Posted on 01/02/2007 3:24:53 PM PST by blam
Missouri man reels in ancient fish hook<
Associated Press
COLUMBIA, Mo. - A man hunting for American Indian artifacts with his sons along a gravel bar on the Missouri River has uncovered an ancient fishhook that is making collectors envious.
"The first thing I thought is, 'I hope this isn't metal,'" said Eric Henley, who found the hook last month near McBaine. "When I picked it up, there was a pretty good jump for joy and a couple of 'whoops' and yells. It's the cream of the crop."
The hook is made of bone and covers his entire palm, making it much larger than most bone hooks.
Joe Harl, of the Archaeological Research Center of St. Louis, said the size of the hook suggests the fisherman who used it was after a larger fish.
Another artifact collector, Kenny Bassett, said the large size of the hook might indicate an earlier origin. American Indians used bigger rocks and tools in earlier periods to hunt larger game such as wooly mammoths. He said the hook could have been used to fish for pallid sturgeon or enormous catfish.
Bassett, who works with Henley, said he had to control his envy when he saw the oversized hook.
"I've been hunting" American Indian artifacts "for 30 years and never found anything so identifiably unique. I've never seen anything like it," Bassett said.
Because bone matter deteriorates rapidly, bone artifacts typically have to be buried deep enough in the ground to be preserved. And they are usually found during archaeological digs, said Bill Iseminger, assistant site manager at Cahokia Mounds State Historical Site in Illinois.
Harl said sandier soil in spots along the river might have kept the hook preserved. He said the hook could be anywhere from 300 to 12,000 years old.
Henley, a maintenance man at the University of Missouri-Columbia, has no plans to learn the hook's exact age. Carbon dating the item would require drilling through the fragile bone, and he doesn't want to risk ruining the hook.
Henley credits his sons, 11 and 6, for being good-luck charms because he made the discovery on the first trip the boys had joined their dad for an artifact hunt.
"Now every time I go, they're going to be there."
Were they on your own private property or some other private property you had permission to collect from?
I assume you do believe in property rights.
I'm amazed at the skill & craftmanship it took to make something of that quality out of bone with ancient tools.
Yes it was on private property, and I had permission to to collect there.
I vote that it be a million years old
Lot's of old holdings all over this country go to the center of the river. You will find the same on very old country roads. Where the land owners on both side's own to the center of the road and the state and or county has an easement. Go to the court house and look up Boone lake, you'll find ownership to the center of the old river bed under the lake.
Good for you.
You should contact your state archaeologist's office and find out how you can report your finds. It not only helps the archaeologists, but can make wherever you found the artifacts less desirable for future development.
BTW--if you found a hollow ball filled with black powder (it will feel light for its size) I strongly reccomend you call the nearest military base and tell them about it. They are not to be dealt lightly with. Even after more than a century, if you sneeze croswise at one it just might blow you to bits.
OR, it was simply owned by a guy who had no use for it whatever but who subscribed to the theory that "size matters."
I can hear Planned Parenthood now, "It was an ancient abortion device"...
Why can't I have a casino ?
Yeah, they'll do anything for attention and acceptance.
Yea lets arrest folks for picking up arrowheads,fossils,old coins ect that they find on the riverbank or beach ...what a arrogant statement
That guy you'll see digging in your back yard tomorrow morning with a metal detector--That'll be me!
Apples and oranges
if someone picks up a 1854 coin on a river bank does that mean they should be arrested ?
Thank you for the warning, but this would be called canister shot.... 2.5 inches, about a pound and a half. They would load between 2 and 16 in a cannon and fire all at once. It feels heavy for its size.
We live in an area where a major battle of the civil war took place. There are many more important, well documented areas to protect from development, which a local historical group is working on. This ball was probably dropped (or fired) coming or going to the battle.
In the meantime, I assume that the Indian artifacts are because the area is next to a river, (not a burial site, more likely a village area) and two historical areas overlapped.
You're making some good comments. What's your background? You seem to know something about archaeology.
Coyoteman (a professional archaeologist)
(FRmail if you want)
Or maybe it was a meat hook from an ancient tribal meat locker; used for hanging mammoth haunches or smoking buffalo tongues.
It fianlly washed downstream from the headwaters of the Little Missouri River, in SE Montana; or maybe from around Buffalo, SD....?
OTOH, it could have been the weapon du jour of an Amerind "Freddy Kruger" or the missing artificial hand of 'The Terror of the Teepees Murderer'.
Property rights vary widely from state to state. FYI, here in Missouri, we have close to 55,000 miles of streams & waterways, 93% of which is under private ownership, so chances are he WAS on private land. Don't know, otherwise, the article didn't say. By the way, as a Missourian, and being part (very small part) Native American (PC for Cherokee), that IS my heritage and I don't mind. A sandbar along a stream ain't an "aboriginal" grave, so maybe you should unwad your panties till all the facts are in.
Oh no, Here comes the dictionary police.
(Holding it in the air) This, class, is what a well designed fish hook looks like. You can see the important details that separate this from a mediocre hook. Take a good look, because, tomorrow, you will each be required to bring to class a gopher's rib....
OT(Still)OOOH, it may just be the proverbial archaeologist's delight, A RITUAL OBJECT!
Your post, presumably made in jest, holds a lot of truth.
As an archaeologist, I am constantly finding things I don't understand but have to try to interpret. The "ritual object" you cite is funny because it was so overused in the past as to become a source of amusement nowdays.
But what about some of our current interpretations?
This is the kind of thing that keeps many of us up nights, when we should be sleeping.
There are a few things we can do. This fishhook could be dated, for about $675. That would give a pretty accurate age. Sorry, I don't buy the 300-12,000 range. Folks should be able do to better than that.
We have a particular shell fishhook in my area which is supposed to span some 3,000 or more years. We have dated five, and have a better estimate of the actual range. So far its less than half of that, but at least we have some solid data to go on. More dates will surely expand that range, but now we are dealing with data rather than conjecture.
But those darn ritual objects... What are we gonna do with them?
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