I'm completely snarky)

http://www.museum.state.il.us/ismdepts/anthro/proj_point/gallery.html?RollID=group1&FrameID=012matanzas

But don't feel bad. The creek water does an amazing amount of erosion, and some times you get a long term patina on an artifact that makes it look like creek rock, so there's always a chance I'm full of it. (in fact, that's often the case). You could always drag 'em in to your friendly neighborhood archaeologist, Columbia, KC and St. Louis all have passels of them. I'd be happy to look one up for you, if you want. For sure they'd be able to say whether that was a Matanzas point or not.

But I love creek walking. When I actually did field work that was my favorite thing to do on a hot summer's day (we would always check out the creeks to see if anything was eroding out of the banks). Beat the heck out of having to dig test units in ag fields that had been honeyed!

Thanks for posting these, you brave thing!

Kris

2:25 PM  
Blogger Hillbilly Mom said...

Bec,
Can't fool you, huh? Or CAN I? Bwahaha!

Scribalist,
Yes, that one does have a notch at the bottom. I'll go feel it, and see if it's sharp. When the sun comes out, I'll get a better picture of it. It does look like the Matanzas in that link, but it's not quite as long. It's shape reminded me of the drawing of the "Big Sandy" on this site:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://coas.missouri.edu/mas/images/pointsguide_r2_c6.jpg&imgrefurl=http://coas.missouri.edu/mas/articles/pointsguide.htm&h=70&w=106&sz=3&tbnid=G8L2A7-XKUd4EM:&tbnh=52&tbnw=79&hl=en&start=22&prev=/images%3Fq%3Darchaic%2Bmissouri%26start%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DN

It's just a drawing, so hard to tell. The white one wasn't notched.

Thanks for the input!

2:55 PM  

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