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I was just curious Hal. I have heard people talking about finding a cache of points, and was day dreaming about my rock shelters and middens producing such a thing.
I think it's a perfectly legitamate question, as ALL of the older long time diggers I have known have all hit caches of points and blades at one time or another. The First time I ever observed a cache found, was a person I did not know that had encountered a burial. I was digging close by when I heard an Oh Man....look at this! I walked over and for the next 3 hours I sat and watched as 260 fine points were dug up that had been intentionally laid flat, side by side, all pointing at the remains, and in a complete circle. Everyone there was totally awestruck. I have never seen or heard of an identical situation since. Now that is what I call a cache. I have hit only 2, and neither we anywhere near as impressive. The First was an ultra fine 7 inch Friday knife hidden on purpose by flipping a large limestone matate bowl over on top of it. The Second occurred in our cave we are still digging. A small pocket against the back wall held 2 finely made Kerrvile knives, a 4 &1/2 inch Montell, a 4&1/4 inch Marshall, a 3&1/2 inch comanche perd, and a 3&1/2 inch Marcos, ....a small but impressive cache. It's like finding a corner tang, it doesn't happen that often, but it does happen.
Gino, a cache find usually refers to finding a buried pile of points all together in one limited spot. The concentration of points often leaves the finder to think that the maker(s) were trying to hide them for some reason. The only cache find I've ever heard of where digging was not involved was on the Pecos River in the 70's when a person put their arm into a small hole in the back wall of a rock shelter and unexpectedly found a cache of about 60 points that apparently had been hidden there. Your surface hunting areas sound like large Lithic scatters, of which are almost flint factories with the abundance of worked pieces being found, of which is great for surface hunting, and I've seen those kinds of places before, but it's really not the same thing as a cache (like bountiful buried treasure in a single spot). That is really the difference here.
Well, one thing seems certainly clear. People have their own ideas about what a cache is or is not. I would agree that all the pieces found have to be almost touching each other, but that is first time I've ever heard someone say that all of the pieces were required to be the same type. I would consider that to be a cache as well, but cultures did trade their types, and many types became used by the same peoples. This was true from the middle archaic to the woodland periods. Archeologists will tell you that if you can get them talking. The First americans were not always at war with each other, like some have suggested.
The 260 points found in the burial I mentioned were all of only 3 types (to the best of memory). They were Pedernales, Nolan, and Bulverde. The burial was not in a cave, but a midden at an approximate depth from 3.5 to 4.0 feet in a gravely layer. The points appeared to have been laid flat, and were found within 1 to 2 inches apart (some were closer, but none further apart), all pointing at the remains, and completely encircled it. To my knowledge, the remains were taken to U.T. at Austin, and identified as Tonkawa (culture). I do not know if any additional items were found with the burial, as it was removed later on. We can theorize however we may, but the limited information is at least fact.
Roy, I will tell you all I know about the site, but it is doubtful that it will show up in TARL files, as the time period when this occurred was 1967, and I don't think that Tarl was even formed yet. I do know that it would have to be a recorded site with the University of Texas for the reason that the land owner at the time had an agreement with U.T. that their archeology dept. would recieve all burial remains, and I was told that there were several. I do not know what U.T.'s site ID was for it, but the land owners last name was Overcash, and it was probably one of the first pay digs in Texas ($20. per day). The site was unusual because it was a double culture midden (very large), with an archaic culture over the same site as an underlying paleo & transitional paleo camp. The site was apparently unoccupied for some period between these cultures, as there was a very dark vegetation line exposed in a 17 foot deep trench. There were stratas of snail shells up to 1.5 feet thick with very little soil or clay in them. The burial with the 260 points was in the flank side of the upper midden/ culture. This site was completely dug out by 1972. This site was located on the south bank of Walnut Creek (East Austin) approx. 1 mile East of IH-35 in North Central Travis County, Texas. There were many sites along both Walnut and Little Walnut Creeks, however, this one was by far the largest. If you have a means to research for this site, I can only hope that I have given you enough information to go on. I was a young man at the time and had only been digging for 3 years. That was 42 years ago. Alot of people seem to think that before records started being kept on sites, nobody dug for artifacts! My grandfather was digging shawnee indian sites in southern illinois in the 1920's, and knew others that had been at it alot longer than him! I'm pretty sure that there have been alot of incredible caches and finds made for which no records exist. Digging for artifacts is actually an older hobby than most folks think.
Hal, yes I know Bill and he's a great fella...about the only one I know to find a corner tang cache...and talk about deep digging! I saw him again in Jan. and he still looks fit.
