This thread isn't named that because that's what you say when you're walking along and find a scraper. Like,"Haw! A scraper!"
It's because I found these at sites along the Haw River in Chatham and Lee Counties, NC.
I was going thru a drawer of old Haw River artifacts the other night because I think it's a game old people play with themselves to test their memory. They rumage around in drawers that they haven't opened in a while and see if they can remember putting what they find in there.

But I enjoy looking at scrapers. Finding the working edge. The, more often than not, flat or smooth backs. Figuring out how it was held, or was it hafted? How old is it and did it have a special purpose?
Scrapers can tell a story, too. Here are a few.
Pic 1 & 2 are top and bottom of the whole assortment.
The 3 to far right are graver types.
The dark piece middle bottom is a piece of historic rum bottle used as a scraper. Not that uncommon, but an old piece of glass.

Now these kindof show the other end of the timeline.
Of course the glass scraper is historic. Let's give it an early range date of 1600AD. The long skinny "Arrowhead" projectile point, far right, is the very last point type defined in the state of NC. It is called the Randolph Point and has a circa date of 1750-1820AD. They always left some of the weathered rock on the outside of their points as shown in Pic 2.
This is a kindof cool picture actually because the point, or biface, to the far left in the pic is the Earliest type of Arrowhead defined found in NC and is called a Badin. The Badin was a very experimental point type as they learned the art of archery and would be about 1500 years earlier than the other artifacts in the pic. Note the difference in oxidation of the Badin compared to the triangular scraper and Randolph.

Joe,

Thanks for the excellent information about scrapers.  I've found several scrapers in the Low Country of South Carolina (Jasper & Hampton counties) very similar to these.  Almost all were made from Allendale Chert.

In the 8th photograph (DSCN0456.JPG) there are two points on the bottom row.  The one on the left looks very much like the Stanley points I have found in WNC and SC, having a bifurcated base and lopsided ears.  How closely related are Stanleys to Kirks?

Dennis

Finished sorting thru that drawer and found all sorts of stuff.
Here's three more scrapers I liked because of the material. Projectile points are "bi-facially" worked tools. Scrapers are "uni-facially" worked tools. They are ever so slightly chipped from the flat side to create a good sharp scraping edge.

First pic is the top side and the working edges are pointing to the right.
In pic two I just flipped them over so working edge is facing to the left. I hope you can see the flat surfaces.

The chert veins, lenses, and bodies of this area of Lee County were perfectly positioned for utilization by aboriginal populations, unfortunately, the chert is so blocky and fractured it is very hard to get tools of any size out of it. Great material for scrapers and small projectile points, but pretty useless for making large 3-4 inch spearheads, so they are not well represented in local artifact collections.
At the bottom of a ridge running along the river the floodplain widens to about 150 yards and across this field the ancient river cut an almost vertical profile about 20 feet high in the base of the ridge.
The approximately 10 x 10 inch chert vein, which is very good size for this area, was exposed on and off in this cut for atleast 50 feet running with the contour of the foliation of the surrounding rock.
So I am "guessing" the chert in this area formed pre-pangea?
Archaic occupations were all up on the ridgetop and the floodplain would have been perfect for later Woodland occupations. I always wanted to find a triangle arrowhead made from the chert in that field but unfortunately that occupation was buried too far down under the last few hundred years of sediment and would take some digging to get to.
I am sure this vein was utilized prehistorically but doubt that it has been recorded. There hasn't been much investigation of this chert done, but here is a sample of a report. Scroll down to second article in the link,"Piedmont Chert Quarry".
http://rla.unc.edu/Archives/NCAS/Newsletters_(new_series)/Volume_2_No_3.pdf
Here are pics of pieces from the brown chert vein. Note the blocky structure and white/cream colored areas. The last pic is how the slab would have been positioned in the vein. The whole vein was fractured like this about every inch along it's length. Once you have exposed the vein you can pull these slabs out almost like books off a shelf.

One more special find from the drawer would be this atlatl.
A half is as good as a whole when it comes to these things. That hole they drill in the rock is pretty cool alright but it definitely makes for a weak spot. I've found atleast ten of these all broken the same way.
Whole ones are hard to find!
This stone feels pretty soft, possibly a black mineral schist. Not chlorite. And the way the hole is tapered tells you it was drilled with a stone drill and not a reed.

Thanks for looking, Julie, and Happy New Year!
That's the nice thing about rocks, there's always something to learn!

Thanks for taking the time to read it, Tim!
I've got a few more of those drawers to look through.