Volcanic glass and spent brass

[utah yote]

I was driving down a dirt road last fall and stopped to look across a sagebrush flat with higher terrain on the other side. The higher terrain looked like a good place to make a stand.
When walking through sage brush you can pretty much double the estimated distance from point A to point B. There is no straight line. I just wasn't into it that day. I almost got back in the truck and drove on. I decided to go thinking I might learn something.


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At the base of the hill I'm surprised to find a totally hidden narrow flat bottom wash with steep sides that ran for 3 miles. Coyotes were using it like a highway. I decided to trap the wash that year instead of calling. I found a way in with an atv where the wash crossed a dirt road and did pretty good until winter really set in. I just don't do frozen traps very well.



I also learned the area was rich in volcanic class and signs of the first hunters in North America.




I have great admiration for those ancient people. The ability to make tools for survival using volcanic glass cast upon the landscape from exploding volcanoes thousands of years ago.

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This spring was the key to their survive. Without it they move through the landscape without a trace.

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I can imagine the people that made those tools and lived by the spring would at night listen to the sounds of the ancestors of the young female the came to my jack distress and ended her short life not far from the steep sided wash where she was born.

What trace will we leave behind? I usually police my brass but I made a conscious decision to place it by a piece of obsidian. I like to think I have something in common with them but I don't know.



For the record I do not remove anything from public land. Just not right.

 

[Infidel 762]

Yeah, I really like your perspective... I bet our brass casings will not hold their form as long as the obsidian tools.. if another species evolves after man with archeological and scientific means, I wonder if their interpretations of our modern society will be somewhat of a quagmire..

I really like your post

 

[Plant.One]

very cool stuff

 

[DAA]

Good on ya. I don't remove anything either. Anymore. I did when I was much younger. Wish I hadn't, but too late now.

- DAA

 

[TheBig1]

Great story and visual. It's reasons such as that why I love the outdoors. You can almost transport back in time and see things for what they were.

 

[AdamT]

Great story, thanks

 

[SixsixtyMags]

Great story also, but I know if I found obsidian arrowheads I just couldn't resist "saving" them!
We have a federal park along the Delaware river where you aren't allowed to remove artifacts. There are plowed fields all along it that are loaded with Indian relics, seems like they would rather have intact points get broken instead of someone picking them up and preserving them, to me that makes no sense. I can see not being allowed to dig sites for them, but to pick them up on the surface should be allowed if only to preserve them. JMO!

 

[Decashade]

Awesome pictures and great story!

 

[utah yote]

Originally Posted By: SixsixtyMagsGreat story also, but I know if I found obsidian arrowheads I just couldn't resist "saving" them!
We have a federal park along the Delaware river where you aren't allowed to remove artifacts. There are plowed fields all along it that are loaded with Indian relics, seems like they would rather have intact points get broken instead of someone picking them up and preserving them, to me that makes no sense. I can see not being allowed to dig sites for them, but to pick them up on the surface should be allowed if only to preserve them. JMO!


If the arrowheads are on private land it's ok. I have one I found on my own property. Taking arrowheads from public land is where you can get into trouble.

 

[DAA]

Originally Posted By: SixsixtyMagsI can see not being allowed to dig sites for them, but to pick them up on the surface should be allowed if only to preserve them. JMO!


Plowed fields on private ground, not anything I can even relate with. All the stuff I find is on public land that is pretty un-civilized. I guess I can see why picking stuff up out of a plowed field would be no harm, no foul. Might as well, it's legal and the context that might provide some knowledge is long destroyed anyway.

But to me they have no meaning once they leave the context of where they were found. That goes extra double for the thousands upon thousands hidden away forever in the dusty archives of museums. Archaeologists and museums are the worst offenders...

When I was young, I thought finding an artifact was such a neat experience, and that taking it home with me would somehow preserve that experience. But, it didn't. The arrowheads and stuff I picked up, I look at very rarely and it stirs nothing in me when I do look at them. You can buy fake ones at roadside tourist traps in the southwest that look just the same and would have just as much value sitting in a box on a shelf in my house.

By leaving them, I lose nothing. But maybe someone else will get to see them and will enjoy the experience I've already had. And maybe, in the future, a more sophisticated and enlightened archaeologist than the ones of my time, will obtain some useful data, by observing the artifact in context.

Some that are hopefully still where I first saw them...

- DAA

 

[utah yote]

Originally Posted By: DAAOriginally Posted By: SixsixtyMagsI can see not being allowed to dig sites for them, but to pick them up on the surface should be allowed if only to preserve them. JMO!


Plowed fields on private ground, not anything I can even relate with. All the stuff I find is on public land that is pretty un-civilized. I guess I can see why picking stuff up out of a plowed field would be no harm, no foul. Might as well, it's legal and the context that might provide some knowledge is long destroyed anyway.

But to me they have no meaning once they leave the context of where they were found. That goes extra double for the thousands upon thousands hidden away forever in the dusty archives of museums. Archaeologists and museums are the worst offenders...

When I was young, I thought finding an artifact was such a neat experience, and that taking it home with me would somehow preserve that experience. But, it didn't. The arrowheads and stuff I picked up, I look at very rarely and it stirs nothing in me when I do look at them. You can buy fake ones at roadside tourist traps in the southwest that look just the same and would have just as much value sitting in a box on a shelf in my house.

By leaving them, I lose nothing. But maybe someone else will get to see them and will enjoy the experience I've already had. And maybe, in the future, a more sophisticated and enlightened archaeologist than the ones of my time, will obtain some useful data, by observing the artifact in context.

Some that are hopefully still where I first saw them...

- DAA



I agree completely and that spear point is spectacular!

 

[Dropadoglv]

Great story and pics Al. Think last time we hunted together you found an arrowhead? Keep attem. Regards, Drop

 

[DesertRam]

Wow guys, great pictures! Thanks for taking us along into some of your treasured places. I've had the good fortune to see some nice ruins and artifacts in their "natural" settings.

 

[JTPinTX]

Very good story and write up. Like several others here, I like your perspective.

 

[atd]

Thanks for the pictures and write up. Just took down a very old copy of "Riders Of The Purple Sage". Dang it the Snook are biting. Oh well.