History has a way of getting plowed, or buried, or worse - bulldozed.
That's true in York County, where the Catawba Indians have lived for centuries. There's no telling what historical treasures have been lost to make way for development, archaeologists say.
But on the banks of the Catawba River - on land destined for the site of a new county museum - lie the remnants of two 18th-century Catawba Indian villages, unearthed while the land was being prepared for development.
Now, more than 50,000 artifacts - from large pottery pieces to tiny shards - excavated from the villages are helping archaeologists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill weave a more complete narrative of who the Catawbas were and how their culture underwent abrupt transformations as a result of trade, war and a devastating epidemic.
The sites near Interstate 77 and Sutton Road are the historic Catawba towns of Nassaw and Weyapee, said Steve Davis and Brett Riggs, research archaeologists from UNC's research laboratories of archaeology.
The sites are extremely valuable, especially since only a handful existed at the same time as Nassaw and Weyapee, and few remain, Riggs said.
A 1756 map of the Catawba Nation and its trade routes shows six towns that make up the Catawba Nation located along the Catawba River and the Great Trading Path: Nassaw, Weyapee, Noostee, Sucah, Weyane and Charraw.
"When you know how many you start with, you know how many you've lost," Riggs said.
While archaeologists have found evidence of most of the sites, some sites have weathered time, erosion and other forces better than others.
"Sucah is basically gone," Riggs said, lost to development.
"At this point, we can say at least 50 percent of this record is gone," he said. "It's a very finite resource."
Last fall, the artifacts were displayed at UNC's Wilson Library as part of "Unearthing Native History," an exhibit tracing the development of the Catawba Nation through historical accounts and artifacts excavated by UNC researchers at sites including Nassaw and Weyapee.
Unearthing history
In summer 2007 and 2008, Davis and Riggs led a team of UNC archaeologists in excavating the two villages in Fort Mill, bordered by the Catawba River, I-77 and Sutton Road.
More than a decade ago, Jane Spratt McColl donated the land to the Culture and Heritage Foundation, which supports York County's Culture and Heritage Museums, for the purpose of green space and a new museum.
The foundation set out to build an environmentally-focused community on a portion of the 400 acres, hoping the sale of real estate would pay for a new county museum on the river.
Early surveys of the land revealed archaeological and environmental features. That's when Davis, Riggs and their field school came and worked on the sites.
Artifacts they found include pottery, ceramic, metal fragments, gun parts, tools and beads. The artifacts are housed at UNC's research laboratories of archaeology under Davis' and Riggs' supervision.
Museum leaders say they planned to preserve important archaeological and historical features in green space as the development moved forward.
Plans to build eventually were put on hold when the economy soured.
Reading artifacts
In a short time, various ethnic divisions among the Catawbas coalesced, forming what has evolved into the present Catawba Indian Nation.
The Catawbas' material culture helps show how quickly this evolution took place.
Following the historic record and determining the manufacturing date of English pipe stems unearthed in the towns, the researchers believe the two communities occupied the area in the 1750s and stayed no later than 1759.
That year, Indian warriors returned from the French and Indian War - and brought with them smallpox, an epidemic that claimed the lives of at least half the Catawbas in the region.
Survivors of the war and disease from each of the towns merged and briefly re-established near present-day Camden.
The pottery and artifacts unearthed at the Nassaw site include English wares they accumulated while fighting in the war and many tools and pottery they made themselves, each telling a different story.
