Featured Arrowheads?

I couldn’t figure out where to list this one. I thought maybe tools but then changed my mind.

Does anyone know anything about these arrowheads? I thought maybe they were flint. Are they the real thing? I found them at an estate sale (Texas) so I have no clue where they came from.
They are photographed on ordinary printer paper, so that should help with the size. Thanks!

 

They look legit
History of where they came from is the bulk of the value
Estate sale don't count
The tiny are arrow, the larger are spear

 

Thanks a bunch! I was wondering if the bigger ones might be spears. And I was afraid that not knowing where they came from would lessen the value. Does the stone they are made from matter at all?

 

Some materials can be traced to origin but they were also widely traded
I have found coral and turquoise beads around looted 2000 year old mounds in Minnesota
Michigan copper was traded as far as Tierra del Fuego

 

Chert.

 

That’s it. Thanks!

 

Browen beat me to it -Chert! some are broken on the bottom.

 

We hunt arrow heads and axe heads on our farm. Our creek bed is about 90% chert. The glaciers came with in 5 miles of our farm . we also find Mammoth tooths along with many fossils. When the glaciers began to melt (10,000 years ago), this area would have been lush with growth. So the NA would hunt along here. Chert was valuable so they would stay and and create tools . Some would have just been the beginnings of tools that they would take with them to trade or work later. We find chips of chert 6" deep where they would have worked over the centuries.

 

Quite a few of these are chipped. Did Native Americans primarily use chert? Or did they use other types of stone as well?

 

Any stone that would cleave properly was used. Chert was most common. Some agate use can be found around here. Obsidian in the Pacific Northwest.

 

Well technically they are all chipped! Our chert is Burlington chert which is tan, orangish and red.

 

Having worked at a Natural History Museum, I can tell you that real naturalists and diggers (aka archaeologists) will nitpick about provenance. There are also people who make their own arrowheads and teach classes. Unless they have a provenance, some folks won't buy them

 

I didn’t look super close but these don’t look like they have been excavated. Unless they were cleaned really well. People make tens of thousands of these every year both for fun and to fool the market. Kind of like Chinese porcelain. I believe the bow and arrow was a pretty late addition to the Native American repertoire. Most points that people call arrow heads are spear tips, the spears often being “thrown” with an atlatl.

 

Never found one that needed cleaning here. Usually found on the surface or in water and been cleaned by nature for years.

 

I was wondering about that. I thought people might try making their own. I can see that it might be fun for some people to try. Especially if they could make some money at it. I have found a couple arrowheads of my own when I was younger. I found them hiking in various places. I don’t remember them looking much different than these.

 

Fair enough. I’ve never found one in the wild. This is a thing that I collect but know next to nothing about. I buy small collections from old estates. I’m a metal detectorist and constantly keep my eyes open for a point. It’s my dream find really. There are areas of the country one would be much more apt to find them in though. My fingers will remain crossed. Something about the the photo supplied would make me wonder about them. A little too sharp and pointy but maybe the collector only chose better examples. My collections have more broken points than intact ones. The intact ones mostly aren’t as sharp and pointy as these. I think they’d be worth showing to someone who knows their stuff.

 

That’s awesome that you’ve found some. I hope that day will come for me. I was walking through the souther CA desert with a Native American man once. He found one on our walk. He said they kind of jump out at him so to speak and that he finds them often.

Working stone is probably a fun hobby. Also useful if shit totally hits the fan probably. People sell them described accurately as new and some in a more shady way. Nothing ethically wrong with selling new ones but it will muddy the waters for collectors. Particularly since the medium is notoriously hard to date to begin with. I think it was Christie’s that basically stopped giving specific dates to Chinese jades. Like they may say Ming or Qing but they don’t try to narrow it down much more than that usually because of trouble they’ve had in the past. It could be a different auction house I’m thinking of but they had put more narrow date ranges on jades in the past and had it backfire.

 

Both that I found as a child I no longer have (river beds in central texas, and Utah). My brother broke one, and someone took the other. I totally hear you about the sharper edges. I mainly bought these as a learning experience. I didn’t pay much for them. And I greatly appreciate everyone’s input. I don’t want to sell anything that is fake, but I have been seeing a great deal of these lately and wanted some input. There are so many people on this forum that know so much. Hopefully I can absorb just a small amount.

 

My sons learned how to knap arrowheads years ago in the Boy Scouts. There is a lot of info about modern flint knappers online,this site a a little about everything ... clubs,supplies,classes,etc.

https://flintknappers.com/

 

Although the heading says "Arrowheads?" it was already pointed out that some are the points for spears, but some are scrapers or other tools, used for purposes that we may not even be aware of today. (Only a few can be positively classified as "arrowheads.")

And I've found that flint knappers today seldom make copies of scrapers and other tools (unless for re-enactments), focusing instead on making arrowheads and spear points, since they sell better! So finding scrapers and tools in a collection, is actually an indication that the collection is authentically old.