Message from the President

     

     June 2007 brings us to plowing and finding, relic shows and buying, spring sales on websites and hunting for bargains on eBay.  Be sure to check out the Native Americana > pre-1600 category for ancient relics.  The Ft. Mitchell Kentucky Expo is right around the corner on July 20-22 and tables are selling out fast.  If you want to display or sell, just follow the links from the Expo page to get tables for the prime artifact event.

     Your Association is listening to you!  Due to member demand, there is now a Members’ Discussion Forum for all AACA members to discuss topics of interest to collectors.  You will need to sign up for the Forum using your real name and email address; you can not use a handle or nickname to register.  Members with questions about artifacts or current events can post and get answers from other friendly collectors, if you haven’t tried it, just click the link and get signed up today!

     The AACA Board of Directors would like to welcome our newest Board members, Jim Bennett and David Heath.  As the founder of the AACA, Jim is a welcome re-addition to the Board after a few years rest.  David Heath from Vancouver Washington is no stranger to many collectors and he is the creator of the ‘Insitu’ series viewable free at http://www.arrowheads1.com/insitu/insitu.htm  We look forward to working with these gentlemen.

 

Always remember the “A” ~AUTHENTIC~ in AACA.

 

 

Cliff Jackson

 

 

 

Message from the Secretary

AACA Regional Chapters

Ken Schmidt Committee Chair

 

AACA Members,

 

As many of the members who frequent the forum are aware, the AACA has established a committee to propose guidelines for regional chapters.  These guidelines will be presented to the board of directors for approval.  Following any revisions, we anticipate the committee will be authorized to enable chapters to organize.  This is a complex endeavor that need substantial thought before any implementation and by no means will this a quick process.  I’m working with others on the committee as well as with members who have expressed an interest.  Our hope is that this will enable members to have a larger say in how the AACA conducts business, have more input into the election of national officers and contribute time and effort into our association.  We have a lot of details to work out but we believe it is in the best interest of the AACA to get member more involved.  I do want to thank all of the folks who are involved in this pursuit.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Ken Schmidt

AACA Secretary

Pre-Columbian Jade of Middle America

By

Stephen Puttera Jr.

 

     When one hears the word ‘jade’ most people think of the Orient.  It is a little known fact that the Western World first came to know jade during the conquest of Mexico in the 16^th century.  The very term jade is of Spanish origin and was coined to describe the precious green stone of the Aztecs, long before it was applied to its Oriental counterpart.  In letters to Emperor Charles V, Hernan Cortes refers to jade by the Nahuatl term ‘chalchihuitl’.  The immense value placed on jade by the Aztecs is emphasized by Montezuma when he offered some jade ornaments to Cortes, to “give to his Prince and no one else”, and that “each stone was worth two loads of gold”.

     By the middle of the 17^th century, Chinese jade began to reach Europe by the direct seagoing route.  At the same time, New World jade was soon forgotten, probably because it became very scarce.  It was this that the term jade was transferred from the original Mexican stone to the Chinese material to such an extent that some later writers denied that jade was found at all in the New World!

     Jade objects have been found in quantity from Mexico to Costa Rica and rarely in the Greater Antilles, Venezuela, Columbia and even Peru.  The largest grouping of jade artifacts ever found is the Cerro de las Mesas cache from Veracruz, Mexico, consisting of nearly 800 mixed jades.  This cache is attributed to the Olmex.   Although it is not known precisely when the art of jade working began, it is generally accepted that the Olmecs had a highly skilled jade lapidary in operation by at least 600 B.C.  It is also a fact that jade and greenstone was treasured by all the great Middle American cultures.  No region produced a greater number of jade objects than Costa Rica, whose lapidaries were among the most skillful in Pre-Columbian America.  Little known archaeologically and overshadowed by the more extensively studied cultures, very little has been published about these ancient artisans and the splendid objects they created.

     Cost Rica is a region of widely varying climates with countless ancient settlements and cemeteries that have enriched collections all over the world with stone sculpture, fine polychrome ceramics and jewelry of great variety and excellence.  Costa Rica is basically divided into three archaeological zones.  The northwest Pacific Coast zone is better known archaeologically than any other part of the country.  Bordering southwest Nicaragua and encompassing the Province of Guanacaste and the Nicoya Peninsula, it is simply known as the Guanacaste-Nicoya zone.  To the east and south and reaching the Caribbean, we have what is known as the Central Highlands-Atlantic Watershed zone.  The third and least know area is the southern Pacific Coast area bordering Panama known as the Diquis region.  It is interesting to note that nearly all the jade artifacts known originate in the northern half of Costa Rica with virtually none coming from the Diquis region or Panama.  Both Panama and the Diquis are known for the elaborate gold work found there.  So it appears that northern Costa Rica is actually the southern boundary for most of the Central American jade artifacts.  It is believed that the source for much of the jade used by the various cultures to the north may have been located in the Central Highlands of Costa Rica.

