Site on my property

[Shrinkmj]

I'm new to this site and to artifact hunting. Long story short... I live in Wayne County, Indiana. I have an early - middle woodlands site on my property (it extends to my neighbor's farm as well. The man that built my house recently told me about it and sold me about 2000 artifacts found here. I was skeptical at first, but have since started looking myself and have found 50-60 pieces myself. It is in an area of about 1-2 football fields, near a natural spring, up on a flat area near a south-facing hill (going down to the spring).
I have written to several people (university departments, etc) locally and nationally. I can't seem to get anyone interested in checking it out.
Suggestions?
Attached are pictures of some of the artifacts.

[comanche]

Indiana,,,Let me be the first to Welcome you here to Arrowheadology,
You have a great collection going on,,,Lots of folks from up North here at this site ..I can't imagine a University would'nt be Interested.I'm sure you will get good advice here.
Thanks for posting and shairing///comanche

[Patrico]

Quite a variation of artifacts, really nice drills and icant tell bout the one frame that's all alike, looks similar to agate basin?

[paleo_joe]

Why does everyone live on an arrowhead site but me?

Those are great finds. 2000 points is a good-sized collection!! Very nice tools, too.

I will leave it to the people from that area here to i.d. the points, but one thing you could do is find out if the site is registered with the state archaeological commission. If it isn't, register it. Catalog all the points, then write your catalog number along with the site number in ink on all the artifacts so that they're documented. I'm trying to do that myself.

[Shrinkmj]

More pictures...

[comanche]

WOW ,,,Bird effigy,,,WOW
What gives??? I am impressed as all get out.Are you kidding me?You could not get intrest for the universities??WOW

[wrenchmandan]

WOW, very exciting , are these surface finds or you digging? I have a similar situation, except ive lived on my site for 30 years and just found my first point this year, because I never plowed, tilled , dug in the right spot till this year
most of our points are archaic period but some woodland too, not as many as you yet by far ..................but I dig test holes all the time looking for that "honeyhole"...

great finds man
cant wait to see what else you pull out of there...good luck
Dan

[drdave514]

The lack of university interest is not really surprising. I've heard that before. I've even heard of them turning down huge collections.

Great spot and collection. I hope it keeps you hunting for years.

There are a few pieces in there that are older than woodland so the top foot or so of the soil might contain the more recent stuff with older stuff below.

[TEXAS DIGGER]

well, that is some sweet stuff dude! and you know.. you cats with point ridden propertys are soo lucky!!! i keep buyn lottery tickets hoping to win enough to by a plot of land, quit my job, and dig with fryn pan all day for the rest of my life!!!
awesome stuff dude.. and great site!
TD.

[Steve Valentine]

Shrinkmj, first let me welcome you our site. Glad to have you on board.

Now for your pieces. Your site isn't just Woodland. I see a lot of Early to Middle Archaic pieces mixed in with that group. There is a Thebes, some early Side Notch cluster points, ie; Big Sandy/Hemphill/Osceola, etc, a Kirk or two, and a nice little Bifurcate Point which are all Early to Middle Archaic types. A lot of those Stemmed Points are probably Archaic types as well since very few actually look like Adenas which is Early Woodland.

I do see a couple of Late Woodland Triangle Points in the mix though. The Axe and the Pestles are more than likely Archaic too. The pieces in the last post are probably mostly geofacts. The stones may be Hammerstones, but the piece Commanche referred to as a Bird Effigy is probably a natural formation.

What I don't see though is hardly any Hopewell type points so Middle Woodland culture wasn't very prevelent there. I see a few in the first tray that might be Hopewell, but not very many.

One thing of interest I do see is in the upper right hand corner of the second tray beside the little red Stemmed Point. Is that the tail off of a Birdstone or a piece of a Bar Amulet? Could you get a few better pictures of that particular piece. It's kind of pinkish looking and seems to have a hole drilled in it.

Personally, if it was my site I wouldn't worry about letting any univeristy or archaeologists come in and look around. For one, any artifacts they find they will want to take and "study" with the promise you will get them back and you will probably never see them again. Two, they would probably come in and dig a few test pits and if they didn't find any evidence of a village or mounds they wouldn't be interested in digging it anyway and you would more than likely be left with big holes in your fields. If I was you I would just continue to search the fields yourself, and like someone else mentioned above, I would catalogue all of your finds and keep records of what and where each item was found.

Thanks for posting the pictures of your collection. Very impressive looking artifacts. If you have any more questions feel free to ask us.