ARROWHEADS IN THE NIGHT SKY.
In 2003 I found and unusual artifact in Halifax County, North Carolina. At first glance I thought it was just an abrader stone. An abrader was used to dull the edge of projectile points during manufacture. By dulling the edge the knapper has better control of what the final edge will be like. I laid the rock on the back of a display shelf and forgot about it. Then in the late summer of 2005 while rearranging the display I happened to notice that there were a lot of tiny holes scattered across the rock along with many long scratches.
Some of the scratches could have been caused by ploughing as this rock came out of a field. However I have found many of these rocks and they all seem to have inersecting lines that repeat across the rock face. I believe that most of these lines were carved by Native Americans. This particular rock was different because it had all of these holes that appear at random across the rock. At first I assumed that they were natural pits as I do see this on many artifacts.
However after closer examination I could see that all of the holes were of uniform size and shape. But I could not make any sense of why the holes were pruposely drilled into the rock. Finally after looking at the stone many times over a 3 or 4 month period it dawned on me that they might represent stars in the night sky.
I took a picture of the rock and put white dots on all of the drilled holes to make them show up better. Then I drew lines between the dots. I could immediately see a recognized pattern. Two of the patterns made the outline of arrowheads. They were of Morrow Mountain I and II projectile points. The only problem was there was no star at where the point should be. It just so happens that the field where the rock was found is full of Morrow Mountain I and II projectile points, so this artifact is probably of the same age.
I waited until dark and went out to look at the stars overhead in the august sky of 2005. I did not really see any stars that appeared like the ones on the stone. Dissapointed, I put the stone back on the shelf and forgot about it for a while. Then in December of 2005 I decided to take one more look at the night sky. And there it was. I saw the pattern in the night sky!
The amazing thing is, there was a bright star at the point of one of these project points. Only it was not a star; it was Mars. After this I went out to look every few nights. I soon realized that the relationship between stars did not move. However Mars relationship to the stars did change. It moved from the point of one projectile point to point of the other one over a period of time.
What was also strange is the holes were drilled in the rock from a skyward direction. In other words they were drilled from the viewpoint of looking down on the stars from above. They were also a view of the night sky as it was 4000 years ago, instead of how it is today. I suspect that if enough people look we can find more projectile outlines in the stars. In fact I have been able to find several more. It appears that the Native Americans looked to the heavens for inspiration for at least some of the forms of their points.
As it turns out I was lucky. I happened to look up at the night sky at just the right time. At a different time of the year the stars would not be overhead at the right time for me to see them from my home. A year on Mars is a little ofer 2 years on Earth. This means that Mars will only align with the correct stars for a short period of time every few years. The rest of the time Mars will be in a different part of the sky and it will be much fainter.
NOTE: This is all theory on my part. None of my ideas about this been verified by the scientific community.
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