Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Gratuitous artifact photographs.
These super huge spear points were found on a dig my company did back in 1997 along Interstate 10. They were lying in a pile with other unusual artifacts (including a fossil horse tooth and a shaped piece of unfossilized mammoth or mastodon vertebra) on the floor of a pit structure dating sometime between 400 B.C. and A.D. 50.
Biggest spear point!
The biggest one is something like three or four times the normal size of a spear point.
Also large!
It is likely these over-sized spear points were used in ceremonies or rituals. It seems really unlikely that they would have been used for hunting because they were too large to be efficient (the weight and size would make the spear difficult to throw and less likely to go far).
One reason I like archaeology is that you never know what you will find.
In other news, gratuitous lizard photograph:
I think it is a Sonoran Collared Lizard, but I am uncertain.
This one is about 5 to 6 inches long and lives under the shed next to the office.
