Native American Copper Arrowhead, Thimble, Ox Shoe, Two Buttons

[Eastender]

Today I got out in the field detecting for a solid 8 hours. I went back to a site adjacent to an important undeveloped estuary. I hadn't been detecting in this area for five years, when I first began detecting with a White's Spectra V3i. It's probably a good 30 acres of preserved mature forests and wetlands, part of a larger 600 acre parcel split off by tidal brook. Today I was around two pairs of nesting osprey and they were screeching at me to move on. It's pretty comical to watch the osprey fly by with fish in their talons like torpedoes. In the past few years the bald eagles have returned to the area and they squabble with the osprey. Despite being much smaller, the osprey can fend off the eagles with their superior flying skills. The eagles have a more diversified diet and will even go after road kill. With all of these birds of prey on the increase (including owls, hawks, falcons, and turkey vultures), it's been tougher to a see a living snake moving around. Even the squirrels are skittish. But plenty of acorns, hickory nuts, and pine cones around. I also watched a pair of raccoons feasting on small crabs which were plentiful.

This area had previously given me two 1797 and one 1800 Draped Bust Cents in VG condition and ironically for me, no British or Spanish coinage which seems to be the norm for my area. I got my permissions and permits in order, so it's time to hit this area using some Minelab technology with my Manticore.

This is my 7th Native American copper arrowhead in six years dating from the mid-1600s contact period through early 1700s. Four of them I donated to local museums, and three were featured in a recent book published on Eastern Long Island, NY Projectile Point typology. I show the newest find here as it came out of the ground, then washed and grouped together two other recent finds. This basic triangle type is the more common "trade points" that pop up in NE and upstate NY. It's interesting to see the styles and note that these three examples were found miles apart near estuaries in the absence of middens, lithics, pottery, or other habitation debris and artifacts. Which means they were most likely unretrieved shot isolates. If you look at the example that is my avatar, it shows a more complex design and is a match to examples found in NE relating to King Phillip's War. The Narragansett of RI were the powerhouse tribe in the region at the time of European colonization in the 1600s. The tribes in my area of Long Island paid tribute to them and traded their fine quahog wampum throughout the region. Sometimes the tribes skirmished with each other, especially from pressures brought about from colonization.

Ticks are heavy but I live, work, and play around them so I have learned to deal with them. I spray my rubber boots down with Sawyer's then apply Deep Woods Off in spray powder form at the top of the boots and my pant legs. I wear acid washed light denim to see any that might crawl up or attach from brush. I tuck in my long sleeve T shirt so that pushes any up towards the neck area where I will feel them. I have seen adult Lone Star ticks slog right through wet Sawyer's spray and keep moving upwards. I head right for the hot shower when I get out of the woods and wash my clothing. Fortunately, although I see many ticks and flick them off of my pant legs, I have yet to get bitten (knock on wood). The small ticks or nymph stage are tougher to see but less mobile. And I have noticed that the dry forest floor is not the worst for ticks. Trees are pushing leaves and transpiring in the high UV, so despite rain the forest floor is pretty desiccated. I always pull the leaf floor aside with my boots before digging. It's when you stop moving that you give them a chance to crawl up from ground level. I never set my machine down and always keep it propped up against my leg while digging. I stab my shovel in the ground upright. Today I was sticking my fingers into target holes so as to not damage any finds and got a little zing of poison ivy.

 

[Pete e]

Three lovely Finds indeed! When you say they are trade points, does that mean they were made by the Europeans to trade with the Native Americans? Or were they produced by the Native Americans themselves for trade between themselves?

Also, I notice they all have a slot or hole in approximately the same place...are they used as part of the process when binding the arrow head to the shaft?

Again great Finds, and well worth braving tick season for!

 

[GroundSweeper]

At the lake near me, watched an osprey flying with its fish, get chased by a bald eagle long enough it dropped the fish. Eagle dropped out of the sky to it.

Amazing finds. Aside from the ticks, nice to be able to hunt ground with that kind of potential.

 

[Eastender]

Three lovely Finds indeed! When you say they are trade points, does that mean they were made by the Europeans to trade with the Native Americans? Or were they produced by the Native Americans themselves for trade between themselves?

Also, I notice they all have a slot or hole in approximately the same place...are they used as part of the process when binding the arrow head to the shaft?

Again great Finds, and well worth braving tick season for!

Thanks. I believe there are both European trade arrowheads and Native ones made from old kettles. The hole not only aided in hafting to the shaft, it also allowed many to be strung together and transported as trade objects.