      The sources that supplied the ancient Costa Rican lapidaries with their raw material are still unknown.  This is a study in itself which is not the intent of this article.  The conditions under which jadeite form are so rare as to exclude the existence of many sources.  In fact, only six major deposits are known in the world.  The only known source in Central American is found in the mountains above Guatemala’s Motagua Valley.  Although some evidence of trade with more northern areas exists, it is believed that most Costa Rican jades were created locally, showing no signs of Mayan influence, either early or late.

     The generic word ‘jade’ refers to two distinct mineral species.  From the early word ‘jade’ was derived the specific word ‘jadeite’.  Jadeite is a silicate of aluminum and sodium microcrystalline in structure.  It has a hardness of between 6.5 and 7.0 on the Mohs’ Scale, specific gravity between 3.3 - 3.4.  Its crystals are granular and interwoven, making it tough, hard and dense.  Polishing jadeite gives it a luminescent and glassy appearance, far more brilliant than the other form of jade, ‘nephrite’.  Nephrite is a silicate of magnesium, fibrous, hard to fracture, almost soapy in appearance.  It has a Mohs’ hardness of 6 – 6.5 and a specific gravity between 2.90 – 3.02.  The ancient cultures of Middle America knew the variety of jade classified as jadeite.

     Only a small fraction of all Costa Rican artifacts are actually made of jadeite but some of these are crafter from the rarest and finest quality fades known.  Many other stone types (predominately green) were utilized and not always very hard.  Some, such as quartz, were just as hard as jadeite and almost as difficult to work.  Other characteristic minerals used in the lapidary were undoubtedly of local origin.  Chalcedony appears often in an opaque, deep greenish-blue variety sometimes called sassurite.  Translucent varieties are milky, russet brown, olive, dull yellow-green or a blue-green that closely resembles jadeite.  Softer materials also used and carved in the same manner include various kinds of serpentine, including bowenite and a chalky robins-egg blue or greenish material referred to as tuff or argillite, sometimes called ‘green slate’.  Interesting enough, paralleling modern aesthetic values, the ancient artisans utilitized the finer and harder stones for the more intricate, elaborate carvings.  For this treatise, all greenstone artifacts will be treated as ‘jades’, whether made of actual pure jade or other materials usually typed as cultural jade.

      Jade could not actually be carved (in the literal sense) with Stone Age technology because of its hardness and toughness.  It had to be abraded into shape with a tool and an abrasive powder of a substance harder than jade.  Quartz filled sand, which was readily available is slightly harder than jade and may have been utilized for this purpose.  Methods of manufacture may have included sawing (abrading), drilling, incising and string sawing with all methods utilizing an abrasive powder.  Pecking and grinding would not have worked well on jade but may have been used in shaping objects of softer stones.  Some of the fine jade artifacts appear to have been polished with hard objects and possibly fine abrasives.

     The types of artifacts crafted from these jadeite and greenstone raw materials are many.  Some categories are ear spools, various types of beads, ‘mace’ heads, celt-like pendants (zoomorphic and anthropomorphic forms), ‘axe-god’ pendants, bar-type pendant forms, ‘beak’ bird pendants and various curly tailed animal and other effigy forms.

     Animals depicted by the zoomorphic forms are also many.  Included in the avimorph forms are owls, the parrot and macaw, harpy eagles, bats, ducks and others.  The most common motif on the bar type is the bat followed by alligator-crocodile forms and fish forms.  The detail on some of these forms is superb, many contain more than one zoomorphic form and many seem to combine human and animal forms.  Other animal forms commonly seen on these pieces include monkeys, jaguars and various reptiles.

     All the pendant types are drilled for suspension.  The avian and axe-god pendants are drilled horizontally, usually through the neck of the figure so they would hang vertically.  Winged or bar pendants were drilled with two holes so when suspended they would hang horizontally.  It is generally thought they were worn as symbols or insignia.  Some tubular beads are known to be more than twelve inches long with the record length being nearly twenty inches.  How these long, beautiful objects were bi-conically drilled to meet near the center defies one’s imagination.  Most of these beads are not much thicker than a pencil.

     Jadeite and greenstones have been found in Costa Rica almost exclusively in mortuary contexts.  It is assumed that during the lifetime of the deceased they represented statue and were of sufficient personal and symbolic importance that they were interred at death rather than inherited.  It is fact that the Costa Rican jade workers were talented and persistent workers.  We do not know where the craftsperson fit into ancient Costa Rican society or whom, if anyone controlled the possession of jadeite and greenstone artifacts.

     The total time span of lapidary work in Costa Rica, as yet unknown, may prove to be longer than supposed.  But without much doubt, the tradition of jade working was gone long before the Spanish conquest.  Also, there must have been a period of overlap when jade and gold were in use at the same time before gold replaced jade as the principal material for symbolic ornaments.  Although the lapidary could have begun as early as 400 - 500 B.C. (or earlier) most of the artifacts are thought to range between 100 and 700 A.D.

     An ancient jade held in the hands is pure pleasure, with each single piece being a mystery in itself.  As they give pleasure again after so many centuries of darkness, their study may yield new insights and help reveal the panorama of mankind’s long adventure in the Western World.   

