Find Old Water, and There Will Be Prehistoric Indian Artifacts

Since I started this blog 18 months ago, many people have asked me how we find so many prehistoric Indian artifacts. I've sprinkled my posts with a lot of advice. If you've read all of my blog, you know more about finding artifacts that I did two years ago. Sure, I had found arrowheads before that time, but only because I stumbled across them.

When I began hunting Indian artifacts with a purpose, I learned several things. One of those things is "there's more of this stuff out there than most people think." There's so much of it that once you train your eye to spot the material that was used to manufacture the points and tools in your area, the only reason you will not find them is if you don't hunt them. It will take a few hunts to train your eye. After you've picked up a thousand chips and flakes, your eyes will be trained. Around here, in the midst of shale and sandstone, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Consider finding flakes and chips (lithic debris) successful hunts and remember where you found it. When we find more than a few chips and flakes in an area, we always eventually find finished artifacts.

Sometimes it takes awhile, but finished artifacts always eventually show up. If all you are finding is lithic debris, it could be that somebody else is hunting that spot. After rains, get there first.

The first good spot we found, we picked up a sackful of lithic debris, a couple of pieces that were once parts of tools, and some hammerstones. We didn't get much rain for several months after that, but since it was our only spot we kept hunting it until we had picked up every flake. When we finally began to get some good rains, the arrowheads started washing up. No doubt somebody had been hunting the area before we found it and either didn't know what hammerstones were or didn't care about them. Since we have been hunting the area, whoever found the spot first gave up on it. Ater each rain, we picked up up everything on the site, even the tiniest flakes. I guess they had good reason to give up. Those arrowheads look good in our frames.

Nobody knows for the number, but there were millions of Native Americans when Columbus arrived in America in 1492. Though the population gets fewer the farther back, Native Americans had already been here for 12,000 plus years. They manufactured much of what they used from stone. Doesn't it make sense that a lot of stuff is out there, and if you haven't found any, you've probably stepped on it?

If you hunt long enough, you will find artifacts everywhere imaginable. Any scraped area could turn up artifacts. But if you want to narrow your hunting down to where they are most likely to be, find water that has been there for centuries - old creeks and rivers. That's where they lived and that's where you will find it.

Once you've narrowed the places you hunt to scraped areas near water, that makes it even more impossible not to find them. Millions of Native Americans and they lived near the water. Though you can find artifacts in the creeks and rivers, the best places to hunt is above the flood plain, the closer the better.

Another type of place that is good for hunting are trails and dirt roads that "makes sense geographically to be where they are at." If a trail or road makes sense geographically today, it made sense thousands of years ago for the same reason. An example of this would be a ridge road with steep drop offs on both sides. Or a trail through a ravine. Or a pass through mountains. Or even trails around huge boulders and rock formations. If an area with any of these geographic features is near old water, that makes it more potentially productive.

It's easy to find artifacts. Many artifact hunters would want you to believe that it is as complicated as quantum physics. More often than not, the first advice from a seasoned hunter will be "go to the library and do research." Education helps you find meaning behind your finds. I have read stacks of books.

But the only things you need to know to begin finding artifacts is how to spot the lithic debris in your area, and artifacts are most likely to be found where they walked and lived.