Archeology Roadshow puts spotlight on local artifacts

The black rock with a scooped center sat a little larger than Beth Schroeder’s palm.

It could have been from another state, it could have been from another country, but in 10 archaeologists’ views, it remained a mystery.

“Oh, it’ll stump the archaeologist,” said Patrick Munson, research scientist in the IU Department of Anthropology. “This is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

Patrick and his wife, Cheryl Munson, visited the Monroe County History Center on Thursday for an Archaeology Roadshow as part of the center’s Third Thursday Series. The roadshow, coinciding with Archaeology Month, allowed community members to bring up to 10 artifacts for expert identification.

After a lecture on the archaic history of Monroe County, Cheryl Munson invited members of the crowd to bring their artifacts forward.

“This is a smaller crowd than we sometimes have,” she said. “Once, Pat and I had about 150 people at a roadshow. We had to give them numbers. This is a good crowd for getting to look at the material.”

Cheryl Munson encouraged the visitors to record their artifacts and report them to the State Archaeologist Office.

“If someone wants to put a state highway in an area, they know something about that area,” she said. “Archaeologists going through before construction only have a few hours get as much information as they can.”

Beth Schroeder carried the black rock and other items forward in a Pabst Blue Ribbon cardboard box. She has nearly 1,000 artifacts at home, but she only brought the ones she and her husband, Tom, questioned.

“Of the 1,000, about 200 are fake,” she said.

Most of the artifacts came from her father, Beth Schroeder said, and as Patrick Munson analyzed the items, she wrote down notes on a stack of white envelopes.

At Cheryl Munson’s table on the other side of the room, second year master student Nathaniel Pockras paused before pulling out his camera.

Another visitor had just put away a human tooth that Cheryl Munson said most likely came from a Glacial Kame burial site in Delaware, Ohio. Pockras wanted a picture.

“Excuse me, may I take a picture?” he asked.

The man pulled the tooth, wrapped in cotton in a plastic tin, from his bag, and Pockras placed it on the table, trying to find the best lighting for a photo.

Though Pockras is currently studying history and library science, he said he finds anthropology interesting and has traveled to multiple archaeological sites.

“I like to park next to the sites and stand as close as possible to get a picture,” Pockras said. “I suppose I could get better photos if I asked someone to go inside, but it’s easier, and I can just drive on to the next one.”