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BanjoLink - Posted - 07/20/2026: 08:29:16
I've pretty much looked for Indian artifacts much of my adult life and while growing up. I have always looked for them while building golf courses, and found them just about everywhere, but since my wife and daughter bought as lake house in the mid-section of South Carolina, I spend a good bit of time while there looking for relics. The attached photo is of a quartz scraper (about 3 1/2" long ) that I would recently.
Guessing that Terry has probably found a few in North Carolina ....... any others?
Texican65 - Posted - 07/20/2026: 11:25:53
I’m always on the lookout…but I’ve never found anything…too hard living in a jungle…Mother Nature covers it all up VERY quickly.
I did find the grave of an old Indian doctor/medicine man from the 1890’s, his name was “Doctor Jack”…and he treated local indigenous folk and white settlers alike. His grave had been lost and missing for many decades, and the state had been looking for him. Well…I found him, in somebody’s backyard on a hillside.
Never any artifacts though…lots of the old indian village sites here are covered up by apartments and parking lots. But…on my adventures in the woods exploring…I’m always on the lookout!
That’s a cool scraper. If I lived closer to ya…I’d invite myself along to go huntin’ with ya!
steve davis - Posted - 07/20/2026: 12:24:52
We have a "midden" on Caldwell Island about 1/2 mile off of Horse Point full of bits and pieces of Mic Mac trash and local folks here that are very good at walking around and reaching down to pick up an arrowhead.
Our late Don Wood in Tenants Harbor had an extensive "life-long" collection of artifacts.This area is loaded with that stuff.Lots of activity on the islands and mainland shore-line.
BanjoLink - Posted - 07/21/2026: 05:18:17
quote:
Originally posted by Texican65
I’m always on the lookout…but I’ve never found anything…too hard living in a jungle…Mother Nature covers it all up VERY quickly.
I did find the grave of an old Indian doctor/medicine man from the 1890’s, his name was “Doctor Jack”…and he treated local indigenous folk and white settlers alike. His grave had been lost and missing for many decades, and the state had been looking for him. Well…I found him, in somebody’s backyard on a hillside.
Never any artifacts though…lots of the old indian village sites here are covered up by apartments and parking lots. But…on my adventures in the woods exploring…I’m always on the lookout!
That’s a cool scraper. If I lived closer to ya…I’d invite myself along to go huntin’ with ya!
Knocking around in the woods and discovering thins is a lot of fun. During my last relic hunting trip I discovered an old turn-of=the-century (around 1900) farm house that never had indoor plumbing and probably not a kitchen. This place had to be out in the boondocks when it was built as it was 20 miles from the nearest city and very little evidence anything else was ever around it. To find relics, you really need to be on old dirt roads or farm fields that have been plowed and there is raw dirt, preferably after a good rain. I have found points before sitting right on top of a little column of dirt.
steve davis - Posted - 07/21/2026: 06:27:19
Most any heads found here originated from Mt. Kineo in Moosehead...the sole source of flint in Maine.
steve davis - Posted - 07/21/2026: 06:47:21
My Great Grandmother from Port Clyde was a full-blooded American Indian.Some of the artifacts from around here have a personal connection.
BanjoLink - Posted - 07/21/2026: 08:09:41
quote:
Originally posted by steve davis
Most any heads found here originated from Mt. Kineo in Moosehead...the sole source of flint in Maine.
Interesting Steve, but although most points you find are made of material close by (and our case here probably quartz), indiginous people wound up carrying material over pretty long distances as trade material. So it is not unusual to find say a flint point in an area where most are quartz. You also realize that the majority of points that you find are probably from 1,000 to 10,000 years old. Some people say thay go back to 15,000 years, but there has long been a debate as to how long people have inhabited the Americas. Regardless, most of them are very old!
cevant - Posted - 07/21/2026: 13:13:41
Some years ago I was diving off of the big island of Hawaii and saw a small triangle of stone sticking up out of the sand. I pulled the stone out and it turned out to be a two hole stone oil lamp. I sent it into the Bishop museum on Oahu as they told me they would like to have it. I was told at the time that they had only ever found one other two hole lamp, and mine was much larger. Here in California artifacts are everywhere. I like seeing them, and I leave them there for the next guy to see too.
