Dig in

RED BAY -- A perfect square dug about five feet into the ground could tell what Franklin County was like thousands of years ago.

Archaeologists have found working tools and pottery that they believe to be about 6,000 years old in a large field on state Rep. Johnny Mack Morrow’s Red Bay property.

For years, people have come to the property to find arrowheads and other artifacts, but the ongoing extensive dig could reveal much more about the area’s past.

“I can’t think of a better dig that I’ve ever been on,” said Hunter Johnson, who works with the Southeast Anthropological Institute and is an adjunct professor of anthropology at Northwest-Shoals Community College.

Johnson and a team of students from Northwest-Shoals began the excavation project in late November but, at the time, they didn’t know exactly what they would find.

The group marked off the land and chose two spots to begin digging. Johnson said the top layer of the land revealed very little because arrowheads had been collected from the property for so long.

But, the rich history of the area started to unfold rather quickly, he said, as they began to find pottery and tools from various periods in history.

The soil layers are almost perfectly divided inside the excavation areas. Johnson and his team used those markings to help determine the different periods of time.

Johnson said that radiocarbon dating methods are used to determine the age of uncovered artifacts. He also said that similar discoveries in the region that match the ones found near Red Bay are used in determining age.

Johnson said the constant flowing water and the stone in the area would have made the land popular for American Indians from the archaic period.

The 300-acre property includes three creeks that eventually join at Bear Creek.

“(Johnson) told me that this was the Wal-Mart of 6,000 years ago,” Morrow said. “Everything they needed was right here.”

The teams will stop the dig at this point but they are expected to begin working the site again soon.

“We’ve only scratched the surface out here,” Johnson said. “We are going to get information to help us paint a picture of what happened here. It’s basically a snapshot in time.”

All of the artifacts have been removed from the site and taken to Northwest-Shoals where they are being examined.

Johnson said it could take as long as six months to have all the artifacts processed and recorded, but once that is completed, they could be back at the site.

Morrow, state representative for Franklin and parts of Colbert counties, said he hopes to build a museum to house all of the artifacts that are uncovered in the excavation project.

“Ideally, I want to do a museum here so a child can walk through the door and say, here is what Franklin County citizens looked like 6,000 years ago,” he said. “Here are the tools they used, this is what their daily lives were like.”

Morrow has been buying land in the area for several years. He has built an outdoor classroom and a gristmill that many county schools use throughout the year for educational purposes.

“The students know more today because of this, and that’s what education is about,” said Franklin County Schools Superintendent Bill Moss.

Hopefully, the archaeological dig will reveal even more about the area and what the earliest inhabitants were like.

“Our challenge is to associate people with the artifacts we find here,” Johnson said. “Six thousand years ago, someone actually made and used the tools that we have found.”

Jonathan Willis can be reached at 332-0140 or jonathan.willis@timesdaily.com