Gold Arrowheads???

[Steve H]

Found this in P.A in family farm . Looks like a broke golden arrowhead . Not sure any ideas . It's was about a foot in the ground  solid the whole way through and very heavy . 

[Steve Herschbach]

Welcome to the forum!

There are no such thing as genuine gold arrowheads, except in a modern jewelry store. That simply looks like a broken piece of pyrite - iron sulphide. However if you found it with a metal detector (not sure about that), it would be metal. Pyrite in general is not something a detector would signal on. Still not gold, but then it might be some brass variant.

[fredmason]

The pic is not very clear, but, I would say it is a natural stone that has the appearance of being chipped...

fred

[Jeff McClendon]

Hi,

did you find that with a detector or did it come out of a hole you were digging going after a different target.

Gold and silver are far too soft and malleable, especially gold, to be used for stabbing or piercing weapons. Also, gold cannot be worked or shaped like the specimen you are holding. It has an amazing ability to smooth itself out when dented or scratched. Knapping it would be totally impossible. There have been gold and silver plated ceremonial stabbing weapons.

I have found pyrite, marcasite, schist, quartzite and even sandstone that has been worked by our native Americans for weapons and tools. Some schist, quartzite and sandstone can be knapped like flint since they are similar in composition having lots of silica based quartz. 

Like others have said, better photos would be great.

 

Jeff

[alaskaseeker]

I have a small copper point and a spear point, native copper nuggets can be found in Ak and they were worked into tools, interesting finds but can only be found in a couple of areas...

[Dubious]

I believe some of the pre-Columbian civilizations in Central- and South America did know how to alloy gold with copper and other metals, which I suppose could result in something hard enough to be made into a poor arrowhead.  But I don't think any of the North American Indians had that technology.  Also, electrum (a gold/silver alloy) occurs naturally, but while harder than gold is probably still far too soft to give flint any competition when it comes to sharp pointy things.

[Steve Herschbach]

Funny how people post stuff once and disappear.

[Jim Hemmingway]

Hi Steve H… and welcome to the forum. Thanks for sharing your recovery with us. I doubt that it is possible for us to resolve your question beyond determining whether it is comprised of metal or is a mineral such as pyrite briefly mentioned above.

Your sample certainly has an iron pyrite “appearance” if we adopt a view that you’ve found a naturally occurring mineral. However as Steve points out above, pyrite normally does not react to a metal detector in the field, and certainly not a piece of that size at twelve inches depth. So if you metal detected this sample, and that is not absolutely clear from your post description, we can abandon any idea that this piece is iron pyrite. 

But if it was not found with a metal detector, then widely occurring pyrite looks to be a satisfactory solution to your question. Frankly, more information about your sample is required for us to be more forthcoming.

Jim.