Full Grooved Hand Ax, part of the Littfin Collection at MCHS

Minnesota Archeology Week (May 14th-May 22nd, 2011)

Pre-Historic Nativie American Site Walking Tour (Sunday, May 15th from 2-4 PM)

(From Hwy 7 take County Rd. 1 to Winsted.  Take Co. Rd. 6 East 1 1/4 miles. 

Take Zion Ave South for 1/4 mile and take the first Right.)

In conjunction with Minnesota Archeology Week the Museum will be focusing on a special collection of early Native American stone tools, points and spearheads that were donated to the Museum from the Littfin family of Winsted Township.   These objects are unique in that they were all found in one general location on the east side of Lake Winsted.  The Museum will also be hosting a walking tour of the sites in which these artifacts were found.  The land is still in the Littfin family, and they have agreed to open the site up for our Archeology Week program.  There has been little research done on the site, with many speculating that it was a pre-historic settlement or hunting camp.  There may also have been pre-historic Native American burial mounds located on the site.  By having a walking tour of the site, we hope to learn how and why such a vast number artifacts were deposited at this one location in McLeod County. 

To help guide us on our tour, the Museum has invited David Mather, the State Historic Preservation Office Archeologist.  David will be able to discuss the history of the site, the people who may have lived and built the mounds in the area, as well as how many of the artifacts found at the site would have been made and used.  

The pieces from this site will be on display, starting May 15th, through the rest of the month of May in the Museum’s meeting room area.  The display features a vast variety of large hand held grooved and un-grooved axes, hammer stones and celts.  The walking tour will be from 2-4 P M, and will start at the Jack Littfin residence at 23967 240th Court, Winsted Township.  (From Hwy 7 take County Rd. 1 to Winsted.  Take Co. Rd. 6 East 1 1/4 miles.  Take Zion Ave South for 1/4 mile and take the first Right.) Please join us to learn more about the early history of McLeod County and Minnesota Archeology!