Stone tools point to Allen’s history

The Iola Register’s Bob Johnson, an avid collector of ancient stone tools and arrowheads from long-ago civilizations, spoke about Allen County’s earliest days Thursday for Iola Rotarians.
Johnson spoke about his findings, noting artifacts reveal from which time period they were created.
The earliest, the Paleo Period, typified nomadic tribes, consisting of hunters and gatherers.
The Archaic Period was characterized by a rise in population and advances in technology, leading to more sophisticated societies. With those advances came more advanced tools, such as corner-notched projectile points and throwing sticks.
The Woodland Period saw the development of ceramic vessels, the bow and arrow and agriculture.
The prototypical arrowhead should be considered the screwdriver of yesteryear, Johnson noted. While some may have been attached to spears or arrows as weaponry, many were just as apt to be used to pry, cut or scrape.
Johnson estimates he has found between 1,200 and 1,500 pieces through the years.
“I always wanted to be a cowboy,” he said. “Then I saw a movie about archaeologists.”
The fascination took hold, especially after he found a stone axe head when he was about 10.
One day at John Zahm’s barber shop on West Street, Zahm talked about hunting arrowheads. Johnson begged to join in and on his first outing found two projectile points on July 4, 1969.
“I know the date because it was just before my daughter (Brenda) was born,” he said. “I was hooked.”
A few years later, he and his wife, Beverly, found 27 perfect points after floodwater from Big Creek scoured a field west of Savonburg.
He also recounted a trip along Deer Creek north of Iola when he uncovered a fully intact corner tang knife, which now is displayed in the law office of his son, Robert Johnson, in downtown Iola. The corner tang knife is one of about a dozen such artifacts documented in Kansas.
Johnson typically hunts the river and creek beds or near high areas along streams, where tools were most likely to be lost over the centuries of Allen County’s prehistory.