indian arrow heads

Well.........I found one when I was a kid playing in my mom's garden. I thought it was the coolest thing. As I got older I became convinced that my mom put it there for me to find. She never 'fessed up though. LOL. I still have it.

Steve
 

Teegate

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I found a partial one in my moms neighbor's dirt driveway in Marlton. But I had an advantage since Marlton is known for Indian artifacts especially in the Savage Farm area where there were digs in the late 60's and early 70's concerning the Indian encampment that was located there. I also kept it and still have it.

My great grandfather found one in Repaupo while digging in his back yard and gave it to me. But I have never found one in the pines, or for that matter known anyone who has.

Guy
 
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bach2yoga

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I've found a projectile point before, twice in the last year actually, and while I was out with my sister she found one of the stones that the Lenapes used for straightening their arrows.
One of the best collections is down here in Bridgeton, it's called the Woodruff collection with several thousand articles in it.
Renee
 
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bach2yoga

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Original People of Cumberland County
One fine autumn day a ten year old boy and his mother were picking up chestnuts across the road from their home in Woodruff, New Jersey, when he found an arrowhead among the leaves. His mother explained that the Indians had once lived in the area and had made such arrowheads for use in their hunting. This sparked the interest in George Woodruff that led to his lifelong hobby of collecting Indian artifacts from all over southern New Jersey. He became an authority on the subject and was a charter member of the Archeological Society of New Jersey which was formed in Trenton in 1937.
The George J. Woodruff Collection comprises 20,000 specimens displayed in a museum which is open to school groups, scouts, and any interested organizations.

A very real factor in the success of anyone hunting Indian artifacts is knowing where to look. The Indians located their villages and campsites near a stream where transportation was readily available. We have learned much as to where and how they lived by hunting and digging along the streams of this area. These include the Cohansey and Maurice Rivers and their tributaries, which flow out into the Delaware Bay.

We are able to find evidence of an encampment by locating fragments of pottery and fireplace stones. We look for chips of stone, rejects, and problematical materials (unfinished stone artifacts). Surface hunting is easier when a field has been freshly plowed, and especially after a soaking rain. While it may be true that Indian artifacts are more difficult to find today, the Indians lived in Cumberland County for thousands of years, and their artifacts are still being found throughout the area. With interest and determination anyone can become a collector of tools or implements once used by the "Original People of Cumberland County".

Renee
 

BorderWalker

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Jun 26, 2003
46
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Middlesex, NJ
From “The Indians and Ocean County.†The Archeological Society of New Jersey. Bulletin 1. July 1948.

"[...] shovel and got only some small shards, a few flakes of jasper, a large fragment of deer antler and several blisters. The heap was fairly well mutilated when I got there, so I hope someone found something besides shells. A few hundred yards to the south and west of Scaley Pot, on another haying-road, are two long, low mounds. I have been told that bones and teeth are found in them, but personally have done no digging there.

Continuing south along the shore we come to Cedar Creek. Crossing over to the south point we find Site 21, a fair-sized round shell­heap near a small, sandy beach (33-13-4-1-1). On this beach I picked up forty quartz and jasper arrowpoints and two drills, before a northeast storm washed the beach completely away, leaving only black, caked mud to tilt, edges of the meadow.

Crossing over the meadow from the first shellheap, we find Site 22, a higher mound about half-way to the mainland (33-12-6-3-2) ; then about one hundred yards west we find Site 23, a. long, low mound that reaches almost to the western edge of the meadow (33-12-6­2-3:3-1 ). Shells can be found the length of the mound, but I have not heard of anyone who actually excavated for Indian relics, Where there are so many shell deposits there must be a camp site. The nearest that I have heard of, and have called Site 24, is to the west along the south side of Cedar Creek, where Lanoka is located (33-12-3-7-7). Leon­ard Mathews, who was born in Lanoka, told the that as a boy lie used to go to a sandy knoll south of the present road to the Lanoka dock, pick up chunks of flint as big as your fist and strike sparks with them. A casual survey would now show that the knoll is so grown over with scrub oaks that it would be difficult to find anything.

The late Harold Brinley, also a native of Lanoka, told me that one day when lie was a boy swimming in Cedar Creek, he dived from the old wagon bridge, which was to the east of the new highway bridge, and brought tip a large grooved ax. There is quite an expanse of high ground at this spot, and it is possible that a camp site was located here.

