by Tom Westfall, Sterling, Colorado
Central States Archaeological Journal April 2011
The summer of 2010 was a good one in terms of artifact collecting. The South Platte River flooded, and as the waters receded, many quality artifacts were found. One of the most interesting was found by my friend and hunting partner, Steve Juranek. We were canoeing a stretch of the river in Logan County, Colorado, in early July. Steve and my son, Grayson, were in one canoe, and my wife, Myra and I, were in the other.
Collection of the author.
The river split and each canoe went down a different channel. Just above the eventual confluence, my wife and I found a great gravel bar, and within minutes had three very nice points secured. When Steve and Grayson finally caught up with us, we called them to come and see our finds “in situ,” as we had placed sticks in the gravel while we awaited their arrival.
Grayson hollered out across the river saying, “Steve found an incredible knife.” Moments later, we were staring in awe at Steve’s find. It is in the shape of an eastern “Turkey-tail” knife, but those aren’t found in Colorado. This piece is 5¼ inches in length and is made of chocolate Niobrara jasper. The reverse side of the knife is yellow in color. Niobrara is a very tabular stone, and it appears that the knapper took great care to create a two-toned knife. Although not exactly a “first-stage” knife, this particular piece was not resharpened many times and retains a robust profile.
After some discussion, it was determined that this was probably a Neosho knife. Dr. Robert Bell first named this knife form for the very late prehistoric Neosho focus of the Fulton aspect in northeast Oklahoma, hence the resulting nomenclature. In Kansas they are called “SEKan Knives” (Central Kansas knives), and are also very late prehistoric to protohistoric. The protohistoric Wichita, Osage, and Kiowa-Apache (Wheeler complex) also made knives like these, or at least traded for them.
Jim Cox, a well-known collector in Oklahoma, found a cache of these in western Oklahoma years ago. This cache was written up in the Plains Anthropologist a few years back as the “Yellow Creek Cache.” It was surmised to have been left by a group of Wichita bison hunters on horseback in the early 1700s.
This knife was gifted to my wife and me as a Christmas present this past Christmas, and is my all-time favorite artifact.