Artifacts found on park site
Indians' soapstone pottery at least 3,500 years old
Doug Nurse - Staff
Thursday, April 17, 2003

Family lore held that the soapstone outcropping on Fred Graves' property was used by ancient Indians. And stone bowl shards seemed to bear that out.

So when Graves sold 70 acres of his property to Gwinnett County for a park, he mentioned it to some officials. An archaeological consultant last month verified that the site contains shards and pieces of soapstone pottery dating from 3000 B.C. to 1500 B.C., among the oldest evidence of prehistoric man in Gwinnett County.

Better yet, as the archaeologist investigated the site, he found a cache of tools tucked away in a crevice, covered by rocks.

"This is a nice site," said Larissa Thomas, program manager for archaeology for TRC Garrow in Atlanta. TRC Garrow conducted the dig in November and February.

"The tools have been there 3,000 years," Thomas said. "That's a pretty rare occurrence. There's a lot of intact evidence."

The planned park is about a mile south of I-85 on the Gwinnett-DeKalb county line.

David Hally, an archaeology professor at the University of Georgia, said soapstone work sites are rare. "There's less than a handful in the state," he said. "There are only a few whole bowls and fragments."

Thomas said there are other late archaic work sites at soapstone outcroppings in DeKalb County, including a 2-mile ridge near I-285 and I-675 and near Stone Mountain. But most evidence of the period is flint chips from the making of arrowheads.

Soapstone has the advantage of being soft and easy to work and able to hold water, and it could be heated. Thus, Native Americans could use soapstone for bowls.

"This was before ceramics," Thomas said. "It was the first time they were using vessels for liquids over fire."

Hally said people were starting to cook seeds and plants that needed to be boiled to be edible, such as acorns. People had experimented with cooking by dropping hot rocks into watertight skin bags, and real clay pottery was being developed.

But at that time, soapstone, while scarce, may have been prized because it was more reliable and efficient.

"You could put it right on top of a fire," Hally said.

Using flint, diabase and other hard stones, people at the time would dig out the soapstone, which is soft. When it looked like a mushroom, they would take a sapling and try to pop it from the boulder. Then, if it came off intact, they would use tools to scoop out the interior. Thomas estimated it could take about a day to create the rough beginnings of a bowl.

The bowls remaining tend to be about the size of large mixing bowls, 8 to 10 inches across and 4 inches deep.

The primitive tools look like rocks, although TRC Garrow archaeologists suspect some may have been fitted with handles like an ax. The boulders show scarring where artisans had popped bowls free. The park also has three surviving segments of the Hightower Trail, a Native American pathway stretching from Augusta to Cartersville. The trail generally runs along the boundary between Gwinnett and DeKalb counties.

The remaining parts of the trail are about as wide as a wagon and are marked by gentle berms about 6 inches high on either side. Some wagon ruts still exist as slight divots. They have been found on higher and rougher grades where plowing and erosion haven't yet erased them.

Thomas said Native Americans were highly mobile, hunting in some areas, foraging in different spots and beginning to farm in others. Throughout the trail, they traded with neighbors, although Thomas said they didn't travel long distances. The artifacts will be on display May 3 at the Gwinnett History Museum at the Lawrenceville Female Seminary as part of an effort to promote awareness of archaeological treasures. The archaeologist who conducted the dig will discuss the artifacts and their significance.

Graves Park is not yet open to the public and has a resident police officer to protect the grounds. The park could be open by late 2004.

In its later phases, the park will have trails to the archaeological sites. In its first phase, it will feature a children's playground, tennis courts, sand volleyball pits, a dog park, a large meadow, and wooded areas where people can walk and relax. Eventually the park may offer a skate park, a splash area for children and a pavilion.

Graves said he's pleased with the way things have turned out. "I didn't want to see all those houses on our land," he said. "What they're doing is pretty close to what I had in mind.

"My family bought the property in 1877," Graves said. "We've been knowing this as long as we've been around. It's just been passed down from generation to generation. We found parts of bowls where it had been hewed out. My brother found some flint rock tools. And it was near the old Indian trail, the Hightower Trail. You just piece it together."