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Track Rock Archaeological Area - 1 Stone Complex 9UN367, March 2017 |
All Text & Images: Copyright (2017) |
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Track Rock Archaeological Area - 1 Stone Complex 9UN367, March 2017 |
All Text & Images: Copyright (2017) |
| This site is similar to other stone pile/mound complexes found throughout north Georgia, although on a slightly larger scale. Many of these can be at least partially attributed to land clearing practices of early settlers, many of who found themselves with lottery lands on the sides of rock-strewn mountains. The walls here differ from the stone wall-fences typically found in New England. They vary in size, with most being less than 60 feet in length, although a few are longer. The majority of these walls follow the contour of the steep hillsides, in the manner of terraces, often appearing in parallel rows across draws and other shallow water drainages. |
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Examples of some of the stone wall sections... |
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| A series of parallel walls, looking uphill... |
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One of the few intersecting wall areas... |
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| Daffodils at an old home site within the complex M.E. Brown, age 94, is a lifelong resident of this area, and his family has resided here since the early 1800s. He has told me a number of stories passed down by his mother of this site's history, including cultivation of these slopes prior to the turn of the previous century (late 1800s), and many tales of the Native American families who then still lived at the bottom of this hill and near the current Trackrock Campground. Early maps of the area show that this area was cleared (not wooded) at that time and tend to support the position that farming / land clearing played at least some part in these rock arrangements. My guess would be that the site had Native American origins, and was later modified by the needs of settler agriculture. |