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Paleontology Road Show: A Chance To See If Your Odd Find Is Historic

Courtesy of The Burke Museum
Mortars similar to the one Candice Pearson found on her uncle's farm in Bellingham in the 1950s.

 

When Candice Pearson was a little girl back in the 1950s she visited her uncle in Bellingham who was a farmer. As he was plowing the field, one of the rocks he cleared away was different. Even at age six, Pearson knew it was special.

“I knew I couldn’t carve a piece of rock like that so I saved it,” Pearson said.

 

The rock is a mortar, which is normally accompanied by a pestle. Plants were ground in it. It’s small. You can cup it in two hands. To find out more Pearson took it to the University of Washington’s Burke Museum. Pearson showed the mortar to anthropologist Laura Phillips. It has a face carved on it with eyes.

 

“And then this smile, and there’s a tail in the back,” said Phillips.

 

Phillips told Pearson and her husband that the object could be anywhere between 500 to 2,000 years old and was probably made by the Lummi Indians.

 

“I knew it was Indian,” said Pearson who is half Cherokee,  “I just felt it.”  

 

This Saturday is Artifact I.D. Day at the Burke. It’s the one day of the year when experts from every department: paleontology, geology, mammalogy, check out the public’s objects.

 

A few years ago a man brought in an odd egg shaped rock he picked up on a trip to China that he was using as a doorstop.

 

“And when he brought it in we identified it as a dinosaur egg and he had been using it as a doorstop for several years,” said Andrea Godinez with the museum, “He ended up taking it home with him with a completely new perspective.”

 

Another unexpected find was a spear tip someone dug up in their backyard on Bainbridge island. It had no connection to any Northwest Tribes. According to a weapons expert at the Burke, the spear was from the Zulu Tribe in Africa. It turns out that back in the late 1800s there was a market in the Northwest for Zulu artifacts.

The one thing you won’t be told on Artifact I.D. day is how much money your object is worth. It’s a topic museums tend to avoid.

Jennifer Wing is a former KNKX reporter and producer who worked on the show Sound Effect and Transmission podcast.