Preserving Traces of the Great Basin Indians is the true story about a collection of Indian artifacts that family members and I have gathered over many years of living and working in the Great Basin known as Nevada. This book has been my best selling book since it was published in 2006. The book is based on a collection of artifacts that I have donated to the Carson Valley Museum in Gardnerville. This site was selected due to the Washoe Room that has other Indian artifacts on display. Preserving Traces is fully illustrated with many artifact photos and pen and ink drawings of all the different types of projectile points (arrow heads) that can be found in the Great Basin. Also shown are beads, scrapers, knives, crescents and other interesting artifacts used by the Indians. The ranch where I grew up on Glendale Road in Sparks was on a known encampment of American Indians for hundreds of years. After some flooding in the 1950s, several fields on the ranch sustained flood damage that washed away much of the topsoil from the fields. When this occurred, I walked over the fields and picked up several hundred arrowheads, manos, metates, scrapers and other items. I took a cigar box full of these to school with me for show and tell. When the box returned at the end of class, it was much lighter than before. Many of these items are now in the collection at Gardnerville along with artifacts I inherited from my aunt, Clare Perino. After finding all these Indian artifacts, I researched the many different types of artifacts in the collection and found the types had names depending on where the points were first discovered, such as Elko, Humboldt, Martis, Cottonwood, etc. I contacted an archaeologist where I worked at NDOT and found there was a way to determine what type the points represented. There are formulas that use artifact weights and measurements of each point in a collection in order to identify them. These formulas are provided in Preserving Traces of the Great Basin Indians. Chapter 4 in the book tells the story and shows photos of the Spirit Cave where the partially mummified remains of the famous Spirit Cave Man were discovered in 1940. Radio carbon dating has shown that this man was placed in Spirit Cave nearly ten thousand years ago. This is nearly twice as old as the famous Egyptian mummified remains. I have written another book titled Legends of Spirit Cave that is a prehistoric novel based on the life and family of the Spirit Cave Man. Chapter 10 in the book tells about Lovelock Cave, one of the greatest sources of information about the history of the Great Basin Indians. Contrary to popular belief, Nevada and federal laws do not prohibit casual picking up of artifacts found on the surface of the ground. It is illegal to dig or ransack archaeological sites but you will not be breaking the law for picking up an occasional arrowhead. Chapter 11 in the book is a humorous story about two young Native American boys assigned by their shaman to make some arrows to use for hunting. They learned that what seemed to be a simple task required much more skill than they had bargained for. I have made conservative calculations shown in the book that indicate there are nearly 10 billion arrowheads still waiting to be found in the Great Basin. Family members of mine and friends I know have found many of these while hiking or hunting in the hills and deserts of Nevada. In Preserving Traces, there is a section that shows the applicable state and federal laws concerning what you can do and what you cannot do with regard to artifacts. One of the most informative features of this book is a foldout chart that shows a graphical chronology of all the Western Great Basin Projectile point types that are found here in Nevada. These are on a time scale for each type that goes back in time over 12,000 years. By using Preserving Traces of the Great Basin Indians with all the drawings and photos provided, you can determine the type and approximate antiquity of any of the projectile points that are found here in the Great Basin. It is the bible for people interested in Great Basin arrowheads. Dennis Cassinelli is a Dayton author and historian. You can order his books at a discount on his blog at denniscassinelli.com.
