Here in Alaska keeping the waterhole and net holes ice free for seven months of the year was a full time job.
The beach here is littered with ice pick heads of all sizes. They were not worked for beauty but functionality.

Here is a small sample. Check out the one made out of a fossil is not a pick head, I believe its a fish opener.

Most of what I find is pretty crude too.



Keith

I like grooved axes best.





Simple celts are much more common than grooved axes, especially broken ones. I probably have 70 pieces of celts.






Keith

Thats a pretty awesome collection of axes.

Here are a few more oddities I have found.

Note the knapped glass and porcelain spear point. Thats the stone age meeting the 19 th century Not sure what the round coin things are but made out of stone.

I am sure it was. What was cordage for nets made from in the old days?

Nate, if you have a family of say 25 people living together , say a half dozen are little kids, a couple are old. They are not going to walk very far away to relieve their selves. The rest of the clan is going to have a bad day once in a while where they dont walk very far too. A drink of bad water, eat to many mulberries or whatever. So after while they would move. I always figured they would ring the bark from some trees to have firewood when they came back. Especially a nice place to spend winter months. close to meat animals, maybe lots of rose hips and acorns or whatever. A stand of dead trees would sure be a big plus.

Yukonjeff, I have found a couple of the round stones also. Not sure how they got that way, but they stood out so I picked them up.

I think a lot of times Native Americans just picked up natural, interesting looking stones and just kept them and maybe used them as game pieces. A lot of possible artifacts, made of stone that's not common in the area, are found with artifacts at known campsites. It's likely a human brought them there.



Keith

As someone that flint knaps (makes stone tools) that is most certainly a flake. That is not to say, it wasn't used as a tool. Often, I my flakes are used to cut things from leather to rope and even cardboard. The hertzian cone is clearly visible on the lighter end, that is where the knapper struck the stone to knock off the flake. The step fractures in the darker portion of the stone stopped/used up a lot of the energy of the strike.

Found this stone many years ago....believe it was part of a fire starting set. Recently gave it to the local museum.

It does look like the capstone for a fire drill. They were used to keep the spindle pushed down into the wood being drilled, with enough friction to produce an ember.

Here's one I have. It has holes worn into both sides and was shaped to fit very comfortably in your hand.






Keith

I am was told the long roots from Spruce trees and or woven grass. Most used fish traps, and spears and bows to fish as well.

Let me entertain you with this crazy idea. I believe I found a human mukluk print that was mud and turned to stone and popped out.

The only reason I think so is because I have seen alot of mukluk prints and made them myself. It was found in a area that had alot of stone tools as well.

What say the armchair archeologists?

I bet it took many hours to produce a net. I suspect too a lot of fish harvest was done in open water. I have seen videos of groups of people driving fish into rock corals in shallow water then blocking the entrance. I dont know if that technique was employed where you are but it was interesting and looked effective.

I have friends that make nets out of twine, they make all the mesh and everything. it is time consuming but plenty of time here when it storms thats when gear is repaired and made.

Found these today. These were all found in a low spot where this field drains to and ran outta time to look it over good

I have posted some that are at our museum before of the funnel traps

there are some foot-prints in a SW National park that the sand blew away and the silt went into the prints. There was evidence that these people were here hunting wooly mammoths and it moved the time table back another 10K years
you can even see lateral lines in the prints and there was a young child there as well

There was a special on PBS about that. Conditions have to be just right for fossils to form. Until there was a relatively large amount of people, to make fossils, the chances of somebody finding those fossils today would be infinitesimal. Homo sapiens are probably much older as a species than most people think.

Keith

it is actual time period of people in NA that these foot prints proved
conditions were a silty marsh and then flooded foot prints then covering
there has been extensive arch work done there and with the plant material C14 dated above and below the prints
sea floor rising has covered all the coast travel along Alaska/BC to find stuff
looks like a well water washed obsidian rock at 6pm in your photo