Horning in on someone's hunting spot

Doesn't look like a clovis point to me. That would surely be many thousands years old.
Whereabouts did you find it?

31 deg 03 min 16.0 sec
89 deg 45 min 31.5 sec

Just inside the Marion County line- South Mississippi

Is that natural gas infrastructure just to your east there?

I don't think it's natural gas. Those fields in that area are pretty old. I think they have been getting oil out of Marion County since the '20s. I saw an old photo at a cafe in Columbia, MS just up the road and downtown looked like an oil boomtown. There is a big diesel engine pumper not far from my plot that runs 24-7 and what we call flowlines (upburied low pressure oil lines) running all over the ground out in the woods. I have always been in clubs that were run by alpha dogs and I always just went along to get along planting and doing what they said. But this club allows a private plot and I have been doing my own research, preparing the soil more, putting down lime, getting soil samples, researching what to plant, etc. Just like everyone else (human nature I guess) Deer Hunters think they know doing the same things they have always done no matter what the results. The wife killed an 8 point on this club last year but I didn't shoot anything letting several young bucks walk. Really, I didn't see anything the same size or larger than hers so I wasn't about to shoot something smaller..... just not going to happen.

I have a decent collection of artifacts from all over the country. I found a few very similar to what you have. Mine were from the midwest. According to the Archeologist at Cahokia they were probably from the early 20th century indian migrant workers. Still a cool connection to the past...

To get a good analysis of the point you need to find someone familiar with what is typically found in your area. There are a zillion styles, and the experts can see distinguishing features you would never think of. To get a general feel for the varieties, you might want to browse the pictures at this or other web sites
http://www.lithicsnet.com/

I found a point here in Iowa and an expert told me the probable source of the chert, that it had been heat treated, the flaking method used, that it had been resharpened, that it was a dart point as opposed to an arrowhead, that it was probably around 2000 years old, the name of the style, and that it had been hit by a plow before I found it.

I know only a very little about them. From that tiny knowledge I'd say your point has a rather short length to width ratio and a contracting stem. It may have been heat treated unless the reddish material is naturally common in your area. I'd guess it is not among the oldest styles but could still be many hundreds to a few thousand years old.

Looks like a dart point

>

Well, it looks like a dart point, as opposed to an arrow point. The material it's knapped from doesn't appear to be very high quality chert, but good chert may not have been as common in pre-Columbian Mississippi as in Texas. If it were in Central Texas, I would think that was a pre-form, something that hadn't been finished by pressure flaking the edges. I'd think you could tell whether the edges of the stem have been ground or not.

If that point were from Texas, I'd guess that it would be between 4,000 and 6,000 years old.

Looks like a dart point

The site posted above got me on the right trail. I found a site that broke it down into regions and even states. There is a lot of similarities between the points so.....
If it is a Morrow Mountain Straight Base from the Middle Archaic, it could be 7,000
years old; if it is a Bascom or Hale from the Late Archaic, it could be 4,500 to 3,000 y.o.; it it is Wolf Lake from the Woodland Period, it is 3,500 to 2,500 years old. I think the Wolf Lake is the closest. But it very well could be one of the older points. And I don't think it's an arrowhead either. It would have to be a pretty hefty shaft. I don't think I will have to worry about finding him in my ladder stand.

Definitely not an arrowhead

No the bow and arrow was a much more recent hunting technology in pre-Columbian America. As I recall, the bow and arrow appeared around 900 A.D. - 1000 A.D. That point is way too large to be an arrow point.

Definitely not an arrowhead

Probably a point for one of those throwing stick contraptions? I don't see how they could have hit the side of a barn with those things even if they had had barns. I would have starved for sure.

Definitely not an arrowhead

> Probably a point for one of those throwing stick contraptions? I don't see how they could have hit the side of a barn with those things even if they had had barns. I would have starved for sure.

I'll bet that the point was hafted to a length of cane that had been smoothed and straightened. Using an atlatl or throwing stick really improves the velocity and range. I'll bet that if you practiced, you'd be able to do much better than hitting the barn. I don't know what the effective range for hunting large animals would have been.

Definitely not an arrowhead

Search for videos of atlatl demonstrations. I'll bet you will be impressed with the accuracy they achieve. I would not be surprised if an expert could sometimes hit a deer at 50 yards, but to reliably get a kill shot would probably try to be within 50 feet.

Definitely not an arrowhead

Natives still use the atlatl here for hunting seals. It's not too uncommon to find old carved antler atlatl dart points on the edges of receding snow patches. Caribou hang out on the snow patches to escape the bugs and ancient hunters would sneak up and launch a barrage of atlatl darts at the herd. Some would get lost in the snow and melt out centuries later.

Give you an idea of the power behind one of these darts, a fellow found a skull of an ancient bison with one of these points completely embedded in one of the horns. It was proven the animal was alive at the time of impact.

Very cool find.

Link