Dirt Brothers Visitor Pages
January - October, 2005
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Awesome Folsom found in NW Iowa.

 
From Dirt Bro Henry Helene in Iowa:

Henry sent in the pics forwarded by the finder, who wishes to remain anonymous. He did, however allow us to publish the pictures he sent and his story.  THANKS!

The point was found in a creek in Woodbury County Iowa. I have a particular 
creek that I love to hunt after each and every rain....I was in this creek 
and had been walking it for about an hour when from about 20 feet I spotted 
what I knew was a projectile point on a gravel bar. As I got closer I could 
clearly see that the point was fluted...I have to tell you I got goosebumps 
and verbalized this phrase right after spotting it "what the Fxxx is that". 
Sorry for the bad language but that's what I said. I walked up and knelt 
down and just stared at if for awhile. I picked it up looked to the sky and 
said "thank you Jesus" what a hypocrite, cursing one second and thanking 
Jesus the next.

It was the first fluted point I had ever seen. I was not sure if it was a 
clovis or folsom but knew it was very special. I left the creek immediately 
to do some research on the Internet. I soon found out that what I had found 
was indeed a folsom and extremely rare.

There have been 24 folsom's found in southwest Iowa and one north of 
Woodbury county in Plymouth, with a few also found in eastern Iowa. I 
believe this point washed out of the north facing wall of this creek and 
ended up on the gravel bar just below. The wall is about 30 feet high.
I sent the folsom to Bill Jackson for authentication and after finding out 
what it may be worth I made the decsion to put it up for sale. Bill offered 
it to his clients but no one was interested at the time because of the high 
price we had set. He suggested I send it to Jeb Taylor, which I did and to 
my suprise he decided not to paper the piece believing it looked too sharp 
to be 10-11,000 year old and not the color he had hoped to see with the 
black light. He would not say it wasn't authentic but would not paper it due 
to it's pristine condition.

I believe that it is in the condition it is in because it was not in the 
creek all of those years but stuck in the clay wall. I do respect Jeb's 
decision not to paper the piece but also believe that he missed out on one 
of the finest folsom's ever found. We were talking in the 30's before he got 
the opportunity to see the piece.

I sat on the piece for about a year and got back in touch with Bill Jackson 
to see if he thought anyone would be interested in the piece at a somewhat 
reduced price. He agreed to contact some clients again and also sent the 
piece to Dr. Perino for possible papering. Dr. Perino papered the piece and 
it was sold just a few months later. 

I believe the Folsom is to end up in a museum being built for indian 
artifacts in Arkansas.

I do wish I still owned this artifact,knowing full well this folsom is one 
of the finest ever found and may go down as one of the finest of all time.

Once again thanks for your interest and I do feel honored to have been the 
one to find it. I have attached a picture of the very spot the folsom was 
found. The stick in the gravel marks the spot.

(picture of spot mentioned is on next page)

Bob

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