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It’s a special day to introduce our newest MOTM! The last time Easter and April Fools occurred on the same day was 1956. This is no April Fools joke, and Alan is no Easter Bunny, but nonetheless, he is an important member to our community. I know I enjoy seeing his artifacts and reading his posts. Please welcome Alan, also known as
Clambellies as our newest honoree!
I was very surprised and rather honored to be chosen for MOTM. I’m among some very fine company here!
I grew up in Central Massachusetts, and spent my childhood and teen years fishing the fresh water rivers and ponds and the ocean surf along Cape Cod & RI. That was my introduction to the great outdoors. In the early 1970’s a friend from work turned me on to hunting for artifacts, and graciously took me to his many plowed field sites. I was immediately hooked on artifact hunting. I had always had an interest in the N/A’s due to the family stories of a having a great-grandmother from Canada who was a Mic-Mac.
My other outdoor pursuits over the years have been hiking, camping, photography, scuba diving, underwater photography, videography & video production, Gardening & Bonsai, some outdoor writing, and my time spent fishing has kept me busy.
Like a lot of other aging collectors, 90% of the sites that I hunted have been lost to development or the fields are no longer tilled. Back when they were in their prime (and so was I) my artifact hunting partner and I were like ghosts drifting across the farmlands. We talked to no one about our finds or sites, and we avoided other artifact hunters like the plague. After a few decades of decreasing finds and the realization that I wasn’t learning anything new, I had a change of heart.
I opened up to a few other local enthusiasts, made some close friendships with other serious Avocational Archaeologists, I joined the ASAA & MAS and was lucky enough to find this great website and now I’m enjoying this hobby/obsession more than ever. I’ve learned more in the last few years though this website community and by opening up to others than I had in the four decades previously.
Some stories? Here’s a few random ones. In the early 90’s I was in Central Texas videotaping archery whitetail deer hunts. I was kneeling behind my hunter, aiming the camera right down his drawn arrow. Rutting bucks were dashing around us through the brush. An arrow was going to fly at any second. I needed to shift over a few inches and glanced down to not kneel in the cactus. There it was! The large broken base of a cream colored chert, Paleo Plainview spearpoint right by my knee. Imagine my surprise! One eye in the camera viewfinder, the other eye scanning the ground around me. Obviously, we weren’t the first hunters at this location.
Two years ago I was in the California Sierras hiking with my good friend. He has a log cabin there at an altitude of 10,500 feet, up on a mountain shelf near some alpine lakes. Quite an amazing place, I couldn’t believe it when we started finding obsidian chips and I soon found the broken tip of an obsidian point. As marginal and rugged a terrain as that high mountain shelf was, the N/A’s had utilized it.
On that same CA trip, while fly fishing for trout at Hot Creek near Mammoth I found that the trout were not cooperating. But, I did leave with a couple of pocketfuls of obsidian chips and biface tools.
One of my daughters lives on an island off of Cape Cod, and as you might guess, I’ve been finding artifacts along the salt ponds and surf beaches there. How strange to find arrowheads among the clam and scallop shells.
I guess what I’m trying to say with these stories is that this hobby has followed me throughout my life and I’m enjoying it more than ever.
I thank all of you for contributing to my knowledge.
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