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Artifacts shed light on valley's Stone Age Mail Tribune / Drew Fleming Cascade Research Archeologist Matthew Dowlen of Ashland separates quartz, jasper and agate rocks at a dig site near Shady Cove on Wednesday. Archaeological digs on BLM land fall victim to vandalism By MELISSA MARTIN SHADY COVE - Every flake, broken arrowhead or discarded chisel is a treasure to archeologist Matthew Dowlen. He sifts through shovels full of dirt, brushing aside the pumice and searching jasper, quartz or agate for signs of sharp points and other clues that reveal tools used for hunting, hide cleaning or drilling. Making weapons, tools took time and patience SHADY COVE - Archeologist Dennis Gray spills the contents of a yellow envelope into his hands. His crews dug hundreds of "flakes" - small pieces of sharpened rock - out of the earth at an archeology site near the Rogue River in Shady Cove. Imagine a native flintnapper holding a sharp, diamond-shaped tool made from a piece of obsidian that he traded with people living east of the Cascades. In his other hand, he holds a piece of jasper. Skillfully and quickly, he chips it into an arrowhead, flakes flying everywhere as he works. "You can make an analogy that the flakes are like sawdust," Gray said. "Sawdust from a chain saw tells you a tree has been cut down. If you see sawdust from a table saw, you know a cabinet maker has been at work. It tells you what they are making and what stage they are in." It didn't take long for Stone Age people to make arrow tips - maybe only a few minutes if modern-day flintnapping gives clues, he said. "But the harder part is making the shaft of an arrow," Gray said. "That's more time consuming. You have to find a straight stick, make a point, put the feathers on it and more. It took a long time to make and you didn't want to lose that." "Every piece we find is significant," said Dowlen, a Southern Oregon University anthropology graduate and an employee of Cascade Research in Ashland. "I've found some really cool projectile points, or arrowheads." But his treasures are leftovers - artifacts that thieves passed over when they looted the Bureau of Land Management archeological dig near Shady Cove sometime since its discovery in 1999. "We're not talking mom and pop coming out here to look for an arrowhead for their collection," said Ann Ramage, district archeologist with BLM. "We're talking about people with the right tools who knew what they were looking for - arrowheads that might show up for sale on eBay (an Internet auction site)." The BLM hired Cascade Research, an Ashland archeology firm, to assess the damage and determine whether looters picked the site clean or more artifacts could still be found. So far, sample digs show the site may have been a prehistoric camp occupied about 1,000 years ago. It's called "prehistoric" because it existed before gold-seeking Euro-Americans arrived in the Rogue Valley in the 1800s, Ramage said. American Indians might have spent winters at this camp, making tools and possibly catching and drying salmon from the nearby Rogue River. "Here's a jasper arrowhead made within the last 1,500 years, about the time the bow and arrow was introduced into this part of the world," said anthropologist Dennis Gray, Cascade Research owner. He held other leftovers, a diamond-shaped tip that may have been used to drill holes in leather or wood and a scraper used for cleaning hides and possibly plants. About half of the BLM's 1,000 archeology sites on federal and private land in Southern Oregon have been looted, Ramage said. The BLM sends an archeologist to survey forests before timber harvests or road projects to determine if the region should be uncovered. Scientists, as a result, are learning more about the region's Stone Age inhabitants. "The culture is here, up and down this river," Gray said. "This has always been a pretty nice place to live. You had a dependable food supply, especially the last few thousand years where technology existed to exploit and store anadromous fish runs. There were camas, oak and lots of other vegetable bulbs," Gray explains. "In summer, they would probably go to higher elevations and return to the river valleys in the winter. Fish runs were a major source of protein. They could get a lot of it and they could store it." Southern Oregon archeologists find no signs of fish nets, baskets, hides or bones - clues quickly destroyed by floods, fires, rodents and changing topography. Only rock-solid evidence survives. And what an untrained eye sees as ordinary rock, diggers know might be keys to understanding lost cultures. "This sand tells me that this used to be a great place to sleep," said Cascade Research employee Jeff Applen, digging 8 inches into the earth. He also owns a company called Sore Foot Archeology. "People don't like to sleep on rocks; sand is more comfortable." It's no telling what treasures researchers may have found if they would have arrived before the thieves. The penalty for stealing artifacts is a year in federal prison or a $10,000 fine, Ramage said. "It's rather difficult to catch people," she said, "but we will pursue this case." Reach reporter Melissa Martin at 776-4497, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.