Re: projectile point
Bob Keeter (b_keeter@owens.ridgecrest.ca.us)
17 Sep 1996 02:42:11 GMT
joelberg (jennifer oelberger) wrote:
>my name is jennifer oelberger and i am a junior history major at
>haverford college in pennsylvania. we are in junior seminar right now, a
>class in which we have to research a historical object. i received a
>quartzite stemmed projectile point that is about 2 and 5/16" long, 1and
>1/2" wide and about 7/16" thick at the thickest point. the stem is about
>1/4 to 1/3 of the length. it has no provenance and so i do not know where
>it originally came from, although i am guessing somewhere in north america.
>i would love to hear anything you could lend to my very small amount of
>knowledge about this wonderful piece of historical evidence.
A couple of questions:
1. Is it really quartzite (a conglomeration of little fragments of quartz) or is
it smokey or white quartz? If quartzite, I think it to be a fake. Quartzite is
far too fragile for a useful point.
2. Am I right in the 0.5 inches wide and 7/16 inches thick? Is it actually about
round or did the numbers get confused? If round, it is probably not a projectile
point but rather a point used on a war club. Since these were rapidly replaced
with metal after Europeans arrived, this may provide a top end on dating the
material. As far as how far back it might go, I'm afraid that a lot of that
would be lost when it was taken out of context.
regards
bk
|