What Have Been Your Best Personal Discoveries?

So I'm an avid rockhound and I love to search for stone tools and other stone artifacts. I live in Texas near a river that once hosted thousands of natives along it's hundreds of miles of banks. I found my first stone point along this river. Using an overstreet typology guide I decided my point was most likely 3-5 thousand years old and made in either far Eastern Oklahoma or Louisiana. Best find of my life. Killer point. Still sharp enough to cut steak. Also very thin when compared to the dozens of other points I've seen. Source rock seems to be some sort of chert. I also personally know a family that owns a portion of a canyon that is also home to a Texas state park. While exploring his land is the late 1960's, the landowner discovered a cave with the skeletal remains of what appeared to be a native american and a few of his possessions. Word got out about the remains and the landowner decided it would be best to relocate the remains so that looters or thieves trespassing on his land wouldn't be tempted to steal the remains. I don't think he should have removed them or told anyone about them, but he did and now they are collecting dust under a bed in one of his structures.

So tell me a bit about your best finds while exploring the vast lands of our planet. I'd love to get some contribution from people in different continents so we can compare the frequency and style of the finds. Rocks, gold nuggets, fossils, artifacts, glass medicine bottles from the 1800's, stone tools, if you've found it and think it's cool tell us a bit about it and where and how you found it.

a reply to: Imhotepic

A very badly mangled but very recognizable Megalodon tooth fossil while living in Oregon. And a stone arrowhead I found on a visit to New Mexico one summer when I was like 9 or 10. Lent it to my oldest brother so he could show his friends. It's been 37 years, I'm still waiting for him to give it back

The tooth? Hmmmm... I have no idea lol, what became of it. It's been almost 13 years...

Fascinating thread! Unfortunately I have never found anything very amazing.

Slayer, I bet you're kicking yourself in the butt now for not having those items.

Imhotepic, do you have any pics of any of your discoveries?

I was a rock hound back in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s; been all over the States but most of the rock hounding was in Southern California, Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico.

I've got hundreds of obsidian arrowheads, stone ax heads, grinding stones for maize, mixing stones for paint, Indian baskets, some bought and some found, a 100 lb metate (?) that I carried several miles out of the desert when I was a LOT younger; many fossils and what looks like petrified wood. There's a place near the border of S. California where you can walk in and there's PILES of obsidian chips mounded up, where people stopped, sat down on a rock and chipped out arrowheads.

The wife was a shell collector and we had 10s of 1000s of them at one time, but they've all been donated to a museum in Monterey, California.

a reply to: Imhotepic

My oldest is a an iron arrowhead, most likely made and used by vikings, based on location, (Norway) and the shape.

Most interesting for me, are animal skulls, i am a collector.

Does our vast lands include old desks? Cleaning out my parents huge house I discovered one 6 carat diamond ring and another gorgeous 4 carat gorgeous diamond ring. Hated my stepfather. Traded them for a great car-don't care about jewelry. Felt good-40 years of payback. True.

a reply to: Night Star

I'd love to post some pics, but I'm not sure how to. My apologies, I am a brand new member.

a reply to: solve

You might be interested in this site (the cryptozoology specimens are cool)

www.skullsunlimited.com...

originally posted by: Night Star
Slayer, I bet you're kicking yourself in the butt now for not having those items.

Well, both losses were self inflicted.

The arrowhead, trusting my brother to give it back and the tooth?

I had a pretty active "drinking career" going at the time. It could have ended up anywhere.

Joe Arthurs and I found a Native skeleton in the Novato Creek back in 1974. This was determined to be a Miwok Indian a tribe native to the North coast of California, in what is now Marin, Sonoma County.

The skeleton is now housed in the Native American Museum right at Miwok Park in Novato, Ca.

We were down at the creek to check out the high waters and because the creek made way into new areas, the dirt was washed away revealing the skeleton. This actually led to more education re: the Miwok Indians at least in the Novato School District's curriculum.

a reply to: SentientCentenarian

Man you sound like one cool old guy I'd like to hear some stories from... Rockhounding in the 1930s. I'm envious. You should post some of your wild tales that happened out in the bush looking for artifacts.

a reply to: SentientCentenarian

Nice,

Yeah, as a teen I used to do a lot of hunting, hiking and motocross in the Californian high deserts, We befriended an old hermit in an area we frequented who we'd visit twice yearly or so who had over the past previous decades amassed a great deal of finds.


We're talking some really old, old, stuff. Things I hadn't seen until a visit to the Smithsonian...

originally posted by: Imhotepic
a reply to: SentientCentenarian

Man you sound like one cool old guy I'd like to hear some stories from... Rockhounding in the 1930s. I'm envious. You should post some of your wild tales that happened out in the bush looking for artifacts.

Not many wild tales - most of the time I was with the family. Probably the best part was staying up all night with the telescope. Back in those days there wasn't any such thing as light pollution.

a reply to: Imhotepic

An 1850's whaling harpoon found washed up on the beach.

a reply to: DBCowboy

Nice find! Do you still have it?

originally posted by: Imhotepic
a reply to: DBCowboy

Nice find! Do you still have it?

Yes. It's the iron front part (how we identified it), the wood shaft obviously gone. Very rusted. We thought it was a bit of furniture or something at first, but my sons metal detector targeted it, so we took it home as a "treasure".

a reply to: Imhotepic

Several years ago, while working on a construction site, we were unloading crushed stone to bed out a rail road spur through the building. Suddenly something tumbled from the back of a truck which caught my eye. I grabbed it up and told another guy, "Hey, look! A chunk of gold!" I really thought it was just some iron pyrite or "fools' gold".

I stuck in my lunch box too take it home to show the kids. I dumped it out in the floor of my car and forgot about it, until a few days later when the other guy ask me about it. We took it to a jeweler and had him test it. I was right after all. The rock contained almost an ounce of pure gold.

I have it in a jar at home .

S&F

a reply to: tinymind

That's excellent. If you haven't already seen the videos, I'd suggest watching videos of what metal detector enthusiasts and rockhounds call "sunbakers", or nuggets of gold that lie exposed on the surface waiting to be grabbed by anyone who notices them. A lot of good YouTube videos have been uploaded of people just picking up nuggets worth several thousand dollars.

I found a gold Rolex on Padre Island Texas using one of these.