A Pair of Artifacts found by Tom	by Duane Treest
Central States Archaeological Societies 2021 April Journal	Quincy, Illinois

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Tom is a friend of mine. He has been a fossil collector since he was a young boy and has one of the largest fossil collections I have ever seen. He can give you all of the technical names for each; most of the time I need to ask him what the fossil is in layman’s terms.

In 1992, Tom called me and said that I should come to his house to come and see a spear point he found while fossil hunting (Fig 2). Upon viewing it, I told Tom that it was not a spear point, but an “adze.” It is one of the finest I have seen from our area. Tom found it on top of a dirt pile along the side of the road near the town of St. Charles in Kane County, Illinois. Apparently the county was dredging out a nearby creek for construction of a bike path bridge and had left what they had dredged up in a ditch alongside the road. Tom had checked this for fossils, and that is how he came upon the adze. I traded him a rare Mazon Creek fossil for it. It was rare in itself for me to actually have a fossil that Tom did not already have in his collection.

The adze is 5 inches in length and 1 ½” wide at the bit. It is very thin and the bit is well polished and very sharp. It is most likely made from Cobden-Dongola chert.

In 2001 Tom found a St. Charles/Dovetail (Fig1). What is interesting about this artifact is where it was found. Tom, myself and another friend George, were fossil hunting in a stone quarry near Dixon in Lee County, Illinois. After a few hours searching for fossils, I got a call from Tom to come over to where he was standing. I thought at the time that it was strange he did not call out to George too. I went over to where Tom was, and he stated, “I did not touch it.” To my shock, between his legs was a ...

Read the complete "A Pair of Artifacts found by Tom" column in the Central States Archaeological Societies 2021 April Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2022

At top: Figure 1. The Dovetail found in Lee County, Illinois. It measures 2 7/8” in length. Above: Figure 2. The adze found in Kane County, Illinois. It measures 5” in length.