Florida bone points,pins and other artifacts

Wanted to share some pics of some of my personal finds of Florida bone artifacts.Most of these are bone points, even though people will call them awls or pins they are fish gigs.I find them in a few spots where the river is shallow and narrow.These are made from the cannon leg bone of the deer ,split length ways and split again,quartered. I have socketed antler points and antler handles as well.I love these artifacts more than the arrowheads because these are harder to find . On 1 site I find all the handles and antler pieces, even a broken antler atlatl  weight. The other site all I find is the bone points. We do find pins or hair pins in the rivers also. I found a antler tool for knapping on one of these sites along with some lithic debitage and  a few points that date the site. The reason for some of the whitish colors is because years ago when I started finding these the only way we knew how to presrve them was with a mixture of elmers glue and water.Now we use acetone and duco cement and it leaves it looking natural now. I have 2 dig sites that has preserved bone from the middens along what used to be a lake.Its shallow digging and floods every year and has a high content of iron rocks, so it preserved the butched bones. I framed some with butcher marks on them.

[amazing]

centfladigger--You have some amazing artifacts! 
Thank you so much for sharing your collection !
kind regards~sandcreek

Hey welcome to T-net
  That is some great looking stuff. Great first post. Bone tools tell a lot about the every days life. Good job on the preservation. I like the canoe and gator as well.
Can you give me your recipe with the acetone and duco. I need to do a cave bears tooth before I loose it to time. Great post and will keep watching it.
TnMountains

nice artifacts, good to see some fla. stuff in here. Is the darkness of the bone pieces and some of the others creek stain? something to do with acidic water/ swamp? nice pics, looks like that gator is having his way with that turtle.

hey those are way cool
do you use a screen to find them?, if so can you post a picture of it?? thanks much, very nice, yes, very very nice1

Great pics and nice tannic river stain.  I guess the Florida law prohibiting diving for artifacts doesn't apply to you! I'm busting your chops as it is the dumbest law there is! Keep up the great finds.

Welcome, and thanks for the peek at some wondrful artifacts. John

the bone point site was before the IFP was abolished a few years ago. The antler/tool site is a dig site on my friends property. Its off a old course of the river down here, in the 40`s a cattle operation dug 2 miles of a new river, they straightened the river out so the old section is a river no longer. I went there yesterday and all I found was a bunch of pottery. I only go to this site a few times a year. I enjoy the peace and quiet there and am in no rush with it.The whole lanscape is changed or gone from the phosphate mining from 100 years past anyway. . I can`t wait for the IFP to come back because I have some stuff waiting to be picked up . Alot of us will stash the goodies in a secret spot just waiting for the day

 The recipe for preservation is 1 quart of acetone a 1 tube of duco cement. Keep it in a airtight container.Total cost is around $5 or 6 dollars. The acetone draws the moisture out and the duco enters and seals the artifact.

the color is from all the oak leaves in the river, gives it the stain.Different rivers give different stains.St.Johns will give it a blue stain.Some have a red algea stain .

   There is a creek I used to go to that would dry up in even a minor drought. I bet it is bone dry now as the Hillsbourgh is just puddles. A lot of stuff will be picked up there this spring, I wish I had time to look.
   That law is senseless as the artifacts in the water are out of any context and will continue to deteriorate until no longer recognizable. I say get them out and display for all to see. Good luck on your trips!

here a section of the hillsborough I took last week. I knew some awesome dig sites in this area back in the early 90`s

That's some killer finds  Thanks for sharing and it's good to see you on here. 

Awesome finds. I too love finding the Bone and Antler tools and have quite a few myself from the Ft Ancient sites I hunt.

Welcome to the forum,
     Thanks for sharing,Those are some very nice artifacts!I enjoyed the other pics of your surroundings as well.I have cousins in Hollywood Fla.I never hunted when I was there visiting.Next time I will.
                                                                      Ohioriverhunter

Wow great artifacts & pics thanks for showing us!!!

 Thanks for the recipe. I will give it a try. Its Turkey season here also and I love seeing the woodies. Keep posting we all enjoy seeing and sharing.Thanks again.
TnMtns

wow very cool indeed,thanks for sharing.know anything about deland by orlando.   jamey

very nice artifacts!and incredible pics!thanks for sharing.

wow very cool indeed,thanks for sharing.know anything about deland by orlando.   jamey

lake apopka has always been a good spot. The state is fixin to lower the lake level and dig up all the muck to restore the lake. All those aritfacts are gonna be trashed

Very nice artifacts and great photos ... thanks for posting!

absolutly awesome. My family lives in SW Florida and when I am there I have made attempts to find relics just like yours with no avail.  When you get into southern Florida it is mostly bone or shell and they don't last unless they are in mineralized.

I have shell also. Where are they at Naples? some of the finest shell artifacts are found down there, the 10,000 island chain is UNREAl. thousands of middens on all those little islands. Not any rock south of the Tampa area but it was brought down there, the points are mainly weedon islands,  pinellases, some taylors and duvals. Plummets and bone pins/points, some hooks and alot of pottery down there. When the hurricanes hit there a few years back in Punta Gorda I think it was shell middens were exposed in the mangroves like crazy

thanks centralfladigger,im not to keen on the laws there,are you allowed to dig on your own property.my grandma has alot of lots there,ive never been there though,but i think there on that lake you mentioned,  jamey

thanks centralfladigger,im not to keen on the laws there,are you allowed to dig on your own property.my grandma has alot of lots there,ive never been there though,but i think there on that lake you mentioned,  jamey

sorry, forgot to get back with you on that. Yes you can dig here in Fl with landowners permission. Of course that didnt/doesnt stop all the people from trespassing and digging for artifacts and leaving the open holes. This picture was taken Jan 4th 2007 on a site that only a few of us had permission to be on. One of the few ran their mouth and it was a mad house for over a year.I`m talking about open drinking and smoking dope and people even brought grills out there to cook while they dug. I dug this site back in the early 90`s when it was privatly owned and when it sold to a developer a few years back we got permission to dig, I think because they wanted all archaeological signifgance gone, anyway this idiot was busted along with others and this was in the news.

Glad to see law enforcement doing their job and keeping us all safe.