Archaeological society shows arrowhead collections at Iowa Wesleyan University

Arrowhead collectors assembled at Iowa Wesleyan University Sunday morning, Jan. 16 to show off their collections and to swap stories and finds.

The event, sponsored by the Hawkeye State Archaeological Society, took place at the Howe Activity Center on the university campus.

On display at the event were various arrowheads, axes and mammoth bones, many of which are found at local riverbeds. Although commonly referred to as arrowheads, most of the blades on display were used in other ways such as knives, spears, drills and hide working tools.

Salem resident Alfred Savage has collected Native American artifacts for the past 63 years, and has written for the Central States Archaeological Journal. He has a display at the Old City Hall Artifact Museum at 220 W. Monroe St. Suite 103 in Mt. Pleasant. On display at the museum are arrowheads, axes and other Native American artifacts from Henry County and surrounding area. The museum is open from 9 a.m. to noon on the first Sunday of each month.

Savage grew up in Minnesota and later moved to his family’s ancestral home in Salem. While digging through some records, he found a map from 1837 showing a series of wigwams indicating an American Indian encampment near Salem. The site has turned out to be a great source of artifacts for Savage, and he estimates that 90 percent of his collection has originated at the site.

Savage has on display Clovis points, which are dated to 12,000 B.C., and various other points that are generally dated to 500 A.D., about 11,500 years after humans settled the North American continent.

“They started having wars, big wars, with each other after they developed the arrowhead,” said Savage. “The farm that I have in Salem has ditches, and in those ditches I have found many artifacts from different stages such as Clovis points. On the top we found arrowheads, and as we went deeper into the layers of the earth, we found spear points.”

Cody Cook, from Kahoka, Missouri has found evidence of arrowheads and spear points that go as far back as the Woodland to Paleoindian periods. Roughly 500 B.C. to approximately 12,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.

“I have been looking for more than 12 years, and I have found most of what I have in creek beds all through Clark county in Kahoka,” said Cook. “I have spent lots of miles in the creeks, arrowheads are just about everywhere, and you just have to get to the right spot to find them.”

“Look at the sandy bed areas in the rivers with glacial rock, it’s what I go for,” said Cook. “The limestone creek beds are not so good, they are not eroding like a sandy creek would. You don’t find many pieces in limestone. I find the arrowheads exposed at the tops of the rock bars in the sandy areas.”