Following the stream westward about three miles, we come to Site 25, the main place along Cedar Creek for large artifacts. The site, now the property of the Double Trouble Company, was at one time the north shore of a large lake or a much larger stream than the present-day Cedar Creek (33-1-9-9-9;:2-7-7-7). The rea­son for this belief is the large number of net­sinkers that have been taken from the irrigation ditches of the bogs. The sinkers are rec­tangular-shaped, flat pieces of rock, averaging 8 x 3, with a notch on each side. Numer­ous pestles and grooved axes have been found on this site, and also some round perforated stones, either net-sinkers or game stones. Ed­ward Crabbe, the owner of the bogs, has a col­lection of these stones, and lie thinks they were used in some kind of a game.

Richard Evans, one of the shovel operators on the most recent dam, showed me four pestles, three axes and a stone that would have been an ax if finished, with one row of pecking marks around it, All were found in the gravel hank where he was digging, except for one long pestle made of what looked like blue clay. He said he pulled it from an irrigation ditch, and that it was as soft as putty when he brought it from the water, but when it dried it was just as hard as the regular stone pestles he had. The peculiar part of these finds is the lack of village evidence. They come from an ordinary gravel bank with no visible humus or shell fragments to show signs of occupation. It may be that this particular knoll along the water was used by the women for manufacturing kitchen imple­ments, and they buried them there for finishing or until they were ready to use them. I do not think one squaw would care to carry many around with her with all the other articles she had to pack on her back.

About a mile from this site there is another field cleared from the forest where Reed Tilton plowed out two pestles (33-1-9-8-5,6). Al­though the field has been plowed and re-plowed and enlarged, not another thing has been un­covered, although I have designated it as Site 26. These Indians also may have been the same group who made the shellheaps at Pine­wald and Cedar Creek. Both locations are directly cast along Cedar Creek and within easy walking or dugout distance from the Double Trouble Site.

From the evidence lying between Mosquito Cove and Cedar Creek, a lot of which has not yet been found, I think the Indians enjoyed Ocean County for a long time, and just because they liked oysters, clams and fish I object to people referring to them as a "low order of fish­eaters." Rather, I would say, they were bountifully blessed by nature and, until the white man put in his appearance, took full ad­vantage of their resources."

I posted a scan of the map with the reference points here. Hope that helps.

--T
 
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Tash329

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Nov 9, 2003
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Monmouth Co. NJ
Though not the Pines, Sunset beach in Cape May has yielded many. Over the past years, myself as well as others have found have found much there.
Rich
 
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bach2yoga

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Tash329 said:
Though not the Pines, Sunset beach in Cape May has yielded many. Over the past years, myself as well as others have found have found much there.
Rich

I love that place! We've found some great stones and such there over the years!

Renee
 

diggersw

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Dec 4, 2003
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Just as a cautionary note, it is illegal (at many official levels) to remove any artifacts from park land of any sort. Also, when artifacts are found the site should be reported to, minimally, the county historical commission or historical society. I would hate to see anybody end up in jail like those people out in Las Vegas.
 
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bach2yoga

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diggersw said:
Just as a cautionary note, it is illegal (at many official levels) to remove any artifacts from park land of any sort. Also, when artifacts are found the site should be reported to, minimally, the county historical commission or historical society. I would hate to see anybody end up in jail like those people out in Las Vegas.

Yes, true. We go down to Cape May weekly in the summer (sometimes more often!), my children attend nature classes offered through Cape May Point State Park. The ranger actually takes them there to look for stones, then they ID them and glue them onto posters. It's usually just the kids and myself. We always have a lot of fun, we pack a picnic lunch, then the kids and I eat on the beach and watch the dolphins.
Renee
 
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BarryC

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I think this is all interesting, but not nearly as interesting as the 18th and 19th century forgotten history that we find.
By the way, I've never found any Indian artifact, but I did find one cool thing in our driveway, way up near Darmstadt Avenue, last year. It was a 1912 Barber Dime. Unfortunately it was badly damaged from driving over it for 90 years. You can tell by looking at it that it was not worn out when it was dropped there. By the way, our driveway is a dirt driveway, so it's probably that old. There was a house here before the one we live in was built, which was around 1983.
By the way, I don't think this qualifies as a post that belongs in the Ghost Towns forum. My opinion anyway.
Barry
 

Tash329

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Nov 9, 2003
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Monmouth Co. NJ
Indian arrowheads are part of the past that belongs to the many Indian villages that once dotted the area, hence ghost towns of the long past, though I tend to agree with Barry, I also enjoy the more tangible aspects of our past.

