Father/Son Arrowhead Hunters	by Doug Ford
Central States Archaeological Societies 2024 October Journal	Knoxville, Tennesse

This excerpt from "Father/Son Arrowhead Hunters" published in the 2024 Central States Archaeological Societies 2024 October Journal Read the complete column in the Central States Archaeological Societies 2024 October Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2025

Figure 2. The Clovis we found on March 17, 1974.

 

Dr. Scott Ford, of Bowling Green Kentucky, passed away in early 2022. He was my father (Fig 1.), and we spent the better part of the 1970s hunting for arrowheads in Warren County, Kentucky. Scotty, as his friends called my dad, was a professor of Microbiology at Western Kentucky University. His favorite pastime, other than golf, was searching for arrowheads with me. Together we amassed over 2,000 pieces in our collection. The bulk of these arrowheads were comprised of Adena, Big Sandy and Kirk Serrated. My dad had several farmers who supported his searches and would communicate with him when they were plowing their fields.

He had a unique method of organizing our finds. He would place the discoveries from each day in a small plastic bag. Within each bag he left a handwritten note outlining the date, location, weather conditions, hours spent etc. This is an example:
Sun. Mar. 17, 1974, Sanders field, Doug and I, 3 hrs. We spent some time in the front field. I found 2 broken Adena points and a good drill. Went back to a mound that was about one-third plowed. We found several. Doug found a small red point that we called Mickey Mouse, (most likely a Lecroy). I found my first fluted point.

During my dad’s last year, he suffered from dementia. He had to be moved into assisted living and our family cleaned out his house. In the crawl space under the house, I found a heavy 30 gallon trash bag filled with over one hundred of these “time capsules” from our days hunting together. Over several months I worked to identify the nearly 1,000 arrowheads using ...

 

Read other great columns in the Central States Archaeological Societies 2024 October Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2025

This excerpt from "Father/Son Arrowhead Hunters" published in the 2024 Central States Archaeological Societies 2024 October Journal Read the complete column in the Central States Archaeological Societies 2024 October Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2025

Figure 5. The special moment when my dad picked up his glasses and read the note about our hunting adventure aloud. This picture sits today on the top shelf of my display.