Backyard Artifacts

[comrade_general]

So I'm interested to know what sort of evidence of past human activity might be lurking in the backyards of the world.

Where I live there has been a human presence for thousands of years, but very little to show for it until recently. See here a couple photos of flint arrowheads, spearheads, and a scraper that were found here and there around our house and plowed fields nearby:

Spoiler

I'm no expert on identifying which period they might be from, but here is a diagram from which possible identifications may be made:

Spoiler

What's interesting is that flint does not naturally occur in abundance in this particular area, which means most of the pieces we find have been brought here from a hand-dug quarry about 60 miles to the south. Also, since there weren't permanent settlements in this area at that time, these pieces just accumulated over many many years of random hunting intervals.

There have been a few different cultural periods that have existed in this area (think of them as stoneage versions of the Urnfield, Hallstatt, or La Tène cultures), all of which passed to the next and faded away. It's generally believed they disappeard (meaning absorbed) into the later woodland cultures which were here when the Europeans arrived. By then the natives were far different from these early cultures, and had begun to use the modern technology of the day, so these flint projectiles were just a forgotten piece of their past. The Shawnee tribe was the most influential in this area around that time (a lot of towns and counties still bear Shawnee names), but they were pressed by other tribes coming from the East (Delaware, Erie, etc.). I think today most of the remaining Shawnee are in Oklahoma.

This must be boring compared to what our European comrades have to show. 

[Ladyhawk]

That's actually pretty damn cool. I don't have anything to show. Australia has an extremely boring history.

[Son of the King]

In my backyard, there is nothing but building rubble from when houses on my street were built .

[Ladyhawk]

PG found a stone pentagram in his aunties backyard. Not historical I know, but interesting

[Jubal]

To be fair, we (aka whites) pretty much obliterated Australian history so we'll probably never know most of it. 

[comrade_general]

There's a decent amount to be read on the Wiki.

[comrade_general]

Jubal's course links has me urging to go out in the fields and re-discover some bits of limestone I've seen out there with embedded seashells in them.

[Silver Wolf]

My dad found an old clay pipe in the river. Seems to be from the period of turkish invasions.
Somewhat similar to this in terms of design: http://www.knasterkopf.de/images/h17meh2gr.jpg

And a broken clay bowl which was recovered from sand on the same beach. It looks like the stuff which was in our local museum.
Simple design, clay looks really old and it's surface is really weathered.

[comrade_general]

Most impressive. 

[Jubal]

Croatia is pretty culturally diverse and interesting compared to Norfolk.