History Found In the Field

Found this walking a dried creek bed. First artifact Ive ever found. Anyone have an idea what it is? Axe head? Should I be looking around the area for more?
I think that is an old cannon ball. Do some research on Civil War era cannon balls. These were used in the Indian Wars as well as Civil War era and I am betting this is one that had been fired but didn't explode. Is there a crease around the middle of this?
 
I think that is an old cannon ball. Do some research on Civil War era cannon balls. These were used in the Indian Wars as well as Civil War era and I am betting this is one that had been fired but didn't explode. Is there a crease around the middle of this?
Nope. Common to find these on the prairie where Indians were camped. No Civil War battles there. I have a couple from my late wife's family homestead near Swift Current, SK. Stone cannonballs are something one might find on Middle Ages European battlefields and they would typically be MUCH larger.
 
How many of you think it would be cool to find an old human skull out in the field? I do.

 
Found this walking a dried creek bed. First artifact Ive ever found. Anyone have an idea what it is? Axe head? Should I be looking around the area for more?
I knew I had something similar laying around. I never thought about a horse hobble, I always figured mine to be a hammer with the ends the way they are. It’s next to a tomahawk in pretty tough shape and what I think is a hand axe as it has no notches to attach it to anything. IMG_3763.jpegIMG_3765.jpegIMG_3766.jpegIMG_3767.jpeg
 
I knew I had something similar laying around. I never thought about a horse hobble, I always figured mine to be a hammer with the ends the way they are. It’s next to a tomahawk in pretty tough shape and what I think is a hand axe as it has no notches to attach it to anything. View attachment 302420View attachment 302421View attachment 302422View attachment 302423
Did you find those in the same area as each other? I haven’t really had a chance to get back out and look around where I found mine. So cool
 
Did you find those in the same area as each other? I haven’t really had a chance to get back out and look around where I found mine. So cool
No, they’ve all been found within 5 miles of each other in the general area.
 
Makes you wonder the things that thing has shot
We wondered how the old guy lost it. Did he just drop it? Did he throw it at the bear or the Indians that were chasing him? Or did he die on that spot. I kind of wish I would have looked around for more stuff. Maybe a pickaxe, a frying pan or possibly an old tobacco tin full of gold nuggets. But it was the end of a long hot day, on a super steep slope and we were just trying to get back to the cabin we were staying in.
 
I imagined a clan of buffalo-hide-covered early people hunting this ridge, surrounded by glaciers, arguing about whether the decrease in mammoth population was due to hunting or climate change. ;)
Please don't do that again -- my breath is getting too short these days to sustain such prolonged laughing without serious risk to my survival!
 
View attachment 248248

Found on some old stock tanks no doubt drawn by shepherds. These things were covered in drawings (most if you could imagine by lonely young men) and ramblings that I can’t translate. I believe the oldest one I saw was from 1950.

Simpler, harder times no doubt.
About nine or ten years after the oldest graffiti you saw was deposited on that stock tank, my father and I hiked up a slope near Twin Lakes (near Bridgeport, CA) and through some aspen grove on our route to check out a lightning-stuck snag in the conifers above. Wish I could remember the dates carved on those tree trunks--they certainly seemed old to me at the time--but what stuck in my young, innocent mind were the naughty illustrations! At least the scenes portrayed other humans and not "Montana ladies."
 
Back
Top