Knapping Woodcock collection

William Woodcock III collection

I met Bill Woodcock back in the 1980s when he was Archaeology Editor for Academic Press. He published a number of books about High Plains archaeology,especially those by George Frison and co-authors. Two of the better known are the Agate Basin Site and the Horner Site. Both of these books have become classics and original copies are sought by collectors. I was privileged to have made contributions to both volumes. I would see Bill once a year at his book stall at the Society for American Archaeology meetings and we would have animated discussions about flintknapping and stone projectile points. I don't remember how but it became apparent that he would like to obtain some of my replicas and we started making trades; he would get replicas and I would get left over copies of books. This happened off and on through the 1990s. Again,memory doesn't serve well but somewhere along the line he started bringing me pieces of stone he thought would make nice points so the medium of trade switched to stones. He had an excellent eye for what might be a good piece for knapping. He is the only non-knapper I have known who could discern knapping stone quality.

Most stones he collected himself,mainly in Wyoming and Montana, but in later years in California. He would also buy stone for me to knap. He kept the points I made and in return I got to have the surplus stone, and there was usually quite a bit.

Some time in the early 2000s he suggested I come to his home and spend some days knapping. He had access to frequent flier miles and would buy my ticket and I would spend 4-5 days with him knapping his latest stone acquisitions. He would ask for certain point types from specific pieces of stone, I would make suggestions and at times, he would just let me do whatever I chose. He and his wife Charlene were very generous and would cover all of my expenses, take me out to eat, to a concert, on day trips to see sights or look for stones, etc. I really enjoyed these times with them. I didn't keep records nor did Bill. I think the trips were in 2004, 2006, 2010, 2013 and 2016. Sadly, Bill passed away in 2017. I recently made a trip to visit Charlene and identify some artifacts in Bill's collection. One of the results of this trip was the Woodcock family generously gave me all but a few of the pieces I made for Bill,plus several pieces made by another knapper, Woody Blackwell, who joined us for a few days in 2013. The following are images of these points, including a few that I gave Bill that I had made during the 70s and 80s. They are organized by archaeological time period for High Plains types, otherwise by general area or material. All made by me unless otherwise indicated. Captions identify the stone types top to bottom left to right, all approximately the same scale. I use codes for the stone types.These are available on a spreadsheet here-