Like geology and astronomy, archeology is a science to which lay people often make great contributions. The Midwest’s vast agricultural expanse offers better prospects for amateur collectors than elsewhere. Over the last century people have seized this opportunity, accumulating large caches of artifacts that now reside in trunks, cigar boxes, or display cases in homes, basements, and sometimes county museums.

Tragically many such collections are lost to study—dispersed as curiosities or commodities—once they fall into the hands of heirs or others who lack the original collector’s passion.

Imagine the pages of Gutenberg bibles torn out and sold for a few dollars each. Something similar is the fate of many collections. Once lost, they can never be restored. The gain to the few is small and fleeting, while the collective loss to us all is irreparable. 

Walter Schmidt, a long-time collector in the Saginaw Bay area of Michigan and a charter member of the Michigan Archaeological Society, was a responsible student of his area’s past. Yet Schmidt, like many, made mistakes that he later regretted. In 1937, he wrote to W.B. Hinsdale of the University of Michigan: “A couple of years ago [I] found an arrow much different than the usual but as it was broken off [I] gave it to Jr. and he traded it off . . . The other day a man told me that this type is called Folsomite and is the oldest type of implement known.”

No one knows how many variations of this sad story there are, but it illustrates the alarming and prolonged attrition of the archeological record. Without doubt, many collections amassed in past decades have been lost, discarded, or destroyed, and the priceless information they contained lost with them.