This video you made has answered so many questions I have had in the last 40 years! I have a Cherokee heritage and live on the trail of tears in missouri, on a 2500 acre family farm I've been born and raised on. All around our hollar are hills and springs, creeks and rivers and even several artesian wells. I have spent every summer of my 48 years in that water and of chores explored every inch of it plus I've hiked every mile of woods as far as you can see. There is not one day that goes by ( weather permitting) that I am not out doors, hunting mushrooms, picking berries, ginseng, etc. through the years I have found hundreds of Indian rocks. (A lot of people say they are hunting " arrow heads" but I say Indian rocks because there are many many tools they also made and used. Most people only recognize arrow heads.) i have never took a course on archeology or ever even looked anything up about it. Everything I know about the rocks I have found, I have figured out on my own. Tonight your videos popped up on my feed. To be honest I only clicked on the video to see if science had figured out the things I had about the different worked rocks I've found. I'm not gonna lie, I was skeptical. But I was pleasantly surprised! In fact you taught me a lot of things I had wondered about for years. When you find a rock in a creek bed and it's been worked by human hands, it stands out above the rest. First thing I do it pick it up if chores and examine it. The. I hold it in my right hand then my left hand, turning the rock to where my thumb and fingers fix exactly on the dips and ledges cut into the rock for holding. Then I set on the bank outside and imagine what the ancestor would use it for. I look for scars and marks and chips and I take note of the type of rock it is. I began finding repeat shapes of the same shape of rocks. Some may be big or smaller but the design was exactly the same. I began separating them into different piles of the same tools. Luckily I figured out by handling-them all the way home what many of them were used for. For example the drills. And the scrapers. I have all different sizes of scrapers, one the size of a turtle shell. I also have several hatchets, hoes, axes, and some other piles that I haven't figured out yet.(what's the deal with the perfect worked triangles? Also those " hook" looking rocks, I got a whole box full.) I got all kinds of different knives arrowheads spearheads and several perfectly rounded rocks of different sizes I know they used for something. I have maybe six big rocks with human made wells in them where I guess they would grind stuff up. I have a small box full of these small perfectly round rocks with a hole through each one right in the middle. I found all of them within five feet of each other. The list goes on and on. There are so many things I've wondered about that you answered for me. You have no idea how much I want to thank you for taking the time to put this video on here to teach others. I would absolutely love to take an archaeology class now! You have completely changed my opinion on it. I just want to learn everything you know about this so I can take my knowledge to the creek and teach my kids and all my nieces and nephews how our native ancestors had figure out how to use what they had to do to survive, and they made it on rocks and sticks. I just don't want to teach them wrong. But we all go to the creek to walk and explore it in the summer at least once a week. P.s. I also have quite a collection specifically of " left-handed" Indian rocks. It's very obvious how to tell. If there is anyway I could do a class online I would signup now! You can bet I am going to watch every video you put out there and write down notes so I won't forget! I trust everything you have to say about them now. Your knowledge is unbelievable. Thanks again❤️
I love your videos, they're so educational, you explain everything in a way that makes it easy for people like me. So thank you, hope to learn more from you!
Great work however at 19:03 you mentioned the other was no man made. This is true for some parts of the USA. However this looks very close if not a levallois tool. Levallois style tools were preconstructed cores where only one flake was taken off. Hence leaving no flake scars on the tool itself. These were commonly used a "disposable" filleting blades by natives who didn't want to spend 2 hours of a beautiful knife that would quickly get dull. They also used them to shave amongst other quick things. But I agree, lots of paraeidolia in the artifact community and thank you for this clarification which I think everyone should watch if they intend on hunting.
I appreciate you Dr. Connie!!! I am a tribal monitor on the west coast. Your content is very helpful. Thank you so much for sharing and passing on your knowledge ❤️
The last two items you showed, could the "natural stone" simply be an example of less knapping skill or lower quality raw material? I am in Australia and the vast majority of artifacts are of the type you describe as natural occurring.
I like how she says, "made by humans," rather than the automatic "made by Indians" and its likely attendant thrill of the exotic. Gives the right perspective: humans like you and me and the guy down the street.
I constantly mess up and revert to real and fake looool, me starting out yes the dif between man-made and naturally formed rocks are that the the Indian made artifact will differ slightly from the fake rock....brain dies and wonders are flakes just big chips from what was to be a finished item yet was to large to be considered wasted materials so instead its used paraphrasing here as basically the pre era equivalent to a current handyman tool we use 2. Flakes and chips are both similar to the point that they are easily used interchangeably, 3. Flaking is are the stone or material you chip/knap*away with/are flaking two punch away the chips flint pieces and Flake. Now idk if what always to me was termed as a chip is actually a Flake and if so why are flakes but just a knife that's less reliable then if flakes have went from [ for me being chips more or less and jumped to a 2ndary knife then is a knife not just a 1 edged arrow head . Sorry for the book of convoluted questions I made you read. Have always seen it like chips and flakes both are indicators that you could find something here possibly or then knives always kinda seen these as broken parts from the tool being made or used to make then or unfinished or broken arrowhead esk item then arrowheads being the most sought after ofc tons of other items in between but yea I'm not new at rock hunting but am very green even though age 26 now had alway walked with my dad and listened to what he had said but never really made it a routine hobby but am trying to learn all the way back at the start basics by book rather than the for a lack of better words illegal way
Over the 70+ years that I've walked the earth, I have seen many hundreds of sanding stones all along the Menominee River, as the native people lived there for many thousands of years, there are tons of them that were pushed out of their resting places when they built the dams,
