Friday, January 6, 2023

Whining about how hard it is to find arrowheads in Massachusetts

I watch these YouTubes of arrowhead hunting in other parts of the US with total jealousy and almost always it is because those f*ckers have got some kind of terrain advantage. It just doesn't seem fair. So at least I should get to complain. Fact of the matter is that a good contemporary arrowhead collection from Massachusetts might have a hundred arrowheads, the ones from other places look like they must number in the thousands. Here is my list of why it is hard to find arrowheads in Massachusetts:

1. No bare dirt. Everything is covered with vegetation or dead vegetation. You are limited to farms, constructions sites, dirt roads, eroding banks, seashores. Out west, everything is exposed.

2. The creeks are all silted in from past farming and excessive fertilizer use. Our brooks have cattails along the side, not gravel banks. Down South and in the Midwest they seem to have clear creeks that cut through habitation levels. I don't know where you might find that kind of terrain in Massachusetts. Certainly not in southern MA where there are long estuaries and no bluffs (I know of).

3. Lousy tool-making materials. Best is quartz or what ever blew in on the glacier - some rhyolites. A mudstone here or there. No cherts. No obsidian. We barely have decent quartzite and basalt.

4. Sea level rise and the lack of pre-glacial archeology. When the glacier melted, this was a rugged boreal environment. Out in the great basin, it was a lush pluvial environment with plenty of arrowheads being produced. 

BUT I CANNOT FIGURE OUT WHERE TO LOOK FOR ARROWHEADS IN FALMOUTH! Is it only on Devil's Foot?

5. Finally, there just are few farms left. The land is worth more for housing. Those that remain are  "boutique" farms, often just hayfields. In the last few years there has been a move towards "regenerative farming" which forbids plowing. That means arrowhead hunters last line of defense  - the cornfield - may soon be gone. 

Then, all that will be left is the coastline and an occasional construction site. I cannot figure out the coastline. Do I have to dig? It is all very frustrating.

No comments:

Post a Comment