Retiree Finds 3,000-Year-Old Spearhead in Wisconsin

[Judi Lynn]

BY RACHAEL O’CONNOR NEWSWEEK LIFE
UPDATED AUGUST 10, 2024 7:19 AM

A man who picked up metal detecting as a hobby 30 years ago has made the find of a lifetime with the discovery of a 3,000-year-old spearhead.

Dick Banaszak, 65, discovered a socketed-tang spear point while detecting along the Root River in Racine, Wisconsin, and immediately knew it was something precious, having found an incomplete copper culture arrow point a year previously.

"I went and sat under a tree," retired Public Works employee Banaszak told Newsweek about the moment he made the discovery. "Just sat there, picked the dirt off it and was like, 'Wow, this is thousands of years old, it was amazing, and now I have it in my hand.'" He added that, after he found it: "I was done for the day. I was too excited, I had to go home."

Banaszak initially shared his find to Reddit's r/metaldetecting sub, where one informed user suggested it was a Copper Culture spearhead, but another joked it was a fence topper.

Read more at: https://www.heraldonline.com/living/article290940954.html#storylink=cpy

[COL Mustard]

1. I wondered where

I had left it!!! Dang. Now I'll never get it back!!!

[wnylib]

2. Here's a good video about the Great Lakes Copper Culture.

It runs about 28 minutes, but is worth watching when you have time. The narrator discusses dates of the Old Copper Culture (as long ago as 8000+ years) in the western Great Lakes region, the kinds of tools made from copper, the ancient copper trade in North America, and how the copoer was extracted and worked.

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