Rock collector finds soapstone that might be ancient Indian artifact

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Rock collector finds soapstone that might be ancient Indian artifact

By SEAN P. FLYNN, sean.flynn@shj.com
Published August 13, 2007




Larry Walker's wife, Lorraine, likes to say "arrowheads jump in his hand."
But when the lifelong rock collector has his biggest and most impressive find in his hands, he squeezes just a little bit tighter.
"I want to make sure I hold on to this," Walker said.
Walker's object, made of soapstone, is a little larger than the size of his hand. Flat, oval and smooth, it has a single quarter-inch-wide hole drilled into it. The two longer sides of the stone are parallel to each other, while the two ends of the tool come together to make points.
Dr. Terry Ferguson, a Wofford college geologist and expert on Upstate archeology, was shown photographs of the item, and he said that it is probably an ancient Indian artifact, likely between 2,000 and 4,500 years old. A fragment of a similar object, with a similarly sized hole, was found during an archeological dig in Pickens County earlier this year.
Ferguson said archeologists have two theories on how they were used, but that neither is certain. It could have been a "net-sinker," for net fishermen to drop their nets below water, or an independent cooker, which would be heated over a fire and then dropped into a wooden pot of water to heat food.
"These are relatively rare," Ferguson said. "It is more rare to find one of these completely intact, like this one."
Walker, who lives in the Glenn Springs area and is retired from industrial electronics, said that this tool is the biggest treasure he has found yet. He started collecting rocks and other such items as a kid in the Horse Creek Valley, where he'd follow his father's tractor, looking for artifacts.
In his day he has found many arrowheads, including four particularly well preserved stones of varying size that he keeps in a display case.
"I'll tell you the best way to look for an arrowhead: Don't look for them," Walker said. "In other words, don't look for the arrowhead, look for a point, a protrusion, something that is not normal."
He saw one of those little points in the ground about a year and a half ago during a walk through the woods around the Tyger River, not far from Walnut Grove Road. He started pushing the dirt around, and what emerged was this piece of soapstone that had been clearly altered by a human being.
He tried to identify it for a long time, but failed to do so until his wife, a teacher at Pauline-Glenn Springs Elementary School, convinced him to bring it to the Schiele Museum, a natural history hot spot in Gastonia, N.C. There he met Alan May, curator of archeology, who hypothesized it might be an ancient tool, but deferred questions on its origins to Ferguson.
This area was known for its soapstone quarries, which were unique to this side of the continent. The best known quarries in the area are at the Pacolet River Heritage Preserve.
"There have been a number of anthropologists and archeologists who have looked at the soapstone industry as being the forerunner of the ceramic pottery tradition," May said.
However long it was sitting on the Tyger, it is now in the possession of Walker, who keeps it in his safety-deposit box at the Palmetto Bank on the west side.
"I never in my life thought I'd find something like this," Walker said. "I never thought I'd find something this old."



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