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Hit 100 points on my flint scatter map after 8 months of field walking
I've been walking the same plowed field outside Ames, Iowa since March and logging every flint flake and tool fragment I find, and last Saturday the count on my scatter map finally crossed 100 points. Half of them are just debitage, but there's a quartzite scraper and two biface fragments in there that line up along a ridge, which makes me think there was a small camp there. For folks who record surface finds, how many points do you usually want before you bother reporting a site to your state office?
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leebrown17d ago
That line about the two biface fragments lining up along a ridge is what got me. I've seen that same pattern on a field near Story City and it changed how I walked the place. I started gridding tighter along the high side and pulled 30 more flakes out of maybe 20 yards. Took my scatter log to the state office when I hit around 60 pieces with diagnostic stuff mixed in, and they were glad to get it. Their thinking is that a solid map with a few tool fragments tells them more than a bucket of flakes with no notes. Eight months on one field is serious work, so go ahead and report it. The ridge thing alone is worth a call.
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