Lapidaryforum.net
Off Topic Area => Random Musings => Topic started by: Kaljaia on November 13, 2016, 07:58:44 AM
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I was attempting to get thunder eggs but got distracted by four big shed antlers dropped last season.
(https://68.media.tumblr.com/eb354d1adbb790f38dd3d3c6d886cce0/tumblr_ogl7w6XHXH1spns93o3_1280.jpg)
(https://68.media.tumblr.com/2b4243a94bddc95daac4d2403f245e65/tumblr_ogl7w6XHXH1spns93o4_1280.jpg)
(https://68.media.tumblr.com/747bf2748a1fa6bdbd19fad1964871a2/tumblr_ogl7w6XHXH1spns93o5_1280.jpg)
Let me pick the brains of those of you who have experience with Oregon archaeological history. This is a stone ring on the ridge, big enough to be visible from google earth, and in all appearances quite old. There's flakes of jasper and agate all around a nearby spring and lots of camas, bitterroot and onion in the basalt flows and bog holes. While there are piles of stone and dirt left from road construction in the area, the ring appears much older (if lichen growth is an indicator), is built of different stone, and is not visible from the road. I'm wondering if it was an earth oven? It's on private property and appears to be undisturbed. I took photos and nothing else.
(https://68.media.tumblr.com/bffe50c4ea79afd140c44f5d15920e1c/tumblr_ogl7w6XHXH1spns93o1_1280.jpg)
(https://68.media.tumblr.com/430bbc479b82fa6728fa462b66fa3a46/tumblr_ogl7w6XHXH1spns93o2_1280.jpg)
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those sheds are two years or more dropped, they are too dried out and bleached to be last seasons.
Killer finds though.
Kiwi brown shoe polish will bring them back into shape for color.
Nice find!
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Thanks! I think they're this past spring's sheds because I was in that exact spot last March and 98% sure they weren't there then but did see animals still carrying their antlers at that time (it's been a weird antler year- they kept velvet super late and word is they've been dropping unusually late too. Saw a bull elk who hadn't dropped his antlers at the end of March.) They aren't split, just white on the sun side and still very solid. The photo washes them out a lot, they have more color than that. No chalk or flaking on the outside and the undersides still have their color. With 300+ days of sun, the only dark antlers here are still on live animals. Some of my neighbors go shed hunting religiously and sell online. They've been trying wood finish on antlers but I'll give the kiwi polish a try. Sounds significantly easier to work with!
Found a nice skull with 3x4 antlers later in the day that I might bleach and put in my office, as it's fairly undamaged and only a little fleshy, and found a fresh dead 2x2 mule buck this morning when out with a friend. It died sometime in the last 24 hours- very fresh, and not a cougar kill, so either a lost poached animal or internal injuries from some other accident. It's improbably far from any used roads to be roadkill, but that's what it looked like. Blood from the mouth, no clear entry or exit wounds, some loose fur. The ravens had been pulling tufts of fur out to get at the flesh, but no coyotes had been at it yet.
(https://68.media.tumblr.com/a6c97b22ab2d9d52aa44a9340a97ce3e/tumblr_ogk0rzemd41thod7io1_1280.jpg)
(https://68.media.tumblr.com/abf66f4c6346c67f5bc0d5205581837a/tumblr_oglm8ecqYC1thod7io1_540.jpg)