Although recent flooding has caused considerable damage, some use the power of moving water to their advantage. Arrowhead collectors, also known as head hunters, tend to find large quantities of Native American artifacts after major flooding.
This is my twenty-third year hunting the rivers, streams, and fields of New York for Native American artifacts. As a child, I found my first arrowheads or points in the states of Virginia and North Carolina. I never knew how an old stone could cause so much excitement until finding my first hand-made tool. At the age of 13, I moved to New York and brought my passion for artifact hunting with me.
I, as many local artifact hunters, was fortunate to meet the father of amateur archeology in our area, Mr. Ted Whitney. My story plays out the same as most who were lucky enough to meet this irreplaceable piece of our local history.
I wandered into the Rexford Street Museum on a hot summer day in 1990. The reason being that it contained a substantial collection of native artifacts. I was invited in by Mr. Whitney, and found myself in the midst of a crash course in archeology. He explained how and where to look for artifacts, but left the exact locations as to where to find them out. He told me that native peoples’ lives revolved around water systems, and that artifacts would likely be found in close proximity to these areas.
He then took a white-tailed deer antler and a piece of local chert, low quality flint, and proceeded to chip a crude point in minutes. I was hooked. I begun to save the chert flakes that I found, and through an immense amount of trial and error, I begun chipping points and knife blades of my own. He finished his tutorial by taking me next door to what was the big red house at the left of the museum. He let me throw some atlatl darts at a target, and filled me in on the weapons history.
The atlatl is a stick approximately 24 inches long with a hook or spur at the distal end. A long arrow, known as a dart, is placed onto the spur using a concave depression at the feather end of the shaft. Darts reaching up to seven feet were able to be thrown using the atlatl at high velocity in comparison to a hand-thrown spear.
He explained how the atlatl preceded the bow and arrow, and that it had been used for over 10,000 years. He also showed me some dart points, which are commonly confused for knife blades because of their large size. The darts were thrown with great efficiency and power to harvest game as large as the mastodon. Ancient people, known as Paleo Indians, had been known to throw the dart with such strength that the large Clovis points they used have been found embedded in the hip bones of mastodon. Quite an impressive feat considering these large points had to penetrate the hair, three inches of hide, and finally 12 inches of muscle before even reaching the bone.
I left with a new understanding of ancient people and a general idea of where to find their stone tools. I immediately began looking in fields, streams, and the Chenango River for points. After a short time, I found it possible to find sites which yielded several points per day. I quickly was able to locate quality sites, which I continue to hunt.
Shortly after the flood of 2005, I found that the river can remove several feet of top soil. This tends to leave points and pottery behind, sometimes in large quantities. After the flood waters receded, I set a record of 31 points found in one day. I count broken tips, bases, and midsections, as plows and moving rocks tend to smash points to bits.
The flood of 2005 offered my best find thus far. A pottery dump was located in a river cut which yielded approximately 2,000 pieces of native pottery and numerous points. The site was later studied by The Chenango Chapter of the New York State Archeological Association, and named after myself, The Sheldon Site.
I met up this past Saturday with a couple of my head hunting buddies, Chris and Ben Miner. Chris and I found the pottery dump together, and were excited to look again for another substantial find. Ben has only been hunting artifacts for a few years now, but was still able to find several points. Chris found at least 20, and I broke my previous record finding 43 in a single day, although only 15 were whole.
I think often of Mr. Whitney while looking for and reproducing artifacts. I have heard similar stories about Ted from a bunch of people, most of which I have met while head hunting. He passed away not long after I met him, but he will continue to be a large part of mine and many other peoples lives. Good wishes and happy head hunting.
For questions or comments about this article, Sheldon may be reached by email at jsheldones@gmail.com.