6. Because David Hurst Thomas, Curator of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History, says that the Ohio Historical Society has “arguably the best collection of pre-contact American Indian objects from eastern North America.” And who is going to argue with David Hurst Thomas? Not us.
The Ohio Historical Society Archaeology collections include more than 1.6 million artifacts representing more than 13,000 years of Ohio’s cultural history. A selection of the finest artifacts in our collection from the various ancient American Indian cultures identified in the state currently is on display in our new exhibit “Following in Ancient Footsteps.”
You can view images of many of these artifacts in our online exhibit “The First Ohioans.” Davids assessment of the OHS collections is from his book, Exploring Ancient Native America: an archaeological guide,which is a terrific source of information on the most spectacular publicly accessible archaeological sites and museums around the country. Whenever I go on a trip, I pull my copy off the shelf to see what great sites I might be able to take in along the way and to get David’s insights on those sites.
Brad Lepper
