Son Anderson Sr.

WESLEY CHAPEL - Son Anderson Sr. has pieces of history dating back 12,000 years in the glass-covered cases he will display today in Dade City.

Anderson and other members of the Kolomoki Archaeological Society will show off projectile stone points such as arrowheads, tools and pottery at a collectors show to benefit three Pasco pageant winners, including his granddaughter, who will travel to competitions in Miami.

"You do your best at what you're interested in," Anderson said, "and I really enjoy everything about this hobby.I wonder about who made the point, what they did with it, what their life was like."

He joined the Kolomoki Society, the oldest collectors group of American Indian artifacts in the Southeast, in 1964, two years after it was founded.He currently is its president.
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Anderson, 64, has had a knack for finding such artifacts since he was a boy growing up in Tampa near the Hillsborough River.While digging a hole to bury fish remains, he discovered a Marion point dating back to 3400 B.C.

"I was mesmerized by it," Anderson said.He became hooked on a hobby that has led him to collect and catalog more than 3,000 points.

He has contributed some to exhibits such as the one in the library in Donalsonville, Ga., where he lives now, but none is for sale.

"What do I like best about this?"he asked."Other than just possessing them, it's the people.I've met some great folks."

The Kolomoki Society, named for a Georgia state park that is named for an Indian mound, stresses collecting, camaraderie and education rather than artifact sales, which Anderson said take the fun and meaning out of the hobby.

He's the outdoors writer for the weekly Donalsonville News and a knapper who shapes objects from chert and other rock, just like those who formed his ancient points.

Those pursuits uniquely qualify him to find likely dig sites and understand the workmanship in the points he has found.

"I can walk through the woods and tell you where Indians would've lived," said Anderson, who is one-quarter Cherokee.

Following those instincts and scouting out land development sites have produced a bounty of treasure in his more than half-century of digging.

He held up an ancient knife blade made from chert rock he found near the Anclote River in Elfers in 1977.

"This is one of the finest Suwannee points ever found in Florida," Anderson said.

'I'm A Perfectionist'

Anderson puts a coat of clear fingernail polish on the artifact, writes with an ultra-fine-point Sharpie with the aid of a jeweler's magnifying glass, then adds more polish.

"That way the ink doesn't get in the stone," he said."I'm a perfectionist at what I do."

Twenty-five years ago, he came upon the Haney Flats Paleoindian site near Thonotosassa in an area now covered by Interstate 75.

"It was called the most significant Paleoindian site ever found in the Southeast," said Anderson, who is retired from GTE in Tampa and works as a residential contractor in Donalsonville.

More information on his collection is available at www.sonandersonartifacts .com.

His favorite pieces are Florida coral points.He enjoys them because they were heat-altered by their creators, bringing out colors from the mineral in the rock.

"Iron brings out red and copper brings out green," Anderson said.

Points are identified by their shapes, raw materials, whether they were heat-treated and how they were shaped.

Anderson likes to walk a mile or two in the shoes of the ancient craftsmen and outdoorsmen who carved and used the points.

"I can sit down and put myself in their place," he said.