Today I finished up a Susquehanna point that I had originally worked into a little biface a few days ago.  The material is keokuk chert and probably wasn’t historically used with this eastern style of point.  But once it’s hafted to a spear or atlatl dart, I doubt any critter that might be on the receiving end would know the difference.

Popularity: 36%

Hemp Hill (top) & Corner Notch

There is nothing worse than putting a lot of time and energy into a point only to mess things up at the very end.  I was putting in the last notch when my cone flake took out the ear.  I was hoping to make something resembling a Hemp Hill.  The finished product is still acceptable and functional but the lack of symmetry obviously reduces some of the aesthetic qualities.  The second projectile is a simple corner-notched point.  And sticking with the “I hate notching” theme, I had to punch in one of the notches with indirect percussion because I had a hard time driving through the limestone inclusions using  pressure alone.  I don’t usually like to use indirect, but in this case it seemed to work out OK.

Popularity: 20%

This Plevna impostor measures about 3-3/4″ long and 1-7/8″ wide. It is made from Keokuk Burlington chert. I call it an impostor because, try as I might, I couldn’t quite get it to turn out like the one illustrated on the “Story in Stone” poster by Val Waldorf. The edges were sharpened by removing flakes from one face which was characteristic of Plevna points. But I wasn’t satisfied with the notches and the overall shape isn’t as rounded as I wanted. Anyway, the crumbled stone in the background is an unknown material (I just couldn’t remember what kind of rock it was after I purchased it) representing today’s first attempt to produce a point. It was less than homogenous with numerous limestone inclusions. I have no doubts that an expert flint knapper could have made something from it, but as you can see, I couldn’t. Oh well, practice makes perfect.

Popularity: 22%