CLUB NEWS

Article from the Jan. 19th, 2005 Loveland Reporter-Herald...

Man envisions local archaeology museum
By Alicia Herbstreit
Reporter-Herald Staff Writer

Richard Savino wants people in Northern Colorado to experience the region’s history directly, intimately.  He envisions an education resource center in Loveland where children can practice pulverizing corn with a mano and matate, an American Indian stone grinder, and residents can appreciate the area’s numerous archaeological finds.

“People become more enriched when they know the history of their environment,” the Loveland Archaeological Society president said. “It’s one thing to read about history, it’s another thing to touch it.”

He said Loveland is an ideal location for such a center.  “Loveland, to me, is an epicenter,” he said. “It has strong cultural support and a proximity to two of the most important archaeological sites in the world.”

Lindenmeier, an ancient hunting site northeast of Fort Collins, was discovered in the mid-1920s and is believed to be about 10,000 years old. Dent, in Milliken, was found in 1932, and the 11,000- to-13,000-year-old site links primitive tools to human hunting of mammoths.

Savino said many of the items unearthed at the two sites were displayed at the early Stone Age Fairs, when it was first held in the community of Cornish in the 1930s.

In 1940, the fair moved to Loveland. “Pretty much the Stone Age Fair from the beginning was involved in archaeology in Colorado,” he explained.

Savino said the idea for the center materialized after the society inherited a valuable set of artifacts that were displayed at the original Cornish fairs.

Because the organization did not have any formal place to house the objects, they were eventually lost.
“We get bequeathed a lot of collections and there’s no where to exhibit them to the public,” he said. “It would be really advantageous to have a facility.”

Savino would like community leaders to support the center through local government, private industry and education partnerships.

One possibility is running it out of the Ag Education building at the old fairgrounds, he said, noting that he is still assessing startup and operating costs and plans to do a feasibility study.

Already, he has approached some city and county officials with the concept.  Mayor Larry Walsh said the idea sounds interesting but, the Loveland City Council has put any plans for the old fairgrounds on hold until the federal government completes a flood study.

Currently, the old fairgrounds is within the designated flood area and the study will indicate whether the flood lines should be redrawn.

Walsh said once the study is finished this fall, City Council can then proceed in determining the ultimate use of the old fairgrounds.

Walsh added that last year, the City Council recognized the fair’s long history with the city by declaring September Loveland archaeology month.

Savino said the 70-year-old event attracted 1,200 people last year. It takes place the last weekend of September at the Pulliam Community Building, 545 N. Cleveland Ave.

“It contains some of the best collection of artifacts, Native American artifacts, in the world,” he said. “Archaeologist who come to speak at the Stone Age Fair (are) a veritable who’s who in American archaeology.”

The society exclusively promotes American Indian artifacts from the nomadic tribes that roamed Colorado.
He said the “museum-quality” artifacts, collected by society members, include war clubs, arrowheads, spear points, stone grinders, other tools and 19th-century women’s clothing made from deerskin and adorned with beads.