by Paul Herrick, Mackinaw, Illinois
Volume72, Number 2, April 2025 Central States Archaeological Journal
Figure 1. The un-notched Slate butterfly bannerstone found by the author.
I am sure a lot of people who love to look for artifacts like me understand when I say; “sometimes I just gotta go.” Eventually late spring comes around, the prime hunting season is just about over, and you have used that line about needing to go countless times. Other things are getting in the way too. The garden needs attention. The yard needs mowing. The trees and shrubs need pruning. But something makes you want to go look once again.
A dry fall and winter transformed into a late wet spring. We were finally getting some rain, and it came in bunches. That is the kind of weather that makes you want to go one more time. Perfect artifact hunting conditions! I could not resist, and I once again answered the call. I put off all of my chores to go look one last time. The results made me glad I did!
I had been thinking about my Horseshoe Bend site (see my article in the January 2022 CSAJ) and could not get it out of my head. Beans had already been planted and were starting to grow tall. And just recently, one of those heavy rains occurred that come down hard and fast. This site has an area with a somewhat sandy clay soil, so a very hard rain just washes down everything. This all added up in my head to perfect hunting conditions.
I found myself heading to my Horseshoe Bend site. I have a tendency to focus on the slopes and rises, especially after a hard rain. I hiked over to the portion of the site where I have found some really nice things over the last few years. I started walking the washouts between the rows. Once again my slope didn’t disappoint me! I knew what it was as soon as I saw it, and there was no guessing what I had spotted was — a bannerstone! I couldn’t believe my luck.
In my roughly 50-plus years of searching, this is only my second complete and finished one. In my part of central Illinois you just don’t find many, and I have only seen one or two in locally found collections that I have observed.
I’m not very knowledgeable about bannerstones, mainly because they are not something I normally find. But I believe it to be a wing variant of some sort. (Editor’s note: It is an Unnotched Slate Butterfly dating to around 5500-5000 BC.)
What an unbelievable ending to another year of pursuing my favorite pastime. This time, answering that call provided me with a great find and great time. Like I’ve told my wife so many times — “I just gotta go!”