March 18, 2012. From Brenda Twiford.
The Virginian-Pilot February 27, 2000 by Mary Reid Barrow.
APPRAISALS OF ARTIFACTS SURPRISE SOME COLLECTORS.
Sheri Frisbie's thoughts about her American Indian artifact
collection were turned on end Saturday.
Frisbie brought in a clay pipe and a spear point, among other treasures
she had found over the years, for experts to identify during an event
at the Francis Land House.
The pipe was carefully ensconced in a box with a felt lining to protect
it, while the spear point was simply stuffed in a bag with other stones.
That was before Ed Bottoms, a member of the Archaeological Society of
Virginia, Nansemond Chapter, told Frisbie that her crude stone spear
point was a Cumberland point, between 10,000 and 12,000 years old. The
pipe, on the other hand, was much more recent.
"He said to wrap that point up,'' Frisbie said, "and up to now I've
been taking care of the pipe!''
About 160 people queued up Saturday to hear what Bottoms and colleague
George V. Ramsey had to say about their finds at the first Artifact and
Fossil Identification Day at the historic Land House.
The Cumberland point, found in Tennessee, was a highlight of the day
because it is so rare. But Bottoms also was pleased with the spear
points, axes and other artifacts that came from South Hampton Roads.
"It was nice to see so many coming from this area,'' he said. "It's an
opportunity to let people know that Native Americans were here
thousands and thousands of years ago and not just in recent times."
Few people realize that American Indians hunted, fished and gathered in
the region long before recorded history, said Joy Eliassen, education
specialist at the Land House. Several decades ago, as Virginia Beach
began to grow, the area was rife with archaeological specimens,
particularly at construction sites and in freshly plowed farm fields.
Roger Wright's collection of almost 200 points and other artifacts,
including fossilized elk and bison teeth, is a good example. Wright
found his treasures almost entirely along the shoreline of Currituck
Sound in front of his Knotts Island, N.C., home. He walks the beach on
extremely low tides, when artifacts can be revealed in the mud.
"I've got 1,000 miles invested in what I've got here,'' he said.
Wright displayed his collection in glass cases, but others arrived with
artifacts stored in buckets, cardboard boxes, grocery bags, cookie tins
and tote bags. One by one, they pulled out everything from spear points
to fossilized shark teeth, from giant mammoth bones to pottery shards
and even a stone or two that turned out to be just stones.
Eliassen was pleased that so many people brought their finds in to be
identified and is planning another identification day with the
archaeological society on Oct. 28.
"I thought this would be a good idea, "Eliassen said, "because I
kept hearing about people with pieces of stone stuck away in drawers.
Vicki Harvey, also an education specialist at the Land House, brought
in her unusual discoveries: two fossilized crabs from Back Bay.
"They are about a million years old," Bottoms said. "The only place
I've ever seen these is in Suffolk. They are very, very rare."
Jim Cason, also of Knotts Island, N.C., brought in a mortar stone,
close to the size of a pie plate, that would have been used as a bowl
for grinding corn and other grains with a pestle. Since rock and stone
are not indigenous to this area, Cason's collecting method is to
examine every rock he sees, especially if it's in a field or on the
beach.
He has been hooked on his hobby ever since he found the mortar stone
when he was 8 years old.
"I am intrigued by holding something in my hand," Cason said, "that
someone held in their hands 3,000 or 4,000 years ago."