Creeks, Ditches, Snakes and Wonderful Arrowheads	by John Beasley
Central States Archaeological Societies 2023 July Journal	Gleason, Tennessee

This is an excerpt from "Creeks, Ditches, Snakes and Wonderful Arrowheads". Read the complete column in the Central States Archaeological Societies 2023 July Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2024 Figure 1. The Big Slough just after picking it up Most of the agricultural land in the Midwest is now farmed using methods that do not break up the soil. The fields are only disked or plowed maybe once every 5 years or so. This has significantly decreased the chances of finding artifacts in fields. Also, fields are planted in crops throughout the summer months and can’t be hunted as easily as creeks and ditches. Therefore, walking creeks and ditches has become one of the best places for finding artifacts in the last 15 years or so. I began walking creeks and ditches in west Tennessee looking for artifacts around eight years ago. From the late winter months after all the leaves had washed away through the springtime months, I jumped in a ditch every chance I had to look for artifacts. Living in an area where the ditches were crawling with water moccasins during the summertime kept me from hunting that time of year. After a flooding rain in July of 2018 that all changed for me. I hadn’t looked around much at all for artifacts since the weather had gotten hot, but that morning I decided to give it a try. The ditch I wanted to walk up always held water for the first 150 yards and had corn fields along both sides probably a half a mile long. I didn’t want to walk down through the corn field in the hot humid weather and start itching all over my body the rest of the day. So I had to walk in water for the first hundred yards or more. The water depth along that stretch of ditch came close to the top of my hip boots in places. The ditch banks were almost straight up and down so I couldn’t climb out just anywhere. I waded along the ditch slowly in the dingy water looking ahead for snakes. I saw a water moccasin laying on top of some tree roots slither off into the water. Then, I became even more nervous looking for the snakes! All of a sudden I see a big ...   Read the complete column in the Central States Archaeological Societies 2023 July Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2024