Carib Glyphs Near Atlanta

This is a reminder that huntergatherer populations were real and survived quite well into even the modern eramaking their living as their forebears without much enthusiasm for taking up agriculture.  Their problem was simply numbers.  They were never bigger that a large family ina living range.  Agriculturalists couldtake the same range and put in place a village were a dozen or so survived.

In time, the band would be absorbedinto the larger whole.

At least we now understand theseimages and their provenance when they are discovered.

Experts solve mystery of ancient stone monument near Atlanta

April 11th, 2011 9:07 am ET

http://www.examiner.com/architecture-design-in-national/experts-solve-mystery-of-ancient-stone-monument-near-atlanta

Rock art specialists from around North America havefinally solved this century old archaeological riddle. The stone slab isevidence that native peoples from Puerto Rico or Cubaonce lived within the interior of Eastern North America.

One day, long before Christopher Columbus claimed to have landed on theeastern edge of Asia, a forgotten people cut steps in the rocks leading up asteep bluff near the Chattahoochee River in the northwest section of the State of Georgia. Theycarved a supernatural figure on a four feet by one foot granite slab anderected it on the top of the knoll. The strange, primitive art was verydifferent than the highly realistic stone sculptures found in the region thatare known to have been created by the ancestors of Georgia’s CreekIndians.  

During the mid-1800s a major industrial complex was developed near theancient rock shrine. Somehow during the town’s construction, the tablet wasoverlooked; most likely because of a covering of soil. The town was called New Manchester. It would haveinevitably become a major city of the Southeast, but in the autumn of 1864 thenotorious Union general, William Tecumseh Sherman, ordered the town burned, andthe hundreds of teenage girls who worked at its mills transported to aconcentration camp in the Ohio.  Many of the girls were never seenagain.  Some died in prison. Some married and stayed in the Midwest.  Some were murdered while they tried towalk home after the war. Some probably went to the West to start life anewaway from the ruins of war.  Some just dissappeared without a trace.

The ruins of New Manchesterhave remained a testimony to the fact that war is hell. The town was neverrebuilt and its landscape converted back to scrub woodlands within a decadeafter the Civil War. In 1909 a man named W. H. Roberts was hunting wild turkeysin a hilly area next to the ruins of Manchester.After climbing the bluff over Sweetwater Creek that was known as “an Indiancemetery” because of the stone artifacts scattered on its slopes, Robertshappened to notice a granite slab laying flat on the ground. Apparently, rainshad washed away the thin top soil that had concealed it for centuries. 

Most scholars, who viewed the images incised on the slab in the early1900s, assumed it was created by Native Americans, but had no furtherexplanation. Primitive rock art such as on the slab found by Roberts is nowknown as petroglyphs. There are now professionals and organizations that havedeveloped the study of petroglyphs into a science, but a century ago suchartifacts were viewed as curiosities

Throughout the mid-20th century, the Roberts (or Sweetwater Creek)petroglyph was on display at the RhodesMansion on Peachtree Street in Atlanta. This landmark house was the originaloffice of the GeorgiaDivision of Archives and History. After the state agency moved to a largemarble structure near the Capitol, the petroglyphs were put in storage. Thegranite slab stayed there until SweetwaterCreek State Park was created around the ruins of Manchester in the 1970s. The slab is now ondisplay at the park and protected by a Plexiglas screen.

A comment from a California professor opens Pandora’s Box

The national architecture & design column of the Examiner iscurrently running a series on the petroglyphs of the Southern Highlands. One of the articles of this series discussed theSweetwater Creek petroglyph and an cluster of petroglyphs on nearby NickajackCreek. Filmmaker and amateur archaeologist Jon Haskell of Carmel, Indiana,was intrigued by the strange appearance of the Sweetwater Creek petroglyph. Hehad filmed documentaries in many parts of the Americas,but had never seen any petroglyph like the Sweetwater Creek Petroglyph in the United States.

During the first week of April 2011, Haskell sent emails throughout North America to friends who were either archaeologists,petroglyph specialists or experts on Native American art. Most of theresponses also expressed bafflement that such a strange petroglyph design wouldbe found near Atlanta.Some respondents commented that it was similar to Ice Age cave art found in Spain and North Africa.However, because of its placement on a hilltop shrine associated with NativeAmerican artifacts, the Sweetwater Petroglyph appears to date from a much morerecent epoch.

Stephen C. Jett is a geography professor at the Universityof California at Davis and a recognized scholar of thepetroglyphs and pictographs of the American Southwest. His brief commentemailed back to Jon Haskell was the first interpretation in a century thatassigned an ethnic identity to the Sweetwater Petroglyph. He wrote, “It looksvaguely Caribbean to me, but that's just an impression, I am not conversantwith the rock art of that region.”

