1000 year old graver

[Leland Davis]

I do archaeology work in my spare time and found this in a site on my land. It is a graver from the prairie farmer period on the plains around 1000 years ago. This one is small probably for bone or antler art instead of rock art. People were engraving on my land way before me.
Leland

 

[papart1]

nice.hope there's more

 

[Crazy Horse]

"Graver???" Looks to me to be a small arrow head probably used for small game. Got any rabbits onyour ground? :~)

 

[Leland Davis]

Nope not an arrowhead it is a graver. we have a lot of points this is made much different. the point is kind of rounded in cross section and thick would not make a very good point.

 

[monk]

i could use that. i'm probably one of the older fogies on the forum !

 

[gcleaker]

Sorry I’m with crazy horse on this one. It really looks like a game point to me as well. I have been picking up artifacts for almost 55 years now in seven states and three countries. However, I do have an open mind, and not because you can blow in my ear and put a candle out on the other side of my head either.

 

[Leland Davis]

I can't seem to get a photo that shows the profile of this.It is thick and the tip is round not flat like a point. No one knows what this was used for 1000 years ago but the same tool was being made and used in the historic period it's commonly refereed to as a graver.
gc, I have been doing this about 50 years it's habit forming the last few paid. What time period is the stuff you have.? Your area has a lot of paleo and archaic sites.

 

[gcleaker]

I consider my self very lucky to have points from every period in north America. I have only one point from the Paleoindian period that I found when I was about 7 years old in Ohio. Since then my eyes have been looking to the ground. I have been able to hunt for points New York some luck, Ohio Lots of luck, South Texas, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Panama, Mexico and Canada. I was able to find points in Texas quite often as I was working in the oil fields and always out in the brush. I was on the Arrowhead ranch once and if you could not find a point you were blind. They let me look but I was not even allowed to pick one up and put them back in place.

 

[Leland Davis]

You obviously know a lot about the subject if you had this in your hand you would know it wasn't a point. My farm has sites from the late paleo 10750 years bp by the radio carbon dates thru the archaic and prairie farmers into the historic. I was lucky enough to be raised there and was able to buy it back about 10 years ago.

 

[thughes]

Flintdoubles is correct, that certainly looks to be a graver. Gravers were used for far more than just ornamental engraving and were part of every cultures tool kit from paleo thru contact.

 

[dogcatcher]

On our ranch is a large area of flint rock supply, at the bottom of that hill is a creek. We have found all kinds of worked flint in 3 locations that must have been an Indian workshop area that they made arrows. To the south east about a mile is a farm that my daddy sharecropped on, sometimes after a rain we would go through the fresh plowed fields looking for arrowheads. We would not always find some, but it kept us kids occupied. On another place, about a mile away, we never found anything, but on the first place we almost always found at least pieces or even a complete arrowhead.

Pieces like this were found on both the pasture area with the flint outcropping and one the farm. I was always told they were mistakes or broken pieces of arrowheads,

 

[gcleaker]

It is neat to be me sometimes, I am able to admit that I can be wrong or that I am wrong

 

[Leland Davis]

gc, I wouldn't say you were wrong part of it was the angle I took the photo. Gravers are not that common you find dozens of points for every graver. Like I said before if you found this you would know right away it wasn't a point.
monk, are you sayin you could give us some insight on how these were used.

 

[troutbox]

the real question is was it a foot controlled or palm controlled......

 

[Leland Davis]

hand push

 

[Leland Davis]

Or a very early form of palm control

 

[WMS]

Another possibility would be hammer and point engraving

 

[diane b]

this is so cool. thanks for the great discussion. Diane B