Who Enjoys Geology and Paleontology?

[Gerald Wilgus]

I have a rock collection. All of them were found (rather than purchased).
A few of them are small & really special to me and I carry them around in my wallet & daypack.

One in particular is I think it’s some sort of agate. Light shines through it. At some mysterious time long-ago it was made into a cutting tool. It has an obviously flaked sharp edge on one side. It was found near to a small river in a remote area of N. Az.

My best find of a knapped artifact was from a ridge near Thedford, Ontario. I knew it was inhabited after the last glacial period when the lake level would have been at the foot of the ridge. Lots of flint shards but once found a Clovis spear point with its distinctive fluting. Just knowing that it was crafted by somebody who experienced such a different world than now is an amazing thought. I prized it but gave it as a thank you to a person who took me out for Dinosaur fossils in the Red Deer Badlands of Alberta.

 

[watersprite]

That “jolt” that unmistakeably faint echo of another’s life, existence, their feet on the earth as are mine for this brief encounter.

How astounding, that connection. What would they say to me, what would I say to them? Of course the language would not be the same and they might immediately run away from me about 3 times faster than I could follow. Or kill me with the object I found?

Nothing that I have made will exist thousands of years from now.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Growing up, we had a friend who lived in a hundred year old adobe with his family. They had no electricity and their running water came from spring water that was piped into a tank and then down into the house. There was an ancient sweat lodge on the property (called the "sweat"), that was by that time, full of black widow spiders.

It was neat going over to their house, because he was an Archaeologist, and he would always be showing us stuff as we were just hanging out.

Like he'd randomly bend over and pick up a small rock, and say something like "This may look like a flat stone, but it actually was used by the indians as a....." or if we saw a rock formation, "You know, the indians would come here and use this as a hunting ground for......, as you can see by the ....."

I just realized that with all that infodumping, he must have been an aspie, even though he was very jolly and social. He was a kind man, with hair down to his waist, and always had a tin of rolling tobacco that smelled like roses.