Salvaging History

A few posts back I mentioned that I had taken a trip to my grandma's house in Missouri to visit. My grandma's house is an awesome place. It's out in the middle of nowhere located not too far from a small creek. The creek is amazing. The rocks along the walls would make any geologist or flint napper squeal with delight. Beautiful slate as far as the eye can see. Along with the slate there is a tan/rose colored rock that I have not been able to identify as of yet that flakes so amazingly that I can see why its a popular place to find arrowheads.

My grandma's house sits up on the hill from this creek, looking down into its valley. The creek itself is only hidden by a small wood that stretches out for about a blocks worth of distance on either side of its banks. I used to love playing there as a child and carefully peeling the slate out of the dirt walls so as not to break it. It comes out in nice little chunks, perfect for a little one to drag home to grandma and grandpa to ask what it is. Growing up, I knew that others had found tons and tons of arrowheads along its banks but I had never found one. When I wanted to find an artifact, I swiped a spoon from my grandma's kitchen and dug a hole in the back yard. Despite its distance from the creek, my grandma's yard is what I have referred to as an arrowhead burial ground. They are everywhere. Not on the surface...you have to dig for them. Every year my uncle will go out and plow up the garden and turn up a hand full or two of arrowheads and lithics or flakes.

When it comes to history and artifacts, I am a strict, leave it where it lie, kinda gal. Until I feel that something is threatened. No one in this neighborhood is about to let archeologist come into their yards and start digging around. On top of that, most don't even realize what is laying there on the ground in front of them. The last conversation I had with my uncle about this left me wanting to bang my head up against the wall. He stated that when ever he turns up those "rocks" he grabs them and chucks them out into the grass. Heaven forbid something get in the way of plowing up the dirt so they can sow some crops. Needless to say, my last trip to grandma's included a stern conversation that if they found anything they were to immediately pocket it and put it in a box to send to me. I am now attempting salvage archeology at my grandma's house.

Knowing what was in the backyard, I decided to use the opportunity to show my kiddo's how to dig for stuff and what to look for. We found several neat little lithics and one large arrowhead. Along with these we also located what looked like a possible hand scraper. After collecting and cleaning them I wrapped them all snug up in some paper towels, put them in a zip lock baggie and transported them back home so that I could protect them from the evil plow.

Here the boys are using extra high tech kitchen utensils to dig up fun stuff.

These are small lithics or flakes that the boys and I found during a five minute dig. The largest is about the size of a quarter. 

On this one you can see the flaking pattern. 

Another flake where you can see the tool marks

Here is a large arrow point. It was probably discarded after it broke and was never finished. 

I believe that this little beauty is a hand scraper. It fits perfectly into my hand and the edges of it stick out so nicely that I could see someone easily using it to clean a hide. 

The tool marks around the edges of the scraper. 

Right now these are stored in my house waiting patiently for a new home. My hope is that if my family finds more of these, they will send them to me and I can send them off to where they belong. The place I have in mind to send them at this point is the University of Missouri. However, I would like to be able to find a more complete arrowhead to use as a means of identifying the tribe. If I could do that then the collection would be sent directly to the tribe for their historical preservation. What research I have done has yielded a few clues.

My grandma lives within the black square on the above Google map. Before the European settlers moved in and forced the natives off their land, this area was populated by Missouria Plain's Indians. This Missouria Native American's tribal origin is from the Siouan tribe. The below map shows the area (in red) where Siouan language speaking tribes were documented at pre-contact.

My grandma's house sits smack dab in the center of all that so my best educated guess is that at some point there was either a camp of Missouria natives living there or passing through. Based on the amount of artifacts found in the area and its reputation for being a place to find things, I could only figure that there was a long term settlement somewhere.

The creek is a huge resource when it comes to tool making. Sitting in my grandma's garden I could easily visualize a Native American, sitting there, looking down on the valley while chipping away at his soon to be new tool. It would break and he would discard it where I would find it hundreds of years later. Its very possible that the creek was the draw for them, with its promise of water, food and great rock for tool making. It was either a spot for a permanent settlement or a popular place to visit, make tools and move on. I might never get the chance to know but it would sure be awesome to find out. As it stands, all I can do is try to encourage the people in the area, my family in particular, to collect what they find instead of chucking it out into the yard as useless. That way we can make some effort to preserve the history of the area and possibly help some tribe that may struggle in preserving its history since being forced from their home.


Rachel B.