Source: York Daily Record (Pennsylvania)
By KRISTIN E. HOLMES The Philadelphia Inquirer
EAST GREENVILLE, Pa.—The link between an ancient American Indian culture and a group of student archaeologists is a businessman who hunted animals and played Santa.
He lived on Main Street in Red Hill and died in 1964. He spent years walking the freshly plowed farm fields of Montgomery County, poking the earth with a long stick.
For decades, the artifacts collected by this unassuming man hung anonymously on the walls at Upper Perkiomen Middle School—until a Temple University archaeologist stopped by.
"We were awe-struck," said R. Michael Stewart, an associate professor and an expert in prehistoric Delaware Valley American Indians.
At 1,980 pieces, and with its probable origins centered in the Upper Perkiomen area, the collection was the kind of find that could reveal the lifestyle of native peoples going back 10,000 to 13,000 years, Stewart said.
The artifacts are being studied by Temple University professors and graduate students, along with members of the Upper Perkiomen High School Archaeology Club. They plan to create a database and write a paper for a project expected to take years.
"It's the history of a lot of our ancestors—what they ate, how they lived," said Edward Felix, 16, a sophomore member of the high school archaeology club. "It's just interesting to hold them and think that a Native American actually used them to live."
http://ydr.inyork.com/ci_11708445
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