Staff photo by Fritz Busch
Science Museum of Minnesota Director of Anthropology Ed Fleming examines a rare stone projectile artifact found by William Eibner and Wade Cordes in August on a Cottonwood River gravel bar on public land near City of New Ulm property.
NEW ULM — The Science Museum of Minnesota director took a close look at a projectile point found on a Cottonwood River sandbar this fall at the Brown County Historical Society Museum.
Ed Fleming examined the artifact found Aug. 6 by William Eibner and Wade Cordes on public land near the New Ulm Wastewater Treatment Plant.
“This is a very early tool that William (Eibner) found because the soil was exposed. Things erode out of the river. It wasn’t necessarily in the place where it was dropped about 7,000 to 9,000 years ago. The place is was dropped was probably upstream and above the river,” said Fleming.
He defined the projectile as Burlington chert, a high-quality lithic (of the nature of or relating to stone) material in the Mississippi River Valley.
“I have a colleague I’d really like to have take a look at this who is really a lithic expert, Dan Lendt, a Science Museum volunteer and retired chemical engineer. I’ve worked with him on a couple projects. He’s masterful with raw material patterns and how different stone materials were used at different times. He’s really good at identifying materials. I identified this as chert, but I want Dan to look at it to be sure,” Fleming said.
He said Burlington chert comes from southeastern Iowa and northeastern Missouri.
Fleming said the artifact is a hunting tool, used on a spear.
“On its own, it’s evidence of early hunters that lived in the area in post-glacial times. It was lost at some point. Collectively, along with other area tools in that time, we can start to paint a picture of where these things came from, where people were living. They were almost certainly hunting large game. Raw materials can give us clues to mobility patterns. People moved around a lot. There were no big, established settlements at that time,” said Fleming.
Eibner has been exploring the Cottonwood River for minerals and fossils for the past seven years. He said the best time to find items is when the river recedes after flooding.
Eibner said he makes sure he has property owner permission before exploring near their land.
The projectile was found after Cordes found a piece of petrified wood. He called Eibner to look at it. While walking over, Eibner saw the projectile in the gravel.
Eibner called the projective a duo find. After discovering it, he sent a photo of it to Fleming and contacted New Ulm City Manager Chris Dalton, who formally accepted the artifact on behalf of the City of New Ulm, but said it would be given to the Brown County Historical Society, because he felt the county was best able to determine the best way to handle the item.
Eibner said he doesn’t want to horde artifacts and would rather advance the knowledge of everyone. Cordes and Eibner hope sharing the discovery will inspire other artifact hunters to do the same when making important discoveries.
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