Our house sits on a high ridge above the Leon River. We've been here four years and I've found half a dozen chipped points and stone tools. Really surprised to find that many pieces up on top of a ridge.

In the Alibates Nation Monument, there are some petroglyphs on a ridge overlooking the Canadian River. One can imagine scouts watching for game from that ridge, and doodling on the rocks while they wait. Or making points. Or even camping on a ridge to get a breeze.

In all the years I worked outdoors, never found one.

All the environmental surveys, educational hikes, etc. Not a one. And I actually like looking for rocks.

I've found plenty of arrowheads but would absolutely love to find pottery pieces like that. Those are incredible.

One of my dad's friends who was on our old long time lease in nw Bandera Co would always take all the kids out hunting arrowheads after lunch every time we were there. Was always my favorite thing and started a life long hobby. I usually spend more time hunting points than deer these days. Once an area with a lot of worked flint is spotted, I like to dig some with a shovel. River and creek beds are usually the most productive.

Here are a few. A number of them were found by my grandfather and most likely were from his farm or nearby in Austin County. The one in the top middle position I found a few miles away where roads were being cut for a new subdivision. The two at the bottom and the one top right are sort of fat and chunky compared to the others, so not sure what they were for.

When I was a kid our relatives had land on the Colorado River outside Smithville and there were several mounds of fragments and chips there that we were told were from arrowhead and tool manufacturing. The three larger items grouped together bottom right were found digging around in those piles. Not sure if they were rejects that got tossed, or if they had some other purpose.

MouthBQ98 said:

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Always blows my mind how many were made in just 15,000 years by not that many people. They were apparently very skilled at making a new point rapidly when one was needed versus trying to find and reuse older expended points.

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Family friend of ours growing up was full blooded Apache - was heavily involved in Scouting and did a lot of educational speaking, etc. about native American way of life. He showed us how to make an arrowhead when he was the den leader of my cub scout group - he could take an ordinary couple of piece of flint and have a head shaped out in about 10 minutes. Didn't take long at all - with a little guidance we all were able to make one in about a half hour, and that was just starting off. Amazing how fast you can chip a rock away into something useful.

Up here in where I live in Oregon, obsidian is very common and it's not hard to find flakes from where Indians made arrowheads. Flakes and broken arrowheads are so common that I don't pick them up anymore. There is a group of people in town that are very involved in flint knapping and they have an annual camp out in an area famous for obsidian. They sit around and make all sorts of things from obsidian. One fellow is exceptionally good at it and has made small swords and knives out of obsidian for hollywood.

The points I find up here are usually more crude than what y'all find down in Texas. The pieces of pottery Rock08 posted are almost identical to some I found in a different state many years ago. I have a few pieces from Guatemala that some Indians in Mexico gave me when I was down on the Mexico/Guatemala border. The pottery from down there is more advanced and colorful than the American southwest examples.

In my experience, what we find on top of the ground is it drop in the bucket of how many points and tools are out there.

Think about a young boy that learns to make his first spear point. How many points do you think him and his friends make just screwing around learning how to hunt? This probably explains all the rough and broken pieces I find...

You palefaces have stolen the artifacts from my people! The only way to remedy your indiscretions is to send all your collections to me so that I may guard them for future generations of Indians (feather, not dot).