O.K.
well here goes,my first lajita i ever found was at ledge water. the very first thought was it had a scottsbluff appearance. since then i have found several more and MY theory is we are not the only people that picked up artifacts because they looked cool. but the archaic people picked them up because it had potential to help in survival. i think the scottsbluff people's artifacts are under what you guy's in that area are finding.reusing artifacts is what i started trying to do just to get the flaking effect on my knapping.i am hearing that one of the best knappers in texas is hangin out @ chrisners. looking forward to a 1 on 1 conversation with a master.

mmmmm Ledgewater

can you post a picture and would you drink one beer for me please? lol

hi sandy...was on austin diggers and was refered to your previous posts on forum...i just recently moved to lubbock from tx hill country where i got to dig a lot for points..i actually went to texas tech a few years ago, and remember well all my arrowhead huntin spots (all surface finds)...however, since im newly schooled in midden/ mound/ burnt rock sites from hill country, im having alot of trouble locating any sign of burnt rock..im wondering if this has anything to do with the country or soil conditions etc..but nothing ive found resembles the middens im familiar with even near places im sure were campsites...any advice on locating mounds in this part of texas, or any good places to dig, or even surface hunt would be great...i havent met anyone in the area other than a few old-timers that are in to goin out and finding points...your help would be very much appreciated..thank you for your time..........cody

Pat, Your "new" theorem is great ammunition for lively debate / speculation .
Seems ever so plausable for economy aware people to reuse their flint finds.
BUT it must have been on a very small scale...consider the true stories we have all heard about the "old timers" being the first ones to just SURFACE HUNT over Indian country. Filling BUCKETS with SURFACE finds is a "normal" days find. That would indicate the ancients did not make a very serious effort to glean otherpeoples' tools over thousands of years .

Master surfacer, Te, is a classic example of this factor. He hunts south of the hill country where the soils are thinner & harder....He reports finding Early Archaic laying right next to bird points.. Thats a big span of time to be laying exposed without being recycled

i dont know why this post was brought back up anyway. its been wayy more than one beer later.

Yep Hal. When I found this spot 20 years ago I found 35 perfect points and over two hundred brokes in about 2 hours. Everything from Angostura's to Perdiz. I sure got tired of having to bend over to pick them up.
Years later I'm still finding points in the same area. And those dang Clear Forks. That must have been the Home Depot for the local tribes.

i feel for ya there T.E.you must have a on your shoulder.

I think I did. Would have hunted more but every cow in So.Tx was there thinking I had cubes in my truck and they were trying to climb into the bed looking for them.

funny how that works. i don't know wether the ranchers just choose those spots cause there flat or they have been feeding there for years and the traffic erosion has opened up definate camp sites or both, but i've seen that on way more than one occasion.

It was next to a creek and I'm thinking that thousands of years of ash from the campfires on the banks sterilzed the soil and erosion took all the top soil off clear down to the hard pan. A wide strip with no weeds or brush is perfect to dump out range cubes.

its just the destruction of 1000's of years of history. and the historians and archeologists don't like us because we dig or surface and TAKE from so called knowledge. but yet we are proud of what we find, post it with the where's and such for ALL to see. it does'nt get any better'n that in my book. America should be littered with museums of indian artifacts, for ALL to see, from all the research the higher ed's have boxed up for no one to see. there are tons of lakes and streams that public has access to but its illeagle to even pick it up. WHY? thanks to all that post on this site there is still HOPE. okay i will get off my now.
i bet if an archeologist were to walk up on a 100$ bill he would'nt leave it on the ground for another more qualified person to come by and pick it up......

Even though it's slightly more than " 1 beer later " but an interesting topic and here's a spinoff conundrum.

Not bending over to pickup a discarded point for reuse is one thing but how about not taking the 4 minutes it takes to resharpen / reshape a point that is already hafted but just broke ?
Everyone reading these pages has some "heartbreaker" huge base. plenty of meat left to repoint and
keep shooting. Why didn't they ?
We also have the other side of the story, the rediculously resharpened down points that must have been a favorite of the owner ( OR a very lazy owner )

I've found a couple of reworked points there but the majority of the completes hadn't been touched. Though the So.Tx. points have some size to them they don't stand a chance against their hill country brethren in size. Mabbe the smaller size made it difficult to rework. Easier to just make a new one. That or they were too busy knocking out Clear Forks to waste time re-tipping their bullets.