Brian Daugherty’s archeological work receives statewide recognition
By MARK MILLER
Brian Daugherty had stepped outside for a few minutes during the annual Peru show of the Indiana Archeological Society, held the first Saturday of April at the Miami County Fairgrounds.
“I got a text from my wife that said ‘Get back in here!’” he says. When he re-entered the hall, he heard someone reading a brief biography to the crowd that sounded familiar. They were presenting the organization’s annual “Lifetime Achievement Award.”
“I was shocked. I guess I still am,” he says. “It’s pretty neat.”
Although he was surprised by the award, considering the number of years he’s been involved in the hobby and in the state’s organization of native artifact gathering and collecting, it is certainly well earned. A member since 2000, he has gone though the organization’s officer chairs, including several years in a vice-president role and his turn as president in 2008 and 2009.
He most recently stepped down as the state treasurer in 2021 after fulfilling those duties for several years. He continues to host the group’s annual show in Winchester, making sure the site is secured and all the details arranged.
“I think there are about five or six shows in Indiana, but we also try to get to several others in the Midwest each year also,” he explains.
The “we” he referenced is his wife Crystal, who has become another “archi” — as the hobbyists refer to each other — after their marriage 12 years ago. “Yes,” he adds, “she’s really gotten into it, too.”
Daugherty, 60, grew up in Uniondale but now lives in Ossian. The 1981 Norwell grad found his first arrowhead at age 15, a day he remembers in detail.
“It was on mom and dad’s field, just behind the baseball diamond,” he recalls, referencing the baseball field that is still in use on Uniondale’s west side. “I was just walking along with a friend, I looked down and said something like ‘What’s this?’”
It was a small one, about the size of a silver dollar, but it sparked an interest that has been an important part of his life now for 45 years. He still has that arrowhead, stored in what he calls “the rock room” in their Ossian home. Arrowheads and other artifacts found in Indiana, he discovered, date back 5,000 or 6,000 years — some as much as 10,000 years.
“I’ve just been fascinated with this ever since,” he says.
He and his wife continue to hunt, “not as much as we’d like,” he adds. As a packaging machinist specialist at the Hershey Salty Snacks plant in Bluffton, his work schedule — basically two 12-hour days on and two off — gives him ample time to work with his collection of about 3,000 specimens and go hunting for more.
Looking for artifacts is limited to what is called “surface hunting” in Indiana, permitted only on private land. Indiana law only allows for certified archeologists to dig. “And of course,” he adds, “you must get the landowner’s permission.”
“I think that law came about in the early 1980s,” he says. Meanwhile, he and Crystal have made field trips to neighboring states where, in Illinois, for example, it is allowed for “amateurs” to make archeological digs. “But we don’t do that often by any means,” he adds.
Most of the roughly 800 specimens he has found himself have been in local farm fields. The process of a field being plowed and worked will often bring things to the surface.
“So the best time to go is in early spring and late fall,” he shares, but the growing popularity of no-till farming has made that somewhat more difficult. He has found some pieces in wooded areas, “but that’s pretty rare.”
When Daugherty’s two children were younger and in elementary school, he would often set up an educational display for the school. He and Crystal continue to display their specimens and peruse shows for more artifacts. The shows combine displays and networking with a buy-sell-trade opportunity. Most of Daugherty’s collection came from these, but he limits his artifacts to those found in Wells and its surrounding counties.
While he and his fellow enthusiasts will not use the term “amateur archeologist” — “I’m just an amateur,” he says — he will refer to himself as an “archi” and admits to some wishful thinking.
“If I knew then what I know now,” he says, “if I had to do it all over again, I would have gone to school and done this full time somehow. It’s just amazing. It’s so much fun.”
miller@news-banner.com
