SANTEE – Many area residents chose to spend the beautiful fall day Saturday digging and learning about primitive cultures at the 19th Annual South Carolina Archaeology Field Day at Santee State Park.

The all-day event was presented by the Archaeological Society of South Carolina and was enthusiastically received by both adults and children as a unique, educational and fun experience.

Primitive technology exhibitors were on hand to demonstrate skills such as flintknapping, quillwork, hot rock cooking, basket making, blowguns, the atlatl (a weapon), stone tool hafting, friction fire and environmental awareness, American Indian pottery, Catawba Indian Pottery, deer leg tools and primitive fishing technology.

Mark Butler of the Archaeological Society South Carolina demonstrated how human cultures and their technologies have changed throughout time.

“We all come from a long line of flintknapping, basket making, hunting and gathering ancestors,” Butler said.

Angela Jones of Gastonia, N.C. and her sons Jacob, 7, and Chandler, 6, were fascinated by the items in Butler’s display.

“My boys are really enjoying this educational and fun event,” Jones said.

Rebecca Parker of North Carolina displayed the art of quillwork, which she has been practicing since 2000. This is an art that is rarely found in the archaeological record.

“Quillwork is a type of complex embroidery done with porcupine quills which are dyed with natural dyes and stitched with buckskin,” Parker said.

Parker’s husband James demonstrated flintknapping, the process of shaping stone into useful cutting tools.

“The earliest stone tools are over two million years old, making flintknapping one of the oldest technologies in the world,” Parker said as he told visitors about breaking rock.

Some of the participants took an archaeological, hour-long journey by canoe with Jon Rood and Graham Elmore who have extensive experience as naturalists, archaeologists and paddlers of South Carolina waters. The men gave tours in canoes donated by Adventure Carolina of Cayce during which they told visitors about the area’s historical, archaeological and natural history.

A highlight of the program was the opportunity for archaeological excavation and artifact identification held at the bluff overlooking Lake Marion. Participants dug shovel tests with an archaeologist and learned about archaeological sampling strategies, soil stratigraphy (a branch of geology dealing with stratified rocks) and how archaeologists collect the data used in interpreting past lives.

Then participants sat down with an archaeologist who helped them identify the artifacts they dug up and learned what those artifacts represent of the people who once lived on the bluff. The information was taken to the computer and participants watched the archaeologists create a map of the work which they could take home.

The excavation and identification seminar gave people a knowledge of what happens on a dig and why this work is important to mankind’s collective history.

Many participants watched the ETV video, “They Were Here: Ice Age Humans in South Carolina.” This documentary covered the careful study and analysis of artifacts leading to evidence of a time 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. It was a time when the climate was cooler and the plants and animals were much different than today. Great ice sheets covered the northern areas of what was to become the United States. Early humans traveled to ancient chert (a compact rock consisting essentially of microcrystalline quartz) quarries in what is now Allendale County.

Live slide shows were presented by archaeologists on the “South Carolina Caribbean Archaeological Connection.” What connections could islands in the Caribbean possibly have with the large space of South Carolina? Visitors discovered that many islands played a vitally important role in the establishment of a colony in the Carolinas.

-- T&D Correspondent Shirley Upton can be reached by e-mail at ntinet.com. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

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