The Jerry Ransom Collection

In the fall of 2010, Jerry Ransom donated part of his collection to ISAS. The “Ransom Cache” was included in his donation. The cache is a collection of 33 Archaic period bifacial performs surface collected over several years from a single spot on a much larger habitation site. The bifaces are manufactured from Lead Creek (or Plummer) chert, which has source areas in western and southern Indiana. The Ransom Cache is the first deposit (stockpile or hoard) of Lead Creek chert bifaces to be documented in Illinois. The till plains of interior Illinois are chert-poor landscapes, so ancient groups routinely transported chert tools and preforms into the area, thus leaving clues to the directions and distances they traveled. The cache, along with hundreds of other artifacts donated to ISAS by Jerry, will be preserved in perpetuity by ISAS, and ensure that these pieces of the past will be available for study by future generations of students and researchers.

On June 20, 2011, Jerry visited the ISAS main offices in Champaign. Laura Kozuch (curator) gave the gentlemen a tour of the facilities. Staff members Madeleine Evans, Zach Gaydos, Michael Gornick, Amanda Butler, Brenda Beck, Linda Alexander, Ian Fricker, and Stephanie Daniels documented a part of the Jerry Ransom collection from Vermillion County, Illinois and western Indiana.