Prehistoric Romeo and Juliet Lived Apart: But Why? The People of the Shoals and The People of the Hills

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Georgia, Savannah River, near Savannah, circa 1862. (Public Domain) with couple

Prehistoric Romeo and Juliet Lived Apart: But Why? The People of the Shoals and The People of the Hills

Just north of Augusta, Georgia, USA, near what is called the Fall Line of the Savannah River, lies Stallings Island. It has given its name to the culture that sparked the second great American invention. The first was the Clovis point; the second was fiber-tempered pottery. 

Some 3,700 years ago, an inventive people flourished here. They produced the first permanent shell-fishing culture, the first settled community, and the first example of fire-hardened, fiber-tempered pottery in North America. 

On Stallings Island, archeologists excavated large shell-middens, basically, mounds where people threw their discarded shells after eating a dinner of mussels and clams. Embedded in these prehistoric dump sites were carved bone pins, stemmed projectile points, stones used for boiling cooking water, and lots and lots of decorated, broken pottery. The size of the middens indicates that people lived here for a long time. Pollen, fish bones, plant refuse, and shells from all seasons indicate a year-round, permanent village. 

Savannah River and the Augusta Canal, Augusta, Georgia, USA. (Debs/CC BY 2.0)


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