Fort Jackson is the Army’s largest basic training base for modern warriors. It was also home to prehistoric hunter-gatherers, according to evidence dug up at an archeological site on post.
“This is a large site. It’s about 47,000 square meters,” said Audrey Dawson, principle investigator with the University of South Carolina’s SC Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology. “So people actually, they did live here but it wasn’t a city. It wasn’t a large site occupied at the same time. What we have are small groups, or microbands of hunter-gatherers and foragers coming through the Sandhills. And so we’re just seeing isolated campsites.”
Archeologists have been digging at the site since November. So far, they’ve found arrow heads that date back to between 7,000 and 6,500 B.C., along with other arrow heads, pieces of pottery and part of a spear thrower. The original survey of the site found a large amount of quartz tools and ceramic potsherds.
The site was discovered in 1991 during routine archeological surveys at the fort. The National Historic Preservation Act requires federal landholders to inventory their land and protect all historic properties, including archeological sites, when feasible.
“We’re going to wrap up the excavations in the next week and then we’ll spend the next couple of months — we’ve been out here since November — so we’ll probably spend the next five or six months at least doing analysis and hopefully trying to figure out what we have,” Dawson said.
If you’re interested in visiting the site, seeing some of the artifacts and talking to the archeologists, an open house is from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. You’ll need to enter the fort at Gate 2 on Forest Drive, just off Interstate 77. Make sure you have your driver’s license, registration and proof of insurance, which are checked at the gate.
Source: SC Now