Some Indian Arrowheads - Almost Stepped on a Rattlesnake

I took off for a couple hours to hunt arrowheads. The weather has been nice - highs around 80, cool for Alabama this time time of year. I needed a break from working on websites, and our border collie needed to burn some energy. I just planned on hunting an area about a 1 1/2 mile from my home. It had rained some since I had been to this site, so I immediately began finding chips and flakes.

The first possible artifact that I spotted was this:



This type of thing is certainly something you won't see without looking closely. It is a scraper. You can't tell from the picture, but it is concave.



A few minutes later I aw this in the middle of the trail on a steep hill.



It is the tip of a thin arrowhead. Thin ones aren't often found whole.



I walked all the way down the hill and back up again. I didn't see this on the way down. Just a tiny portion of the arrowhead was showing. I thought I was going to pick up a chip, but an arrowhead came out of the ground.





I was pleased to find that arrowhead, and I thought that I might take another one home by venturing off the trail and hunting some bare spots in the weeds. I had found a nice arrowhead there before. I should have stayed on the trail.

I looked down at my feet and saw a HUGE coiled rattlesnake. He didn't rattle and he didn't move. I didn't think "now what do I do when I'm one foot away from a coiled rattlesnake?" I just moved out of the way in a hurry -and Daisy moved with me.

When I was clear of the snake I got positioned to take a picture, but I could get a good shot through the weeds. And I wasn't going to get close enough to get a better one.

I backed off some more and tossed a rock his way to get him to move. It didn't take much; he took off in a hurry. Big rattlesnakes are fast. Good thing they had rather run than chase.

The snake crawled into the heavy woods. When I left he was still rattling.