The primary subject of this website is the large variety of stone tools that I have found in this single site. The pictures at the left show the tools found so far, grouped by their present classification. Each group is further detailed elsewhere on the site. This is certainly one of the most neglected artifact categories in archaeology. Information on these stone tools is extremely scarce, with virtually no information on their use, or on how they were made. Those of us who have chosen to study these tools are left on our own in trying to determine how the tools were used, and how they were made. In my detailed descriptions of the tools, I at times will comment on what a particular tool was used for, or on how it may have been made. These details are likely to change over time as I gather more tools and more evidence. I have tried to be careful in wording these descriptions in a way that makes it clear that the descriptions are speculative. I am content, for now, in simply determining what rocks are or are not tools. Where I have information from 'experts' on particular tool or type of tool, I will say so in the description. Please visit www.forsakenartifacts.com for an excellent narrative on the need to study and classify these tools. If we continue to ignore this part of the lives and culture of the people who lived here, we can never really get to know who they were as a people and we will never truly understand their culture.
These tools are often referred to as 'crude stone tools'. I've used that term quite often myself, but in doing so, I believe we are committing an injustice to the makers and users of these tools. Many of them are true works of art in a perhaps uncommon yet real sense. Considering what these ancient people had to work with in their struggle for survival, many of these tools are far from being crude or simple tools of necessity, but show the inventiveness and creativity of their makers and users. While many of the tools are probably used 'as found' most show signs of having been worked at least to some degree to maximize their form or function.
Every stone tool on this website has come from a single, small unexcavated site. The age of the site is not yet firmly established but could be as old as the early archaic era. Some of the artifacts are certainly intrusions from more recent times, but until an excavation is at least started there can be no certainty as to the age of the earliest settlement. Large flint pieces are scarce with only a few small pieces classified as finger tools or thumbnail tools. One of the pictures at the left shows all of the flint pieces, except for those in the small tools section of this website, that have been found so far. I have not done a detailed analysis on these pieces yet and there are certainly some that could be classified as tools, bird stones or as something more than just a rock. No complete flint points, knives or axes have been found yet in the site. I've heard that over the years, the farm field has yielded many arrowheads, and we have found 3 without any intense effort. That type of item however is missing from the initial site. I have found some apparent broken points in the initial site suggesting that these were used as hand tools once they were no longer useful as arrowheads.
