I guess this belongs here..I'm not sure....

[jarhead]

Amen Frank,I have had and still am, good friends with quite a few full blooded Native Americans. We might banter about the "fur faces vs Tonto ' thing but never have any of them ever griped about what they have now. Years ago one of my best friends was full blood Osage/Oto. Just this past summer if you had driven by my place you would have seen a very large & expensive RV parked in my yard for over a week.It's owner is a full blood Apache and I think he likes it much better than living in a earthen lodge.

[pamsback]

 It was a theoretical thought yall. vice versus versa three hundred years ago. had nothing to do with whether or not anybody is satisfied with their life today, it was about how it might have been different.

[pamsback]

and cleaner.

[jarhead]

I will agree with you there Pam. I'm sure the life was less stressful to Native Americans as long as an ample food supply was available. I hunt artifacts and have since I was a pup. The one thing that I find on sites that used to amazes me is all the fresh water mussel shells I find. I suppose they were plentiful and can be made edible--I know because I've eaten them. I hear stories that when the first white settlers came to these parts there were very few trees and nothing but tall grass. Can you imagine the wild fires they had every year ? Lightning hits in Nebraska and a strong north wind ??  Guess the Gulf of Mexico would be where it went out.

[pamsback]

Mother Nature cleanin off the trash Gotta admit She did a pretty good job when She still had a free hand. I would've LOVED to have seen this country before....I've always been interested since I was little bitty, I still have a hide scraper I found when I was about 8 or 9. I found a rock one time that looked like a ball of mud somebody had played with, like it still had finger marks in it...I've got it in a box somewhere It makes you feel a connection to find stuff like that. Makes you wonder about the people who left them. Think my ideal callin would have been archeology or anthropology, now I'm just the armchair variety.

[jarhead]

Pam,
I found my first artifact playing trucks & cars in a sandpile. It is an obsedian point and the only obsedian one I have ever found.Like to know which river it was dredged out of. My collection is cataloged (and I guess you would say the sites are registered) with both WSU and Ks. historical society. I have never found a Paleo point in Elk county and have never seen one from here. The oldest I know of is Archaic but them puppies are 5,000 - 7,000 years old---if I remember right. All this rain and it dries a little I better go see if I can find a couple good points--or scrapers.

[pamsback]

 I was fishin with my Dad when I found the scraper, I THINK it was on Otter Creek but I don't remember for sure. There are arrowheads all OVER the place down here...we found a lot on job sites in Bella Vista Ark. and there are several fields around here where every time they plow you can walk the field and find all kinds. They planted alfalfa last year tho so don't do much diggin there anymore lol My ex-brother-in-law had a place on the white river down by Goshen Ark. He had like 10 or 15 grinding stones and pestles he had found walkin the river. Every time it rained you could find more. One I like the best I found is out of pink flint. I have some a friend gave me that are made out of colored glass.

Crap it's startin to lightnin pretty close so guess I better get off here have a good evenin!

[srkruzich]

I wish i had a nice stone mortar and pestal to grind my herbs with. 

[jarhead]

Steve, Mano's (grinding stone ) are fairly common to find and I'm sure would be easy to make your own out of a sand stone. The Matate (sp) (grinding bowl ) aren't as common--or haven't been for me. The only perfect one I have I was digging some top soil down by the river and found it purely by luck. The grinding bowls haven't survived the years of tilling the ground.

[srkruzich]

Steve, Mano's (grinding stone ) are fairly common to find and I'm sure would be easy to make your own out of a sand stone. The Matate (sp) (grinding bowl ) aren't as common--or haven't been for me. The only perfect one I have I was digging some top soil down by the river and found it purely by luck. The grinding bowls haven't survived the years of tilling the ground.

Hmmm
where can i get a  chunk of sandstone. i suppose i could work one down fairly easy.     
I am guessing sandstone would have to be rather thick cause as you grind you would also wear down the stone.  But it would be a perfect surface for grinding the herbs.