Edited by - cevant on 07/21/2026 13:14:04
localhost - Posted - 07/21/2026: 13:38:56
I canoe'd out to an island in a reservoir and ended up finding 3 arrow heads amongst the shoreline riprap. Two arrowheads are in very nice condition.
steve davis - Posted - 07/21/2026: 14:35:39
Indians here often traveled from up north and traded with our local tribes.
The rivers and even the sea water surrounding our islands froze solid back then.
Edited by - steve davis on 07/21/2026 14:37:03
TB327 - Posted - 07/22/2026: 00:55:52
one thing you can say about lincoln when the war was over he comanded his generals to kill indians for a dollar apiece
TB327 - Posted - 07/22/2026: 00:56:52
yeah lincoln was a god lol history is full of lies
banjowannabe - Posted - 07/22/2026: 03:08:17
quote:
Originally posted by TB327
one thing you can say about lincoln when the war was over he comanded his generals to kill indians for a dollar apiece
I can't easily find documentation of any such thing. Lincoln had an uneasy relationship with Native Americans, having his grandfather killed in an Indian raid and serving in the Black Hawk Wars. However, he did stop the execution of 264 Dakota in Minnesota when his administration determined that they had not been given due process. He allowed execution of 39 Dakota that review of evidence indicated their involvement in a massacre of white settlers. Can you cite your source?
Owen - Posted - 07/22/2026: 07:37:29
From the Anal Retentive Department: Is there a diff between Native American relic hunters and hunters of Native American relics?
Inquiring minds want to know!! 
1935tb-11 - Posted - 07/22/2026: 08:44:21
i have found a few but my step mothers brother had a collection that went to raleigh museum of history is what i was told when he passed away.
cases and cases of spear heads,, arrow heads,, mallets,, scrapers. just more then you could count.....
steve davis - Posted - 07/22/2026: 10:03:47
Maine has extensive collections of Indian relics.
cow_tools - Posted - 07/22/2026: 10:16:55
When I was very young I found an obsidian arrowhead that may have been Paiute or Shoshone. Or just some prankster who bought a gift shop arrowhead and wanted to make someone's day. Who knows.
Owen - Posted - 07/22/2026: 11:38:46
^^ reminds me of when we taught on MB's fly-in reserves. One year we took our Christmas break in Arizona .... came back with a small, obviously as phoney as the day is long, made-in-China kitchy plastic, rubber, fake feather "Indian" drum ... sat it on my desk for the balance of the year. It never garnered even a single comment/query. 
Edited by - Owen on 07/22/2026 11:40:42
Owen - Posted - 07/25/2026: 10:02:32
STOP! THE!! PRESSES!!
T'other day, on the beach (?) of a lake in west-central Alberta, my daughter picked up what surely must be a petrified guitar pick!!
It's non-magnetic; the blade is about 1/16" thick. I smoothed the edges a bit and then "picked" Will The Circle ... . I then asked my wife: "How'd that sound?" "Good" she replied [though she was puttering on her phone at the time and my interpretation is/was: "I was busy and didn't really hear it."]
I asked my daughter whether or not she noticed any other bits of petrified wood sticking out of the sand that could possibly be a pre-historic guitar ....................... she didn't.
BanjoLink - Posted - 07/25/2026: 15:02:14
Went hunting again this morning and found one point and a bunch of chips in the same vicinity. Cost me about $20 in gas, but worth every penny. Once you find one in a certain area it energizes you. I wound up walking over 10,000 steps and it was certainly more interesting than my normal 4-mile walks in the mornings.
1935tb-11 - Posted - 07/26/2026: 05:26:04
it can be addictive for sure !
BanjoLink - Posted - 07/26/2026: 12:28:20
quote:
Originally posted by 1935tb-11
it can be addictive for sure !
Yes it can be. There is just something neat about handling something that has not been touched by human hands in thousands of years. It really makes you curious what was going on this the area that many years ago to have so many relics left seemingly everywhere. I have never seen any estimates as to how many people inhabited different parts of North America, but it had to have been a bunch.
BanjoLink - Posted - 07/30/2026: 14:26:47
Interesting. I put some photographs on ChatGPT the other day and it told me all about the points and other relics that I had. I think the information was generally correct, but after some back and forth, I am pretty sure they nailed it. I also put up the photo of and old metal flat button that I found at an old home site a few years ago and it confirmed who made the button and the approximate year 1850 - 1865.
