Arrowheads

Found this nice little arrowhead a few days ago while trapping pocket gophers. It appears the gopher dug it up while excavating his new home. I know little about arrowheads but have always bee facinated by flint knapping. The bottom where the shaft would be connected is tappered and not notched like the later ones. This is the only arrowhead I have ever found so any information would be greatly appreciated.

Can't help with information, but cool find. Thanks for sharing!

yes, cool fine did you dig to see if there's anymore?

The ones I find here are similar, quartzite but almost a true triangle, no tang...never found a tanged point...I'm guessing the points are "glued" in with pitch rather than bound, but don't really know.

Nice find.

Thats awesome! I have always been fascinated by arrowheads. Its wild that some people can go out and find multiple in a day. It makes yo think they area everywhere yet most of us will never find one.

A dandy find!

Got to be on a good location. Guy i worked with was building a new house. He tilled up his yard to plant grass and after it rained he found several arrow heads. He told me I could come out and look for some too. Me and my boys found 4 in about a half hour.

Place I work at has a field were several 5 gallon buckets of Indian artifacts have been picked up. I occasionally find an arrow head there but since we are all no-tiil it's harder to find them

The later arrowheads (think the last 1000 years) didn't have notches (side or corner) to wrap the point to the arrow shaft. The small triangle shape points are in a group called "Madison" points and are true arrowheads and being shaped in this way (tapered base) were glued with plant/tree resin to the shaft. Quartz is a tough stone to knap. Finding any full point is a great find - enjoy your find!

I’ve always wondered on the heads that have no tang if they were meant to put in the shaft slot just before use, and the shaft fall away after striking the animal.
Knapping points can be done quickly, finding, fashioning, feathering a shaft was much more time consuming. Easier to transport as well.

There was a fellow many years ago in MT who reached into a hole in a small butte face and found what was left of a hide pouch and around 25 knapped points. The disposable tip theory in the early times seems to make sense.

Osky

Arrow heads and the like can still be knapped by anyone who has interest to . you can buy them at gift shops and they are made in the last few years. Still a nice find and could be a real keeper .

I’m not really familiar with arrowheads that far north, so I’m not sure what that material is. But it does appear to be a true arrow point. It doesn’t look to be as refined as a Mississippian style point,, which would be around 1000-1400 ad… it looks like a woodland type,, which could be 2-3000 years old.
Again, I’m just guessing because I’m not familiar with point types and materials that far north.
I’m more of the Midwest Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Missouri types of stuff.

Most of my stuff is Burlington chert , Indiana horn stone, mill creek as you can see

I knew an old gal that had a cabin up in the mountains on a nice flat little prairie and she would find 5-10 arrowheads every year just tending to her vegetable garden and flower beds. She had envelopes with the year printed on them with the finds that went back 25-30 years. Upper Umpqua camp site.

Partially correct, but depends on region. Here in the deep south stemmed points were made into the late Mississippian period...even into early Historic period.

I found a triangular quartzite point that was 1 1/2 " on each side, obviously a spear point of some type. All the points here have been that bright white quartzite, we don't have any other native stone for knapping. I tried playing with that stone but it's tough stuff. Where I found the most was a high point along a tidal creek where there must have been a camp.... a lot of broken half finished points... I can just see the knapper cursing in Algonquin throwing the broken one into the creek with disgust!, lol