I found these, but am not sure if I am looking at natural formation rocks, as they don't seem very worked on like pictures I have seen. Sorry about the slight blur, just scanned these on my scanner. Found them in our creek bed. I usually am looking for fossils....
Thanks for any input.

The First one would appear to be a fragment of hard

crystaline limestone, but the others all look like

fragments of grey chert. Nothing looks like it was

worked by indians, but you might be in a good area,

so keep looking down & good luck!

I disagree, very rudementary but there are some flaking marks on most of them.

I never disagree with Mike Except around the holidays when he's in a good mood

Flint doesn't seem quite natural fractured to me, , ,
" MAYBE " large flakes an ancient knocked off a core.
Drainage tumble damaged.



If your weighted fossil heavy Dwaine, have you been checking the flint for fossil inclusions ?

Thank you for your input...I will keep looking.

I am pretty sure they are man made. They look like flakes off a core or first stage reduction of a piece of flint to make something out of it. There are other things to consider - were they found in an area where flint is naturally occurring, were they all found close together or as isolated finds, were they found at a place where Indians would likely have camped (near water) and so on.

Thank you again for your insight. I found these along a small creek on our property that feeds into the Leon. All in the same creek, not in the exact same place though. I have found big chunks of flint in the creek also. We have not owned this property for very long, so have not really explored everything. I wish I could really pinpoint a place, my hubby has grudgingly agreed to dig a hole with his backhoe if I just point out a spot. I really do try to think about where I would have camped in ancient times....probably where my babies would not fall into deep water! :)

So with more details, here's some more comments.
The main Leon river drainage is very rich with known ancient midden camps so your in a good general area.
Very close to where smaller creeks empty into the larger one is the first location possibility. Second choice could be the headwaters of the creek that might have been a spring outlet.
The ancients seem to be MUCH more aware of what flash floods are all about, no significant camps were EVER below the flood plains. There also was such a thing as summer & winter camps to take advantage of warmer or cooler locations due to terrain so some camps might seem to be unusually high up a hill / bluff.
Water was so important a consideration, given the severe survival living conditions in the " good old days", I dont think proximity to deep water was a consideration for the kids sake. . .Let um sink or swim ! "
Next nature walk down the creek, look REALLY close. . Small flint flakes, 1/4 to 1 inch in size are a prime indicator that they were doing a little more finish work on the flint cores.
Hold off just a while on the backhoe, unless it's on the neighbors property !

What I meant specifically by my earlier comment was

that no specific piece shown was chosen in an attempt

to make a point or tool. Yes, these fragments may well

have come from the initial breaking of prospective

material for use. Although Flint & Chert is an

insoluable material, it can still break, shatter, and

chip off under natural processes.

A GOOD resource for cultural information on the Leon

River drainage is most definitely Mr. Bill Arnold,

who has done ALOT in that area. I'm sure that he

could help further guide you with your searching

parameters.

Thanks for the information! I do think I am in a good area, and have found more flint in little chips like you mentioned. I have found a lot of flint that looks naturally sheared or cracked, I think it looks different from the chips I am finding. It is not in a flood zone, it is about a third to a half mile up from the river. Just thinking though, that if I don't find any intact artifacts, maybe it is because the Native American's never had to leave camp in a hurry here, which I guess would be good karma. I would think that any artifacts left behind would be because of a quick or traumatic departure.

You bring up an interesting subject. Why intact points are found at camp sites and why so many? At some of the pay digs I have gone to over the years I have seen sometimes when only whole points are found and then of course you see these monster points being found by people. How could an Indian lose those I can not fathom.

Fred, that would make a real interesting discussion. My thinking is that they camped in the same area for hundreds if not thousands of years so an occassional lost or miss-placed point every few years would lead up to dozens of good points.
One campsite that I've hit many times surface hunting has always yielded a few new finds each trip. The first time I found the site I found 35 good points ranging from Angostura to Perdiz. So that showed me that camp was used for at least 8 thousand years. Also found were Barber,Bell,Frio, Marshall, Kinney, and a host of other points, plus Clearfork, Guadalupe, and Cresent scrapers. All were surface finds in an area no bigger then a football field. The flint rock quarry was only about 2 hundred yards from the creek.

Are you saying that if just ONE individual of the seven families you list, "misplaced" just ONE single
nice point in ONE year over a 6,000 year span. . .

There would be 42 THOUSAND points in that area ?

Not quite that many, but you can look at our metal detecting buddies and see how many coins they find around old houses. And there was mabbe a hundred years max of occupation in that old house. So mathematically, you can multiply the amount of coins found by X amount of years if it was a site occupied for, lets say 5 thousand years. And the Indian camp sites had more then one continuous family staying there.
Some years there may have been zero use, drought, fire,lack of game, and many other factors. But still, with Paleo points, Archaic,and Pre-Historic all in the same area, there's lots more goodies just waiting for my grubby little mitts to grab hold of. I know I didn't find all of them yet.

That number would seem about right. Some might think it's a little high, but when I think about how many were found in just one day and in one small area that TJ was digging at his sites, then multiply that by how large a campsite is, it would be a good bet that in the entire site over a thousand points are scattered. And just like surface hunting, the broken points outweigh the completes by a large margin.
The site I found had to have been used more often and for longer periods of time due to the amount of Clear Forks and other scrapers. Those wouldn't be found that frequently in an overnight camp. I've found overnight camps before, still had the fire ring evident, but all I'd ever find around them were worn out or broken points.

So with all the thousands of points that could potentially be scattered thru the surface and depths, I may actually find an intact point that might have just been dropped, not one abandoned in a crisis.....

Yep, some may be hunting losses, others hidden for later use, or just lost around the camp. Dang kids ran off with a couple to play with, or fell out of the pouch. You wouldn't think that many would get lost or misplaced, but then you have to remember that you're dealing with thousands of years worth of points being made. So there's always going to be a few lost along the way.