STOP! - Arrowhead Collecting On The Web

ACOTW
TM
Arrowhead Collecting On The Web
Top center are the two perfect Pinellas points I found next to each other. To the right and below them are four ornaments; one flat shell,
the upper portion of a clay pendant and two complete conch shell pendants (they ground off the outer shell and made the pendant from
the inner core). You can even see where they’re notched for attachment. Those are the ones the local historical society asked me if I
wanted to donate. Below the pendants, from the right, is a “turtleback” scraper and two clay pottery shards. To the lower left is a
fragment of Spanish plateware. The tall point in the center I suspect might be a tool of some kind, maybe a drill. The point in the upper
left is perfect, and I’ve always wondered why the base was shaped that way. The remaining base-notched point was one I found when I
was a young kid hiding in the branches of an oak tree, spying on a young couple making out on a blanket nearby. I spotted the point
from up in the tree about twenty or thirty feet away on the ground.
One Saturday, with nothing to do, I
went out hunting for the jillionth time
on the side of the mound. I looked for
awhile and had made the turn back
and was working my way toward
home when, just off the side of the
path I was on, I looked down and saw
a very small, tan-colored patch in the
dirt. You’d never see it if you weren’t
looking for it. I picked it up and
wiped it off; I blinked a couple times,
and I could feel my heart starting to
race. It was a perfect Pinellas point. I
clasped it in my fist, did a little cheer
to myself and then ran all the way
home to show my mom. She made
me a tuna sandwich for lunch, and I
told her I was so excited that as soon
as I finished I was going to go back
out to look for more stuff.
I guess from just superstition or
something I went back to that
identical spot on the mound to look,
but I also thought to myself, “Just
because I found my first perfect point
here, why would I expect to find
anything else here?”
I looked down and found another
perfect Pinellas point... this one even
nicer... in almost the exact spot where
I’d found my first one.
That day I was an artifact hunter.
Kelly Griffin
Volume I, Number 7 4
November 2009