On Saturday April 14, 2007 Fort Ancient State Memorial sponsored its annual Archaeology and Artifact Identification Day. In spite of it being a rather drab and rainy day, the event was well attended.
Archaeology Day is held at Ft Ancient in the spring of every year and it is a chance for the public to bring in their ancient artifacts, minerals and fossils for identification. The items can range from isolated finds made while gardening to a collection of flakes and points from a site in their corn field to that old shoebox full of things grandfather collected years ago. The event isn’t altogether unlike an Antiques Road Show but no monetary values are assigned or appraisals given. Objects are identified as to age and material and how rare an object it may or may not be. If possible participants are encouraged to fill out an OAI or Ohio Archaeological Inventory form to register their find locations with the State Historic Preservation Office. Advice is also give on how to catalog their finds and create maps of the find locations as part of documenting their collection and how their collection should be properly stored.
This year Bill Pickard, OHS Assistant Curator of Archaeology and Jack Blosser, Ft Ancient Site Manager were on hand to look at archaeological items and Doug Shrake of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Geological Survey was there to share his expertise of fossils and minerals. If you missed this event and you have a projectile point or some strangely shaped rock that you would like to have identified there will be another Artifact Identification Day on September 1, 2007 in conjunction with the Knap-In and Stone tool Show at Flint Ridge State Memorial near Brownsville, Ohio. The identification event will be located in front of the museum at Flint Ridge. Check the OHS web site at https://www.ohiohistory.org later in the year for further information. Below ar a few images from the event.
To the right Jack Blosser (l) and Bill Pickard (r) listen to an event participant talk about his grandfather’s artifact collection. He and hiswife and children made the drive down to Fort Ancient from near Columbus. They found out about the event through the OHS website.
(left) Bill Pickard points out some details on one the items in the collection. The material was collected over a number of years on his grandfather’s farm near Findlay
(right) Perhaps the most outstanding piece in the collection was this very large Flint Ridge Flint Hopewell Point dating to the Middle Woodland period of about 2,000 years ago. Such pieces arevery rare and it was pointed out that perhaps a shoe box is not really the best means of storage.
(left) Doug Shrake of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Geological Survey explains to a very bright young visitor that his fossils were the remains of plants and animals that once livedat the bottom of a sea that covered Ohio in the very distant past.
