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Stones Forum >> South Carolina artifacts dating back 10000 years
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South Carolina artifacts dating back 10000 years |
bat400
Joined:
10-04-2006
Messages: 1332
from South Central Indiana, US
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|  Posted 29-06-2007 at 14:00
Submitted by coldrum ---
Sifting through the caked, red soil at a dig site near the south Saluda River, researchers have unearthed pieces of ancient history they hope will provide a glimpse of early life in the Upstate.
"It's important to understand how people lived in the past," said Chris Clement, who works at the location, which is near the Greenville-Pickens line. "Hopefully we can apply lessons learned through that to the present and to the future."
Searching the soil beneath this present-day farm, the researchers have discovered almost a time capsule of relics from past cultures, from pottery that dates back as many as 4,000 years to about 30 or 40 feet of a log fort built by Indians 600 to 700 years ago.
Farther down, workers last year unearthed a cluster of rocks that date back 10,000 years, said Clement, principal investigator with the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, a part of the University of South Carolina.
People have lived in South Carolina for at least 12,000 years, he said, but the 10,000-year-old cluster has the oldest confirmed and culturally associated date in the state.
"It's clearly something that people put there," he said. "As of right now that's the earliest that particular site was occupied."
Now they are hoping to go back even further in time.
"We want to see if there are any levels that are actually older than the 10,000-year one we got," said Terry Ferguson, who is also at the dig and is program coordinator for the department of geology at Wofford College.
Ferguson, Clement and others will be there for about six to eight weeks. To preserve the site's integrity, they are close-lipped about its exact location.
It's one of two sites that sit across from each other, the other in Greenville County, that are a venture of the Upstate South Carolina Archaeological Research Group.
"They have given us information about what we call culture chronology, or essentially a history of the cultures of the area," he said.
Ferguson said that at the Greenville site they found a 600- to 700-year-old council house, about 40 feet in diameter, for Indian groups who were ancestral to the Cherokee in the area.
"About every foot we go back about 1,000 years," Ferguson said, describing how the different levels tell different stories.
Clement said they've also found artifacts like tools and pottery. One such item ó a piece of Stallings Island pottery that is typically found along the Savannah River ó was found on the surface a few years ago.
"It's the first pottery that was made in the Americas, certainly North America," Clement said. "It's pretty significant stuff."
For more, see:
http://greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070513/NEWS01/705130359
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