By: Staff Report
news@wbcowqel.com
A generous donation of Native American artifacts is bringing past Crawford County cultures to life.
The Crawford Park District was recently offered the opportunity to add to its artifact collection with 30 different Native American artifacts. Laura Lee Gardner Canegali approached the Park District and offered various artifacts collected from her family’s farm near Sulphur Springs. The farm had belonged to the Caris family at one time.
Crawford Park District Director Bill Fisher said Canegali felt a close relationship with the area that her mother and father were from. Rather than put the collection from her father’s estate up for auction, Canegali chose to contact the Park District and donate the collection in honor of her father, Robert Gardner.
Park District Naturalist Chris Rothhaar, who has been an active artifact collector for many years, helped to select pieces representative of the area. Though none of the artifacts are overly large, Fisher said they represent the different cultures and ages that lived in Crawford County.
Most of the artifacts were identified by the type of tooling used and how they were worked. One of the oldest cultures represented dated to the late Paleo transitional period, an artifact estimated to be 6,500 years old. The collection contains pieces made of flint, chert, and slate. There are examples of pendants, bifurcates, bottle neck points and concave base corner notches in the collection.
“A collection like this is an integral part of the history of our county,” Fisher stated. “By having representations of things found in Crawford County allows us to be better teachers.”
Fisher added that the collection will definitely be on display for the Park District’s annual Arrowhead Day but an exhibit may also be set up for display throughout the year.