This latest triangular seems like a basic trade point. However, if you look at the attached photo of the first one that I found, it shows a higher level level of craftsmanship and is thicker. The edges are beveled with a concave base. It is also quite brittle and has to be handled carefully lest it chip apart. I think this is the result of being exposed to many heat cycles as an old kettle. An interesting thing about this point is that I found an almost exact stylistic match made by the Narragansett in RI. I searched many hours before coming across a metal detectorist's webpage. And this makes perfect sense because during the contact period, some skirmishes were recorded in my area in the 1650s between the Narragansett and the local tribes of the south fork of eastern Long Island where I live and found it. Normally the powerhouse Narragansett had a good relationship with the local tribes in my region and exacted a tribute (protection money), but the colonist were forcing them to take sides and fight each other.

By the 1720-30s, it is believed that 2\3 or so of the Native population on Long Island was wiped out, mostly by smallpox. But on eastern Long Island's south fork, there was room for both native and colonist and there was a more extended contact period. This would allow the native populations to trade and interact longer. So I think it is possible that the local natives did acquire copper scrap and fabricate points. But this could only last so long as they were really more interested in obtaining firearms and abandoning the bow.

Only 8 such copper arrowheads have been recorded in all of eastern Long Island and 7 are mine. This is not to say that loads of them aren't there or that others have found them and not reported them. The very minute I find them I text the image to my friend who is a NYS archaeologist. He enjoys seeing them and recording their locations as much as I do.

 

[Eastender]

At the lake near me, watched an osprey flying with its fish, get chased by a bald eagle long enough it dropped the fish. Eagle dropped out of the sky to it.

Amazing finds. Aside from the ticks, nice to be able to hunt ground with that kind of potential.

The osprey never left my area whereas the eagles disappeared for decades. DDT used for mosquito control in the area's marshes thinned the osprey's egg shells and nearly wiped them out. Nearby Gardiner's Island even had a unique population of low nesting ospreys. But after its use was banned, they rebounded in good numbers as the estuaries here have plentiful small fry. So when the eagles came back, the ospreys were entrenched and ready to put up a fight for their habitat. On the harbor where I live, I used to watch them scrap in aerial dogfights for nesting position. They sorted it out and have separate nesting and hunting areas. I can see osprey not willing to expend too much energy scrapping with an eagle over a fish here and there. Much easier to go grab another one.

 

[MasonDixonMding]

Wow that is cool! They are almost unheard of around here.

 

[Big Boys Hobbies]

Nice hunt. Ticks beyond suck...

 

[LawrencetheMDer]

OMG Saw some copper Indian arrowhead at a museum in southern Ohio years ago, and can only dream of finding ONE in my lifetime! Thanks for the history lesson. As a bow hunter in my early youth (hunting rabbits along the Maumee river in Ohio; of couse illegal), I know well the feeling of losing an arrow (head) after missing a rabbit and more rarely a pheasant. We often lost them during the Winter months in snow and would return to find some of them in the Spring.

 

[Eastender]

OMG Saw some copper Indian arrowhead at a museum in southern Ohio years ago, and can only dream of finding ONE in my lifetime! Thanks for the history lesson. As a bow hunter in my early youth (hunting rabbits along the Maumee river in Ohio; of couse illegal), I know well the feeling of losing an arrow (head) after missing a rabbit and more rarely a pheasant. We often lost them during the Winter months in snow and would return to find some of them in the Spring.

I find points, both stone and copper, not too far away from tidal estuaries with brooks running into them. I think it's possible that they came into these estuaries by canoe and small boats hunting along the shores. The quiet approach via water could be more effective than walking through the forest, especially when morning fog shrouds the waterways. But this is also a good way to lose arrows as they disappear beyond eyesight. I have an estuary where I pluck musket balls and arrowheads out of a side of hill which acted as a backstop from hunting on the water.

 

[HungryGhost]

Great recoveries! I do most of my detecting in the Lower Hudson River Valley of NY. When I see those copper arrowheads of yours, a sickening question comes to mind: Did I dig one of those in my early days, and threw it in the scrap bucket not know what it was? I sure hope not!

 

[LawrencetheMDer]

Metal arrowheads and musket balls, Oh My. That is soooo COOL.

 

[Eastender]

Great recoveries! I do most of my detecting in the Lower Hudson River Valley of NY. When I see those copper arrowheads of yours, a sickening question comes to mind: Did I dig one of those in my early days, and threw it in the scrap bucket not know what it was? I sure hope not!

Once you start finding these copper arrowheads, you look at all copper scrap with suspicion. I found two larger pieces of sheet copper that I believe were tools used by Natives during the Contact Period. Not points, but one a very sharp awl and the other a cutting instrument with serrated edging.