Rich
 

alfonso

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Oct 9, 2003
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i believe the indians have a big part in the lost towns and villages .hey they were here first. i believe we they help alot with the new comers to the pines .who new the land better then them . i'm sure they taught the first settlers alot of things .
 

Ben Ruset

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Oct 12, 2004
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Hey, what do Indian Arrowheads have to do with Ghost Towns? Why is this posted in this forum?

Is it really so hard to put your posts in the right places?

ANOTHER Alfonso posted moved to it's proper place... :rolleyes:
 

KARL

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Sep 7, 2003
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bach2yoga, me again,renee........loved your article on arrowheads.....always looking for them,but to date.....fifty years or so,have never found a one......yet,my students in the country schools and old bridge where i taught last often did..........one day i gave my talk on arrowheads to a special ed class.....grade six.......told them to look at a historical site behind the school......by a stream.........next day,one of the more retarded lads brought me in a beautiful black obsidian arrowhead.....which is a rarity for the new jersey area.......probable gained in trade from the pennsylvania tribes......one of my own kids eventually lost it............im still looking......press on, karl
 
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bach2yoga

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KARL said:
bach2yoga, me again,renee........loved your article on arrowheads.....always looking for them,but to date.....fifty years or so,have never found a one......yet,my students in the country schools and old bridge where i taught last often did..........one day i gave my talk on arrowheads to a special ed class.....grade six.......told them to look at a historical site behind the school......by a stream.........next day,one of the more retarded lads brought me in a beautiful black obsidian arrowhead.....which is a rarity for the new jersey area.......probable gained in trade from the pennsylvania tribes......one of my own kids eventually lost it............im still looking......press on, karl

Karl,

Obsidian is definitely not native. Once in a while people come across soapstone down here too, which is not native. The Lenapes did trade with their neighbors, you are probably correct in that understanding.
I've only found a couple, and my daughter one. But I don't go looking for them, either. My brother in law has a couple of hundred, he surface hunts, and his friends' collections number in the thousands (they dig). The best time to surface hunt is after the farmers have turned over their fields.

This was a really important area for the Lenapes--the turtle clan, and "arrow head hunting" though the archaeologistsnow call them projectile points, is a big hobby around here. If you know where to look down here, like my brother in law does, it's hard to walk away without finding something. In fact, with all of the info on Cumberland Furnace that I presented at the town meeting, I didn't even bother bringing up the fact that there were arrowheads on the property, because they are so common down here that it wouldn't have raised an eyebrow.

I did an interesting college paper on the Lenape societal structure. The Lenapes were matrilineal, and a woman had the freedom to divorce a man by simply placing his belongings outside of the door. Because the tribes were matrilineal, she was provided for by her brothers and the other men of her clan and so forth. Marriage was not permitted within the same clan, therefore her husband was of another clan, and though he supplied game for her, also provided for his mother's clan. Consequently, the woman did not have the current day issues of not being able to provide for herself or the children in the case of divorce; she had a strong safety net. The women also did a very large portion of the work; and the women also played a significant role in the Lenape religion. Every individual, young or old, male or female, in the Lenape society was valued and important. The children were rarely punished. They didn't need to be, and they were cared for by the group of women rather than just the maternal parent, at least until they were old enough to help. The men tended to hang out together, and traveled for large portions of the year in search of game or fish etc. An interesting fact: if a woman was killed, her life was payable to the family in wampum, as was a man's. However, the wampum due for a woman's death was twice that of a man's.

Even though the Lenape society was gendered, it was a highly egalitarian society, much more so than our own.

I like the fact that the women had menstrual huts. That time was viewed as a time for women to reconnect with nature, and remember the sacredness of the creative power of birth. The women were allowed to do no work during that time, but were waited on. (Imagine, a bunch of hormonally crank women all together! Ha!) But because a female spent a good portion of life either expecting or nursing, her number of menses were far less than that of modern day women (some researchers think that there is a link between this and different cancers, such as breast and uterine cancer). And because their diet was clean, they weren't as cranky either. :)

Anyway, that last paragraph wasn't in the paper, but interesting nonetheless. It was an interesting paper that examined both male and female roles equally, and if anyone is interested in reading the results of my research, PM me and I will email you a copy.

Renee
 
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