In early summer 1971 someone mentioned while having their hair cut by John Zahm, at his shop next to the Iola post office, they had seen some flint chippings in disturbed ground along Deer Creek north of Iola. He and I had started hunting artifacts lost or discarded by early American people, now politically correct referred to as American Indians, for about two years and decided after the next rain we’d take a look.
We did.
Not long after arriving we split up and John, with a keen eye, immediately found a very nice knife with beveled edges made from gray flint. A few minutes later I noticed a piece of white flint protruding from the ground. On closer inspection I saw the edge was chipped to fashion a simple knife or scrapper. I dug it up and in so doing was met by two or three other pieces of worked flint.
By the time I was done digging, and with warning to John I had found something special, I had a pile 66 tools, including several nicely fashioned cleavers, a scrapper larger than any I’ve seen in 53 years of hunting artifacts and a very large oval piece of flint that had not been turned to a tool. State archaeologists think it may have been raw material meant to be traded – a common practice – or had been set aside for later use as any number of tools.
A disappointment for those who may view these tools is that none is a projectile point. They are all meant to be used in processing game, and from evidence we found, most often bison.
After mulling over what was in the 18-inch-by-24-inch hole (a rough estimate from so long ago) we called John Reynolds, then a state archaeologist. He came to Iola, praised the find and with duly signed paperwork toted it back to Topeka.
Later, I became well-acquainted with State Archaeologist Randy Thies, who passed a few years ago at the far too-young age of 69. He came to the Iola-Humboldt area several times at my invitation to look at sites I thought might be of interest to the state. We also visited the cache site several times.
Randy’s opinion was it was a processing camp of an Indian hunting party. We also picked up a few more artifacts to add to the cache find.
John and I talked a few times about recovering the cache artifacts for the Allen County Historical Society Museum.
After he passed a few years ago I decided it was now or never. I contacted the museum and learned the return of the artifacts would face no hurdles, other than signing a few more documents, which I did.
Also, while visiting with Chris Garst and Nikki Klarmann, KSHS archaeologists, I learned a bit more.
The examination of the artifacts led them to date the site to between 1000 and 1500 A.D. and that the tools were made of Peoria flint, a fine-grain material that lends itself well to tool manufacture. Before turning the artifacts over, each was photographed and assigned a number so they could be traced to their origin. If I had been more alert, I would have left the cache in place and John and I would not have removed any other artifacts. However, since the ground already had been disturbed, only the cache being in situ might have been important for interpretation.
John and I always thought it would be nice to have the artifacts at the ACHS Museum so local folks could enjoy them. Now they are.
