Introduction
At night a common bad habit I have found myself in recent weeks is doom scrolling on Instagram and Facebook. I have made the mistake of joining or following enough groups and/or pages related to my many interests/hobbies that I am in a constant state of fascination. It is easy to keep scrolling when all you see is fish, deer, art, bows, pretty rocks, and people’s arrowhead finds from their personal digs/adventures. A common debate that you will hear once in a while is if ancestral Native Americans flint knapped some of their fishing hooks or if those are just modern creations/art pieces.
I bought a book last year that was recommended by one of my favorite flint knappers that I watch on YouTube – Jack Crafty. The book was mainly used as a mean to invoke inspiration when making your own arrowheads and stone tools. If you are wondering what the book is called it is called, Stone Artifacts of Texas Indians by Ellen Sue Turner. It is mainly composed of illustrations/figures true to size with detailed descriptions of various artifacts collected in and around various regions of Texas. Often they discuss where in the archeological record these are found and other interesting details when applicable such as the thickness of the pieces.
In the book Turner mentions that flint/chert effigies were not common and never have been found in a true archeological context at least within North/South America as far as I am aware. The majority of professional archeologists agree that stone effigies and fishing hooks are not real and have not been observed in the field.
Turner elaborates on this further when she writes, “One of the most common fakes is the chert fishhook; all experts agree- there is not, and never has been, a single authentic specimen of this form. Bone and shell hooks dominated the fishing technology of American Indians” (Turner, p. 38).
Despite the strong wording in the previous citation from the book there is always going to be a hobbyist or “fringe” researcher who is deadest on proving mainstream academia wrong. I will admit that I am not a professional archeologist nor would I consider myself to be a hobbyist artifact hunter as I don’t really actively look for artifacts.
Point being it is highly unlikely that stone fishhooks were really utilized by native cultures within the Americas on a regular basis. If this was the case wouldn’t there be extensive records documented by archeologist shown in museums? They still find submerged canoes and other fragile artifacts to this day. I find it hard to believe that there stone fish hooks were part of one’s daily arsenal.
Now that I have covered this topic I will elaborate further on why stone fish hooks would make an unlikely tool in the not so distant past in comparison to other types of designs, materials, or even techniques of harvesting food given the historical context.
1. Why Waste the Rock?
One of the first questions I seem to have when someone mentions the idea of Native Americans using stone fish hooks is why would they waste the rock? As a flint knapper myself I find it hard to justify the use of high quality rock for such a non-necessity item that could be made with other materials. We don’t know what tools they were using as each tribe had access to different materials, but I am certain that high quality rock was probably not super abundant in a lot of areas even way back then.
If you needed sharp hunting points for hunting large game or even protection from other aggressive tribes or cutting implements such as knives for woodworking and/or gathering materials you would want a constant surplus of high quality stone at your disposal. If you are using natural materials you need high quality rock to help mitigate some of the issues and inconsistencies found in various grades of capable stone. To use or have to spend the time and energy heat treating rocks for fishing hooks seems kind of pointless.
A mini clovis replica I made from tough raw Texas chert using natural tools.
2. Why Waste the Time?
Beyond the lack of materials for such a project I often wonder why would natives waste time making a stone fish hook anyways? Flint knapping takes a bit of time even if you are proficient. I would argue that it may be comparable or even more efficient to make fishing hooks out of bone or wood. The starting pieces would already be closer to the final shape of the product you are wanting and the material would be relatively soft and able to be sawed away or ground down in a relatively short amount of time on a nice abrasive stone.
3. Realizing the Inevitable
Let’s face it, if you were going to spend all this time making fishing hooks I think it would be inevitable that you would end up losing a few hooks to snags or broken lines from fighting a big fish. If you spend about 30 minutes to an hour to make a fishing hook or two and lost both within a few hours or days I am sure it would feel like a waste of rock and time when other alternatives were available. It also is more risky to make a hook out of stone as you need certain parts to be thin and others to be thicker for strength in the water.
4. Active vs Passive Fishing
One of my favorite shows Alone frequently shows individuals utilizing passive methods of hunitng/fishing.
I think it is also important to note that when thinking in terms of survival that Native Americans sustained themselves fishing various parts of a river as means for their survival. I find it unlikely that an individual would spend their time actively fishing the river daily unless there was a certain phenomenon like a salmon run or something of the sort.
It is more realistic and practical to spend your time setting up passive means of catching fish in a river system by means of using gill nets or any other type of passive fishing methods such as a fish trap. This not only allows one to collect large amounts of food with relatively small amounts of work, but also makes sense if you think about all the daily chores that needed done or the amount of energy your were spending just up keeping yourself and your community alive in a community setting.
In a time where your only source of heating and cooking fuel was firewood I assume that one spent a decent amount of time finding, gathering and preparing firewood for daily things like cooking, making tools/pots and keeping warm. When daylight is a limiting factor it makes sense that one would find the most passive way to gather food as to better prioritize other important tasks that needed to be done in daylight.
5. Stone Weight Artifacts
If hypothetically there was evidence of set lines like we make today for catfishing, why would we not find the hooks in the river banks? We often find arrowheads and other stone tools in these areas where people seemed to hang out and hunt frequently. We often find other artifacts like net sinkers, so I argue that if there was a use for stone fishhooks over regular bone or wood ones then why we would not be finding them as common as we do the stone sinkers.
In all honesty it seems like the abundance of stone sinkers in the archeological record supports my previous statement that native peoples relied mostly on passive means of collecting fish making the need of fishhooks little to none of importance. I think it is important to understand that while I am sure people still enjoyed hunting and fishing in the past, there was a different mindset/relationship with the activity as they couldn’t just walk away skunked and pull some meat or leftovers out of the fridge. If they were unsuccessful their clan or community didn’t eat.
This supports the idea that everyone wore many hats occupation wise and that the necessity to diversify ones food source as to create a sense of true food security pointing back to the support of nets as a means of food collection for predominant fishing tactics.
Conclusion
Stone fishhook artifacts seem to be one of those topics that just will not die among artifact hunters and appreciators. Many have inherited these tourist pieces form their father or grandfathers and have been told stories regarding the pieces. Often these stories (regardless of if they are true or not) seem to be clouded with a haze of sentimental feelings. Often hinting toward some degree of emotional attachment to both the piece and the story surrounding the believed artifact despite it most likely being a tourist piece sold in gift shops.
Regardless, to say that people have never made stone fishhooks would be a lie so I am sure there was a true stone/knapped fishing hook somewhere, but to what reasoning does it exist? Of that I am unsure as it could have been made as an art piece or jewelry for an individual. As much as we like to distance ourselves from humans who existed a few hundred or thousands of years ago we are really not that different both physically and mentally. We may live completely different today, but I am certain that humans are still falling into the same pitfalls and learning the same lessons over and over again as is the duty of man.