Arrowhead Presentation Hits the Mark

Jeremy Janda and his sons Will and Reed, all of La Grange, gave a fascinating presentation to the La Grange Noon Lions last week.

The trio showed off dozens of arrowheads and other Native American artifacts that they have found on their land.

The ones they showed the Noon Lions represented only about half of the artifacts they have found.

“I searched for years and years and finally found one when I was about 30,” Jeremy said. “Turns out I was looking in the wrong places.”

Now they are finding arrowheads all the time (about one perfect piece to every 10 broken pieces they said) in a search area of about a quarter acre of their place.

The Jandas told attendees that they can find such artifacts too – Central Texas is a hotbed for arrowheads.

The Jandas said to look near waterways but not in the floodplain, but on higher ground.

“Mounds just out of the flloodplain are the best spots,” Jeremy said.

Will and Reed have caught their father’s enthusiasm for hunting arrowheads. On their land they use a tractor and dump buckets of dirt into a shaker that better exposes the rocks.

“It’s amazing. You find something and realize that no person has touched this rock since an Indian did so. It’s exciting,” Will told the crowd.

When the family finds an artifact Jeremy will often consult reference books to identify the age, style, usages, etc.

They have found small “bird points” that were part of arrows used for hunting small game. They have also found much larger points that were probably used on spears for hunting larger game like sloths.

“There are things that I couldn’t make today with modern tools, but they were making them with deer antlers,” Jeremy said.

Among the other things they have found are bison bones, bison teeth and even ivory, which they think may have come from mammoths.

They have also found pieces of pottery, but those tend to fall apart very easily.

During the Jandas’ presentation, they had a scrolling slideshow of photos of even more of their finds. After their talk they were swarmed by folks who wanted a closer look at history.