The Sheriff will prosecute every time they are caught in the act. It can be a challenge to make that happen, even with cell cams.
Great find Cat, are all three of those small dark points uniface?
No. I've only kept one of the black ones that was unifaced (it had a curve to it, wasn't straight). The rest of them have been worked equally on both sides.
Can you show the edge geometry? I know this picture sucks, it is from a catche blade, it shows the unfinished edge though, I suspect they made caches of ufinished arrow points as well, not something I know much about.
Yeah, I'm sure I looked over dozens of points because they didn't have that characteristic shape or the flaking wasn't obvious. The flaking is more obvious in person or when they are wet. Typically you can tell if something has been worked if there are flakes in parallel moving away from the center of the point. When looking down the point or tool you can see the flaking pattern from opposing sides that wouldn't generally happen naturally. Some of the flaking may be more crude and some more intricate.
For me I just view it as a numbers game. The more rocks that collect in gravel beds the more likely you are to find a former tool. The tools get there because they were lost on land near water and erosion got them to the creek or river. I think if you are in an area where big game once were you are much more likely to find them. If you aren't finding rocks at all, it would be very tough to find them in streams there. I would stick to search plowed fields.
Super interesting and I see what you are talking about now. Thank you. Probably still never find anything but at least I have something else to look for.