 

                                             

 

                        Axe-God forms and an anthropomorphic figurine.  Not jade  Costa Rica 1-500 A.D.                         Axe-God and figurine pendants of jadeite.  Costa Rica.

 

 

 

Typology

By

Son Anderson Sr.

 

     Typology and identifying features are my strongest points especially when it comes to Florida, S. Alabama and S. Georgia.  But there are some who have been trying to change some of those names since 1990 and with their exposure on websites, publishing their own ideas and attending shows, they have a large following; a following that hadn’t been involved in the earlier years when our typology first started and/or the younger generations who haven’t done the research.  For the most part, folks are followers.  I call it laziness. Why would anybody want to change the name of a point type?  Some names just demand more money.  For example; Tallahassee.  A name applied to a form tentatively called Daltons.  Bullen placed them as late Paleo but I think they are much earlier.  An almost look-a-like, the Safety Harbor Woodland form is much more common.  Call Safety Harbor points Tallahassee and more money can be made.  It’s just a wonder why fakers haven’t started making reproduction Tallahassee and Santa Fe points.  I feel it is because they really don’t understand the two types, especially first stage.  I understand the types Tallahassee and Santa Fe from the first stage to exhausted and know what other types they are associated with.  For one, R.P. Bullen, the author of A Guide to the Identification of Florida Projectile Points stated his dating of the Tallahassee was tentative because he wasn’t sure where they fit.  From personal experience, I can accurately tell you.  The types Tallahassee and Santa Fe are found associated with Simpson and Cowhouse Slough points/blades because I’ve found them there.  So, they may not be Daltons at all, some could possibly be dart points for that cultural period and some could be small knives.  Notice Florida Tallahassee (photo 1) and Santa Fe (photo 2) forms are not beveled like Dalton points.

 

                                           

 

 

It’s common to see collectors or books identifying first stage Tallahassee/Santa Fe point or blades as unfluted Clovis.  Typology often comes down to personal opinion and some forms just don’t fit the book.  But do the research and listen to those with the most hands on ‘in the dirt’ experience and call ‘em accordingly.

     It’s only fair for me to compare the differences between the point types mentioned.  Tallahassee and Santa Fe points may very well be the same.  Some are serrated, some are not.  Both types have ground basal edges and serrations begin past a ground shoulder/hafting area, made of raw materials and usually have a heavy patina when found on land.  Definitely Paleo and usually found exhausted to a nub.

     The Safety Harbor type is a strong look-a-like but it is made of heat altered materials.  It doesn’t have ground basal edges and the serrations can be from auricle to distal end.  Some are serrated, some are not.  It is a Woodland type and very similar to Yakin points found more northerly.  Safety Harbor point, if not found whole are usually snapped.  Not showing use wear as in exhausted knives.  Safety Harbor points are found associated with Hernando points.  Get into typology, it’s an interesting subject.

Safety Harbor

      

           

 

Who Will Carry On?

By

Malcolm Mclaughlin

 

      When I attend shows, I am often struck by the relative lack of younger collectors.  Most collectors I meet are in their 40s, 50s and 60s.  At 37, I am one of the youngest collectors at almost every show.  In general, the public that pays a few bucks to get into the shows are younger and more diverse than the collecting community.  Women, high school kids and the generally curious attend our shows.  But the people at the tables are mostly older men.  Sure, there are some young collectors but not enough.  If we want to be good stewards of the hobby, we should recruit new blood and encourage the young people we know to get more involved.  It is young collectors who will drive the hobby after we are gone – unless there are not enough of them to sustain a collecting community.

      I realize that the money associated with the hobby has caused many collectors to become secretive about their hunting spots and to view new people with suspicion.  And it must be acknowledged that, for better or worse, the soaring price of ‘premium’ artifacts has changed our hobby.  Yes, it is true that keeping your honey hole to yourself ensures that you will get more artifacts but at what long-term cost to the hobby?  Who will carry the torch when you are gone?

      Obviously I don’t expect anyone to give up their honey hole.  But I do expect all of us to what we can to recruit new people to the hobby so that it sustains after my generation of collectors moves on.  I do a few simple things.  I give away arrowheads often to younger children.  I strike up conversations with those who stop at my show tables in order to put a human face on the hobby.  I try to show invited guests that it is not just points in frames with dollar signs.  I don’t judge collectors by the monetary value of their collections but their passion for our hobby.  A collector with G-10 artifacts and a G-1 personality is just a jerk with a bunch of arrowheads – people will see that and judge us all for it.  And if we don’t welcome fresh faces and actively recruit new collectors, who will carry on after we are gone?  What good are all of those G-10s you are hoarding if there is no one there to buy – oops I mean appreciate them?

     So I ask these questions not to antagonize but to initiate a thoughtful discourse with the membership.  What are you doing to get a young person involved in the hobby?  Are you mentoring anyone?  Are you friendly and talkative with the curious people who come to our shows or do you just talk to people in your inner circle?  Do you treat diggers and surface hunters with dignity?  Have you ever offered to take a new guy hunting?  Sure, maybe he will raid your honey hole next weekend – but you will make a new friend and help to ensure the future of collecting in your area.