Images and descriptions of the Sweetwater Petroglyph were immediatelyemailed to several specialists on Caribbeanrock art. The respondents sent back photographs of rock art in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Hispaniola that were thesame style as the one in Georgia.One petroglyph from Puerto Rico seems toportray the very same supernatural figure. It is a “guardian spirit” whosepresence warned travelers that they were entering a province or sacred area.This style of art was typically placed on stone slabs 3-5 tall, which werelocated on hilltops or beside major trails.  

The Sweetwater Petroglyph is a stone slab 4 feet tall that wasoriginally on a hilltop. It is very significant evidence that NativeAmericans originally from Puerto Rico, Cuba or Hispaniola paddled to the Florida Peninsula;followed the Gulf Coast up to the mouth of the Apalachicola-ChattahoocheeRiver; then ulitimately settled in thevicinity of what is now Atlanta.The most likely time period for this migration is from 1,000 to 2,000 yearsago, but the date of the carvings on the granite slab are currently unknown.

Waves of South American peoples settled the Caribbean Basin

Archaeologists currently believe that the CaribbeanBasin was settled by waves of peoplesmoving northward out of South America. Thepresence of the oldest known pottery of the Western Hemisphere in Georgiasuggests that there may have also been movements of population and culturalinnovations in the other direction. It is documented, though, that the agriculturalvillagers began island-hopping northward out of Venezuelaaround 500 BC and by 500 AD had occupied most islands in the Caribbean Basin.These early people grew tobacco and sweet potatoes, but not many othercultivated plants. Their presence in the CaribbeanBasin coincides with the appearance oftobacco in the Southeastern United States. 

In the late 1960s archaeologists working in advance of an industrialpark on the Chattahoochee River near SweetwaterCreek's outlet found three varieties of indigenous sweet potatoesgrowing wild. They looked like "bushy" morning glories, but hadlarge, edible tubers growing underground. Intensive land development since thenhas eliminated the wild sweet potato patches.

A second wave of Caribbean immigrationby Natives speaking dialects of the Arawak language began around 600 AD.These immigrants are associated with the Taino People of the Caribbean Basinand the Timucua of Florida.They introduced the bow and arrow, plus advanced varieties of Indian cornto the Caribbean Basin. They were much sophisticatedartisans and farmers than the first wave of immigrants. The period also marksthe introduction of the bow and arrow, plus advanced varieties of corn into theSoutheastern United States. By 1150 ADthe second wave of Arawak immigrants had reached the Florida peninsula. About that same time,numerous towns with mounds were abandoned in northeastern Floridaas was the large megapolis on the OcmulgeeRiver near Macon,GA, which is now known as Ocmulgee National Monument. 

Caribbean peoples in North America

It is commonly known that the Arawak-speaking Timucua occupiednortheastern Florida and the southeastern tipof Georgia in the 1500s whenSpaincolonized the region. The public is not generally aware that there was also asmall cluster of Arawak-speaking villages in the vicinity of Birmingham, ALuntil the mid-1700s, when they were absorbed by the Creek Indian Confederacy.The presence of what appears to be an Caribbean rock art in northern Georgiasuggests that the first wave of Caribbean immigrants were pushed northward intothe mainland of North America by the second wave, who were better armed withbows and arrows, and better fed by a wide range of cultivated crops.

In 1541 the Hernando de SotoExpedition observed an ethnic group in what is now South Carolina that had a culture very similar to the first wave ofArawak immigrants into the Caribbean. Theywere described as primitive hunters who went naked, did not know how to growcorn and beans, and relied on roots that they dug from the ground fornutrition. The Creek Indian guides of the expedition called this primitivepeople the Chalo-ke, which means bass (fish) people. They were not the samepeople as the Cherokees, and are last seen on a map by French cartographerDelisle, living in southeast Georgiain the early 1700s.

The earlier occupants of the Caribbeandepended on hunting, gathering, and the digging up of wild yucca roots(cassava) or sweet potatoes for nutrition. They went almost naked. TheGuanajatabeyes and Ciboney people were pushed into the western sections of Cuba and Hispaniolaby the more sophisticated Taino. The Ciboney often lived in caves. They bothsoon became extinct after the Spanish arrived.  

The Sweetwater Petroglyph has never been scientifically dated bygeologists. In order to interpret the stone more precisely, the generalrange of its age must be determined. There may be other stones like it hiddenunder the soil or forgotten in the basements of museums.