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."
If that were the case, then his recovery of the item would be legal. I don't have a problem with what he did. I was just pointing out that in many situations, what he did was illegal. He would have been fine if it were found on private land with the owner's permission.
Semi jest.
Harl's "interpretation" about big fish was just too pat; and just plain non-thoughtful. There are really several possible valid interpretations, IF any time were actually spent considering the object and its milieu.
The time frame given must have made you, as a professional, cringe even more than the rest of us.
Anytime from Clovis to what, Late Woodland? is pretty broad.
As for "ritual object", as trite and silly as it seems, it DOES remain a valid possibility: use in a fishing ritual, much as (so it's been hypothesized) cave paintings of animals were used in hunting magic in other times & places.
IIRC, several Amerind tribes did have hunting rituals that included sacred arrows. A sacred Hook for use during a "sturgeon dance" doesn't seem out of the question.
Could have even been brought back to his tribe as a souvenir by a traveler, or, conversely, left as a gift by a visitor from another area.
I just thought it was funny to turn the tables on Harl, and point out the 'ritual object' chestnut, since he was shooting from the hip, so to speak.
I had the Lower Division classes and have had a couple of Upper Division classes in archeology/anthropology in the early 70s, but never finished. At that time, it turned out to be too political for me. Probably still is.
I went into construction for a while, instead.
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Ten years as a shovel bum and everything except the thesis for a MS in anthro.
Some one got up on the wrong side of the rock...
and,..... it might be a hoax.
You know, I am not 100% in love with your tone right now.
LOL!
Yes.
"Well, gee, this fishhook was made sometime between the glaciers and the period after first European settlement".
No! Ya think?
I guess you're just stuck with giant carp and mango salsa then....
Yep. As would I have.
Yep, it could have been muskie. I was thinking catfish too.
I need to get one of those the next time I go fishing, and the Rapala looks pretty good too. LOL.
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