Contact: Rick Peterson, Manager of News Services, 920/832-6590
For Immediate Release February 25, 1999
Lasting Impression: Lawrence University Receives Major Prehistoric Indian
Artifact Collection from Amateur Archaeologist
APPLETON, WIS. -- It happened so long ago, Ron Mason had nearly
forgotten about it. At the time, it was little more than a favor, a
professional courtesy, from one archaeologist to another. He had no way of
knowing his simple act of kindness would one day result in a major
anthropological windfall for Lawrence University.
"Evidently, I had made a favorable impression," said Mason.
Favorable indeed. In part because of a meeting almost 40 years ago
between Mason, professor emeritus of anthropology at Lawrence, and Edward
Wells, a Door County businessman, Lawrence's anthropology department has
become the beneficiary of a significant archaeological collection of
northeast Wisconsin prehistoric Indian artifacts. The collection came to
Lawrence from the estate of Wells, who collected more than 30,000 specimens
during a 50-year career as an amateur archaeologist. Wells died last summer.
"This is a major regional archaeology collection, the likes of which
would be extremely difficult to duplicate because of the destruction of
settlement sites," said Mason, one of the country's leading scholars on
prehistoric Indian cultures in the Upper Midwest and the author of four
books on the subject.
"It's a tremendously important donation both as a research asset and as
an invaluable teaching resource. These artifacts will reveal a wealth of
research information. And in the classroom, it's one thing to talk about a
1,000-year old projectile point or a stone ax. It's something entirely
different to be able to hand a student that actual object and have them
touch and handle it themselves."
The collection's journey from Wells' Forestville home to the
safekeeping of the Lawrence anthropology department ultimately started when
Mason and Wells first crossed paths more than three decades ago.
In the early 1950s, Wells, then an avocational archaeologist, began
surface collecting artifacts from ancient settlement sites in Door and
Kewaunee counties. Over time, he amassed an impressive collection of
projectile points (any of several kinds of arrowheads), stone axes, bone
tools and potsherds (pottery fragments) from the Paleo-Indian period (10,000
B.C.), as well as the North Bay, Heins Creek and Oneota cultures of the
Woodland period (250-B.C.-1300 A.D.)
Mason isn't exactly sure how he ever came to Wells' attention -- it may
have been through a newspaper story or from an article Mason had written for
"The Wisconsin Archaeologist" --Ębut not long after joining the Lawrence
faculty in 1961, he received a call from Wells seeking some advice and the
two agreed to meet.
An inspection of what Wells had undertaken left Mason favorably
impressed and he tried to convince him of the importance of provenience,
encouraging him to catalog and number each artifact he collected with a
description of the item and where precisely it had been found.
"Mr. Wells had come to the realization that the material he was
collecting was more valuable in terms of information than he first thought,"
said Mason, who retired from the faculty in 1995, but maintains an office on
campus and continues to write and conduct research. "His collection wasn't
just some curiosities, but items of genuine historical and scientific
significance.
"I tried to offer him some guidance on how to responsibly collect this
type of material. He became a very conscientious and informed amateur
archaeologist."
Not to mention prodigious. At the time of his death, Wells' collection
consisted of more than 100 trays of artifacts numbering in excess of 30,000
items. While most of the collection's value exists in incalculable
scientific terms, the projectile points alone --Ęprized by collectors --
were assessed at $6,500.
"We won't know the full value of this collection for many, many years,"
said Mason, whose book "Great Lakes Archaeology," a prehistory of the Great
Lake region, is a textbook staple in college anthropology classrooms
throughout the Upper Midwest. "We're going to find there's much more to be
learned than what actually meets the eye, and what meets the eye is pretty
impressive."
In addition to the prehistoric Indian artifacts, the collection also
includes a considerable number of items from early European settlements in
Door County, including a large assortment of clay smoking pipes. Ron's wife
and long-time research companion, Carol Mason, adjunct professor of
anthropology at Lawrence, and assistant professor Peter Peregrine, as well
as several Lawrence students, all have joined in the the Herculean task of
sorting through and assessing the collection's scientific importance.
"This collection will enable us to reconstruct a piece of history
without the presence of written records," said Mason. "The ordinary tools
and implements used in everyday lives that Mr. Wells collected will help us
piece together a pattern of living and gradually draw a picture of life
lived by this area's first inhabitants."
Despite their common archaeological interests, Mason's initial meeting
with Wells didn't spark a sudden friendship or even much of an on-going
relationship. Over the course of the next three decades, Mason says his
contact with Wells was sporadic at best, often going several years between
encounters, which were usually little more than brief phone conversations or
a request, delivered by Wells' son, for an autograph on a copy of an article
Mason had authored. Before Wells' death, Mason said it had been nearly
eight years since the two men had last spoken, which made the news of the
collection's donation to Lawrence all the more surprising to him.
As a scientist who has spent the better part of his life conducting
extensive excavation work in Door County, particularly on Rock Island,
Mason's excitement and gratitude over his department's unexpected good
fortune is hard to hide.
"I certainly was sorry to hear Ed Wells had died, but was completely
delighted to learn he was leaving his collection to Lawrence. It was a most
thoughtful thing for him to do. I'm sure it made him feel good knowing in
advance all of his work was going to a place where it would be appreciated
and put to very good use."