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Indian Point

rob_vic

Full Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2008
Messages
116
Location
Northern VA
True surface find over the weekend. Don't know much about Indian points but I think this is a beauty!
 

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That’s a nice one, white quartz is not common in my area of NY. Always wanted to find a whitey....
 
Around here we call that material sugar quartz. Nice little point I've found a bunch made from that material.
 
Beauty indeed! White quartz is hard to work into shape like that, so this is not a very common find.

I think I might have to disagree just somewhat! The white quartz may be hard to work, but I think it must depend on your location, as to how common it is….I do some work at an archaeology dig. Although Indian artifacts are not the focus of the dig, we have found numerous points almost exactly like this one. Also many other quartz points. If I had to guess how many total, I would say, at least well into the 100’s. Maybe more. Here is a couple of pictures of the latest ones fresh out of the ground just a few days ago.
 

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Oh wow! Couple nice "fresh" ones there! You dig that many points, and it's not even the primary focus of the dig? That's pretty awesome.
Thanks for the info on the commonality of quartz points. I was thinking on general terms of surface-found points being flint, obsidian, etc. more often than quartz, but location seems to be a bigger factor than I was thinking.
 
Oh wow! Couple nice "fresh" ones there! You dig that many points, and it's not even the primary focus of the dig? That's pretty awesome.
Thanks for the info on the commonality of quartz points. I was thinking on general terms of surface-found points being flint, obsidian, etc. more often than quartz, but location seems to be a bigger factor than I was thinking.

It all depends on if they had locally a decent material available. And substandard material can often be made better to work if it is heated…in a fire. Locally the Arkansas Novaculite is an abundant material, but for ease of workability it must have been fired. There are local paleo quarries in the area around Hot Springs National Park.

The novaculite stone has a decent conchoidal fracture, but the workability is made better with heating. The novaculite was widely traded, Hot Springs being at the intersection of several trade routes. :D
 
That’s one of the most interesting dimensioned heads I’ve ever seen.
 
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