Cherokee Indian Grave Site?

60Grit · Oct 2, 2007

dawg2 said:
I stumbled on this old thread. Did the piles look like this? I have 20+ on my property and was told they were most likely Indian graves since the rocks in the piles were all quartz.

Take some talcum powder and a fine bristle brush.

Dust some of the larger stones. If they were indian, there will be markings on the stones not visible from years of weathering, but the talcum powder will reveal the secret.

dawg2 · Oct 2, 2007

60Grit said:
Take some talcum powder and a fine bristle brush.

Dust some of the larger stones. If they were indian, there will be markings on the stones not visible from years of weathering, but the talcum powder will reveal the secret.[/QUOTE

What are you talking about?

dawg2 · Oct 2, 2007

Researcher31726 said:
I believe that if you suspect it is a cemetery or grave and you dig into it, the LEOs could have a long talk with you.

Offer the place the respect that the inhabitants deserve.

Sue

IF you dig it AND you find human remains then you have to call a LEO or DNR. If you KNOW it is a grave and you dig it there are stiff penalties and fines. I have no intention of digging in them. That would be like going to a modern cemetery and digging up people for their gold teeth.

We find a lot of quartz points and tools in the pasture below every time it rains. I leave the piles alone. I am pretty sure they are graves and not farmer piles, because whoever did it moved them to the top of a ridge and piled up all quartz.

And my favorite quote:
"let him [the white man] be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds."
-Chief Seattle

dawg2 · Oct 2, 2007

Here is another pic of some different piles. There is one right in front and then if look in the woods to the left and right you can see more.

dawg2 · Oct 2, 2007

sorry, had to resize the pic

collardvalleydeerhunter · Oct 2, 2007

cool , i would use a metal detector over the area .

60Grit · Oct 2, 2007

dawg2 said:
60Grit said:

Take some talcum powder and a fine bristle brush.

Dust some of the larger stones. If they were indian, there will be markings on the stones not visible from years of weathering, but the talcum powder will reveal the secret.[/QUOTE

What are you talking about?

Click to expand...

View attachment 87933

dawg2 · Oct 2, 2007

Gotcha. I'll look again. SOme of the all quartz piles have one granite like rock placed right on the top. Not sure what it means. And the projectile points we find here are not Cherokee or Creek, they are from the Archaic period.

60Grit · Oct 2, 2007

dawg2 said:
Gotcha. I'll look again. SOme of the all quartz piles have one granite like rock placed right on the top. Not sure what it means. And the projectile points we find here are not Cherokee or Creek, they are from the Archaic period.

Check the granite for marks, usually you will need the talcum powder to see them though.

I had a cherokee friend teach me this trick, otherwise I wouldn't have seen anything.

Nicodemus could help you out with the point mystery..

Where are you located?? or more accurately, where are the mounds located?? in terms of county.

Ozzie · Oct 2, 2007

dawg2 said:
I stumbled on this old thread. Did the piles look like this? I have 20+ on my property and was told they were most likely Indian graves since the rocks in the piles were all quartz.

The mounds on our property are the same size, but the individual rocks in the piles are much smaller, and more uniform in size. They look like somebody took a great deal of care to pick them out so that the finished mound would be neat and even looking.

dawg2 · Oct 2, 2007

60Grit said:
Check the granite for marks, usually you will need the talcum powder to see them though.

I had a cherokee friend teach me this trick, otherwise I wouldn't have seen anything.

Nicodemus could help you out with the point mystery..

Where are you located?? or more accurately, where are the mounds located?? in terms of county.

Harris county

dawg2 · Oct 2, 2007

60Grit said:
Check the granite for marks, usually you will need the talcum powder to see them though.

I had a cherokee friend teach me this trick, otherwise I wouldn't have seen anything.

Nicodemus could help you out with the point mystery..

Where are you located?? or more accurately, where are the mounds located?? in terms of county.

Tell him to look at these. Forget about the green stone adze/celt it came from Lee County AL.

Vernon Holt · Oct 2, 2007

Liklihood is great that these are merely piles of stones which were moved by way of a hand made sled (called a stone boat) out of the field and cast in piles at the edge of the field.

Every time the field was plowed, additional stones were brought to the surface, making for more stone removal. This was most often winter work when folks were not involved with making a crop.

I have an old field on my place that was being cultivated by Cherokees when whites settled in what is now Gilmer Co. The field was last cultivated in 1925.

