Gavin Sampson was born May 8th 1922, 12 miles northeast of Decorah. He lived his whole life in the Decorah area with his wife Dorothy Sampson. After serving in the Air Force in World War II Sampson returned to Decorah where he worked as a project inspector with the Department of Transportation. He married Dorothy Sampson on his birthday in 1946. They had three children, two daughters and a son. Gavin Sampson died in October 1994 at the age of 62.

Gavin Sampson found his first artifact in 1930 at the age of 8 when he discovered an arrowhead in his backyard. He quickly ran indoors to show his parents his amazing discovery. This find marked the beginning of a lifetime of collecting, during which Gavin Sampson contributed greatly to our understanding of Iowa's prehistory. His job with the Department of Transportation gave him ample opportunities to locate and collect artifacts. If archaeological artifacts were discovered during road construction, the workers called in Sampson to collect the artifacts. Gavin often spent his free time exploring the past as well; spending weekends outdoors walking the fields and adding artifacts to his collection. He loved to read material about archaeology and America's first inhabitants.

In 1969, the late Professor Mallam of Luther College approached Gavin Sampson, to discuss donating the collection to Luther College. Both Gavin and Mrs. Sampson wanted the collection to be on public display and felt that the collection belonged in Northeast Iowa, since it was directly associated with the region's history. In 1969 the collection passed from Mr. Sampson to the Luther College Archaeological Research Center, and has become a cornerstone of the college's archaeological collection.

The collection includes over 15,000 artifacts collected from 151 sites in Winneshiek and Allamakee counties. Sampson mostly performed surface surveys and kept meticulous notes. He would record the location of each artifact in relation to other artifacts, as well as his own impressions of the site and if "casual relic hunters" had visited the site before him. Each site he discovered was recorded using the trinomial system, the same method used by many professional archaeologists. Each artifact was labeled and recorded to identify which site it was collected from. When the Smithsonian's George Metcalf helped Luther organize the collection, he praised Sampson's "professional quality" record keeping.

Sampson's collection represents over 12,000 years of Northeast Iowa's past. Chipped stone tools, like projectile points, and pottery fragments comprise well over half of the total number of objects in the collection. Other notable artifacts from the collection include: numerous Catlinite objects, historic and prehistoric pipe fragments, celts, axes, Atlatl weights, and gaming pieces. The overwhelming majority of artifacts from the Sampson Collection are culturally associated with the Oneota Tradition. The Oneota Sampson collected in Upper Iowa River Valley date between A.D. 1350 and 1700. Associated with Siouan-speaking peoples, the Oneota tradition is believed to represent the ancestors of the Ioway, Oto, Missouria, and Winnebago.

The Gavin Sampson Collection provides the faculty and students at Luther College an invaluable resource for conducting research. Over a dozen students have utilized Sampson's collections while conducting original research. In addition, his collection is used as a resource in many Archaeology classes and has provided Luther faculty with a priceless means of identifying archaeological sites suitable for teaching students excavation methods. To date, Luther College has excavated 7 sites recorded by Gavin Sampson and represented in his collection. The majority of information on this website can be found in an article written by Neil Mick and Jennifer Putzier titled "Profiles in Iowa Archaeology" Journal of the Iowa Archaeological Society 48 (2001). Sampson's collection continues to inspire, inform, and generate research as well as providing residents of Decorah and surrounding communities the opportunity to learn more about the original inhabitants of our country.

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