Discovering South Carolina's Rock Art

Preface

Preface Uno2cially and unintentionally the South Carolina Rock Art Survey began in 1983, when a collector of Indian artifacts reported a petroglyph located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Oconee Couny, South Carolina. Prior to this exciting discovery, it was generally believed that prehistoric rock art did not exist in the state. During the ensuing fourteen years, 0ve more petroglyphs were reported. Although it was meager , this evidence sumested that rock art in South Carolina might be rare simply because we had never searched for it. Toward determining if this premise might be true, I met with a group of Greenville Couny citizens who had funded other archaeological endeavors and proposed to them that we conduct a survey to look for additional examples of rock art. `ey enthusiastically agreed to support the project.`e Survey In January of 1997, the South Carolina Institute of Archaeolon and Anthropolon (SCIAA) at the Universiy of South Carolina joined with these Greenville Couny citizens and a host of volunteers to conduct a formal survey to seek and record the state’s rock art. Because of the state’s natural geography, we con0ned our search to the Piedmont and Blue Ridge Mountain regions (see 0gs. 1, 4, 5, 7, and 8), the areas where most South Carolina rock formations are found. Recording all the various forms of rock alteration was not an objective. Rather we chose to concentrate on petroglyphs and pictographs considered to be products of prehistoric peoples and on historic carvings believed to be of some antiquiy or particular interest. Because there were no preexisting studies of South Carolina rock art and because none of the original participants had previous experience in the 0eld of rock-art research, our objectives were modest: to begin the survey, to acquire on-the-job experience, and to see where the research would eventually lead. Initially we inspected public lands and tracts of land owned by our supporters. Early in the survey, however, our failure to 0nd any rock art prompted us to expand our methods to include a media appeal for information rom the general public. `e immediate success of this approach reinvigorated survey participants and perhaps prevented an early termination of the program. During the following nine years, as time and funding permixed, the rockart survey continued. Volunteers came and went, each adding new enthusiasm and enern to the cause. As a group, we learned how to search for and record rock art xiv Preface so illusive as to be almost invisible. In the beginning we would have been elated to know that we would record a dozen petroglyphs, but we eventually discovered sixyone petroglyph sites (some containing many glyphs) and three pictograph sites. Eight other petroglyph sites that had been destroyed by various means were also documented . Many portable petroglyphs were also documented, but only four were given site designations because all the others had been removed rom their original locations. While this book is not an all-inclusive catalog, the rock art presented in it is representative of the wide variey of motifs we discovered and the landforms on which we found them. To protect the petroglyphs and to honor the wishes of landowners , descriptions of rock-art locations are limited to the counties in which they were discovered. Methodolon When we began the South Carolina Rock Art Survey, we had lixle concept of what we would encounter. A search for rock-art information produced an abundance of data about rock art of the American West but relatively lixle relating to that of the midwestern and northeastern states. `ere was an even greater pauciy of data pertaining to rock art in the southeastern states. Our research reinforced what we already suspected: that the western states hosted a far greater number of known rock-art sites than those states east of the Mississippi River and that rock art of the West is generally in a much bexer state of preservation. It was also clear, however, that many examples of well-preserved rock art do exist in the East, and we hoped that highly visible rock art might also be found in South Carolina. Ultimately we discovered such glyphs, but with the exception of some historic examples, most were located near mountaintops. `us, because we began the survey on much lower elevations where the conditions for survey, both physical and visual, are vastly diferent, our hopes were at 0rst largely unfounded. On our initial ventures into the 0eld in the upper Piedmont and mountain foothills...