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Look at it this way, Charlie.
Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:37 am
by Minimalist
At least no one is forging pre-Clovis artifacts!
http://www.jacksonholestartrib.com/arti ... 267ce7.txt
Woody Blackwell is something of a legendary figure among flintknappers. Those are the folks who can take a piece of flint and beat it into the likeness of an 11,000-year-old mammoth-stabbing Clovis point, or a sleek and graceful Agate Basin.
The trouble starts when a flintknapper forgets to tell someone who might be interested in buying his semi-translucent, Knife River Flint beauty that it was not actually made 11,000 years ago. That's when a reproduction becomes a fake.
Jeb Taylor, who lives near Ucross, buys, sells and authenticates projectile points. That's how he and Woody met up.
But first, there's something you need to know about fake artifacts. Some people go to extraordinary lengths to make fakes look like those fascinating artifacts from the distant past grandpa collected on the ranch during the Depression years.
Forged artifacts
Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:07 pm
by Cognito
At least no one is forging pre-Clovis artifacts!
Interesting article, Min. You are correct that nobody is forging pre-Clovis artifacts since they don't exist!
After staring at hundreds of thousands of rocks and recovering hundreds of artifacts
legally, I cannot understand how someone would pay top dollar for an item with a suspicious provenance. Most of the artifacts that Charlie and I stumble across are crude by comparison to Clovis, but interesting nontheless. Sometimes I can observe a particular makers "style" as sophisticated, thoughtful or just plain careless. However, they are all cool specimens and recovering something
in situ is a definite rush.
By the way, where I look, I have yet to find one arrowhead ... since they weren't around yet.
Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:26 pm
by Minimalist
I cannot understand how someone would pay top dollar for an item with a suspicious provenance.
Too lazy to go looking themselves?
You know, when I see a collection of Clovis points like this:
Some of them really are works of art. Wonderful technique used to create them. It really makes me think that these people had a lot of free ( i.e. not hunting ) time in which to spend making these and/or it demonstrates a division of labor in the society in which older members of the tribe (clan...group....whatever you wish) who could not hunt mammoth were nonetheless given the important task of making these points.
Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 3:53 pm
by marduk
I cannot understand how someone would pay top dollar for an item with a suspicious provenance
Provenance
Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 4:16 pm
by Cognito
I think I'll need to investigate her provenance!
Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 7:37 pm
by Charlie Hatchett
At least no one is forging pre-Clovis artifacts!
If you're a serious collector, you definitely use a well respected authenticator. Kind of like buying diamonds. There's crooks in every field...looking to make a quick buck.
Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 2:12 am
by marduk
There's crooks in every field...looking to make a quick buck
apart from politics
thats different
Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 4:03 am
by Charlie Hatchett
apart from politics
thats different
Worst crooks of all!