The field now contains 30 inch in diameter pines and Yellow poplar. One would never know that it was a field except for the piles of rocks that delineate the the field. The rocks were placed in piles in event they were needed at some later time for building chimneys, foundations, fences, etc.

Nicodemus · Oct 2, 2007

Dawg2, I see a couple of worked pieces there. I know very little about Native American graves, other than the fact that I ain`t gonna mess with em. I like Mr. Vernons idea of how and why the stones were placed there. There are fields down here where the farmers have them piled 10 feet high for over 100 yards to get them out of the fields. I also see them in big woods off the sides of the right of ways some too. Most likely they were piled up in places like I see for the same reason.

dawg2 · Oct 3, 2007

Vernon Holt said:
Liklihood is great that these are merely piles of stones which were moved by way of a hand made sled (called a stone boat) out of the field and cast in piles at the edge of the field.

Every time the field was plowed, additional stones were brought to the surface, making for more stone removal. This was most often winter work when folks were not involved with making a crop.

I have an old field on my place that was being cultivated by Cherokees when whites settled in what is now Gilmer Co. The field was last cultivated in 1925.

The field now contains 30 inch in diameter pines and Yellow poplar. One would never know that it was a field except for the piles of rocks that delineate the the field. The rocks were placed in piles in event they were needed at some later time for building chimneys, foundations, fences, etc.

Only one problem. It is not a field. The piles ONLY occur on the face of a hill and stop at the top and they are all on the eastern side. Some are just a few feet away. Additionally, every rock in the pile is milky quartz. There is no large milky quartz on my property. most of the rock here is granitic looking rock. So why would a farmer take all the effort to carry only white quartz to the top of a hill and make nearly identically sized piles a few feet apart from each other all the way across a ridge line? Also, nearly every single projectile point, scraper, tool, axe head found around my house is quartz or quartzite. I had someone look at some of them and they are a mix of Archaic and Woodland Period pieces. A lot of people may have farmer rock piles, and a lot more may be tearing up ancient artifact to border thier flower bed. The Archaic and more so the Woodland Indians built a lot of rock piles. ome are graves and others may only be a marker of some kind. White quartz was a very special/holy rock to the for the piezo electric qualities (go outside and rub to pieces of quartz together at night and you will see what I mean) and they built ahuge effigy mound (Eagle Rock) in GA completely out of quartz. But I would say if you find them, it would be better to err on the side off caution and not go tearing them up.

After having done a little research on "rock piles" after finding mine, An Archaeologist told me if it is on a ridge or hill, facing EAST (Land of the living), overlooking a valley that usually has water/ creek, it is most likely a prehistoric gravesite and usually well before the Creek Indians. More likely Archaic or Woodland.

Kawaliga · Oct 3, 2007

At Big Lazar Creek WMA, there are numerous piles of the same type rocks on several hills at the mouth of the creek where it flows into the Flint at Hickman Island.These piles are in a series of rows, coming together at the top of each hill. These hills are too rocky and steep for any farmer to have even considered planting a crop.If they are graves, there are a lot of dead Indians on those hills.I always wondered if it had some type of ceremony associated with it.

big john h · Oct 3, 2007

#1 I wasn't saying I'dig it up - just asking.
#2 That is not a grave site. It has a name but for lack of my memory I'll call it a supply pile. usable stones were carried from fields and creeks/rivers and piled high - like the back lot of a Home Depot. Then individuals could take them and use them as they saw fit.

Jeb · Oct 3, 2007

What about these rockpiles on a mtn top , facing NE. Sorry about the picture quality , I took them Sunday evening with my cell phone.
Jeb

dawg2 · Oct 3, 2007

When I found mine, I did a bunch of research. Yours look similar. Up the East Coast, there are groups ( http://rockpiles.blogspot.com/2007_06_24 _archive.html )dedicated to marking these piles as pre historic and they have a lot of pics. GA has a lot of rockpiles. But from what I have read, there is a big debate as to whether they are graves, ceremonial locations, monuments to fallen warriors, battle ground markers, so on. Some of my mounds face NE, but there are none on the western side of the hill. But there is one big marker cairn made completely out of granite looking rock with one single piece of white quartz stuck in it. From that pile is a trail of white quartz chunks about 10' apart leading you to the big area of rock piles, which is why I do not believe it ha sanything to do with a farmer. We find a lot of artifacts int the pasture below, but none from more modern Indians (i.e.- Cherokee).

Polk County Hillbilly · Oct 3, 2007

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