Cover Story: Lost heritage

Step back in time, say, 500 years into Georgia’s past. Native settlements were scattered along the Chattahoochee River as children played on the banks, hunters searched nearby forests and travelers paddled canoes down the streaming river, the silence broken only by the sounds of birds.
Primitive trails linked villages hundreds of miles apart, and one of the most significant, the Hightower Trail, wound along the current border between Gwinnett and DeKalb counties. Originating from Cherokee territory near present-day Calhoun, in northwest Georgia, the trail leads to Augusta, at one point separating the Cherokee and Lower Creek natives living in Gwinnett.
Today, along the prehistoric High-tower Trail, lies a stretch of rugged and wooded land that is at the center of a controversy between south Gwinnett homeowners and the county.
For five years, the nearby Summer-town Homeowners Association and local preservationists have fought to stop development of a 198-acre tract located less than a mile east of Stone Mountain on the DeKalb County line. So far, the area known as Deshong Crossing has been spared because of its pristine native vegetation and several archaeological sites associated with the ancient Hightower Trail.
But on Jan. 2, at the first Gwinnett County Commission meeting for new members John Dunn and Marcia Neaton, the board voted 4-1 against buying the land to serve as a park. Owned by Florida developer Bermuda LLC, which proposes building 345 residential homes, a shopping center and two office buildings there, the parcel is likely to be developed after all.
But activists say it’s not over until those bulldozers roll in.
“I am not giving up yet,” says Denise Rutherford, president of the Summertown Homeowners Association. While the native vegetation, streams, rare flowers and abundant wildlife are worth preserving, she says, the property should be saved because of its significant historical and archaeological value.
According to Gwinnett County historian Marvin Nash Worthy, Rutherford is absolutely right. “This is one of the oldest and most significant trails we have,” she says. “It is just a shame that politicians and developers cannot appreciate the significance of this.”
An archaeological survey of a small portion of the Deshong Crossing property in late 1999 by TRC Garrow Associates Inc. — which has studied some of the most important finds around Georgia — revealed artifacts dating back 8,000 years.
“This is an extremely important trail,” says company vice president Pat Garrow. “There are sites here that are several thousand years old. Any time we get close to these types of trails around Georgia, we find the same density of sites associated with them.”
Garrow’s report recommended three of the sites surveyed as prehistoric archaeological sites worthy of listing on the National Register of Historic places.
But those findings haven’t been enough to convince Gwinnett County to buy the land. With $320 million in taxpayer money earmarked for parks and green space in Gwinnett, proponents say the money is there, and they are pushing for the county to open its pocketbook.
Although the commission’s vote was taken in closed session, Dunn, whose district includes the property, has been quoted as saying he doesn’t want to build an expensive park in a remote part of the county that likely would serve a large number of DeKalb residents. He’s now feeling the glaring heat of criticism from constituents who feel betrayed by his stance.

History takes back seat

The situation sounds all too familiar to Theresa Cantrell, founding member of the Gwinnett Open Land Trust and a member of the Gwinnett County Planning Commissioner. She was involved in a similar battle to preserve the Little Mulberry area in Dacula, which residents and activists fought for years to save. Thirty archaeological sites were documented on the Little Mulberry property, including one stone mound complex with nearly 200 mounds that some believe could contain human remains. The area, which yielded artifacts documented to be up to 10,000 years old, is now part of Gwinnett’s portfolio of green space.
“The presence of Native Americans in Gwinnett should be a treasured part of our heritage,” Cantrell says.
But that sentiment alone is unlikely to be enough to persuade either politicians or developers to spare usable land, says David Chase, former president of the Greater Atlanta Archaeological Association. Along with Nash Worthy and a number of other preservationists, Chase believes business and politics continually override history in Gwinnett.
“I think Gwinnett is so proud of its growth that it has become the most important thing,” Rutherford says. Archaeologist Garrow says he applauds Gwinnett for saving the Little Mulberry area, but feels “politicians need to be more sensitive to these archaeo- logical resources.”
Native American sites are relatively plentiful in Gwinnett, with documented settlements dating back 10,000 years on up to the removal of the last Cherokee and Creed natives just 160 years ago in the infamous “Trail of Tears” episode. Gwinnett has more than 500 recorded archaeological sites; Georgia as a whole boasts more than 35,000. “And that’s only the tip of the iceberg,” says Phyllis Hughes, past president of the Gwinnett Historical Society. “Think about how many go unreported.”
Safeguarding artifacts

Across Georgia, pottery fragments, pipes, arrowheads, axes, beads, tomahawks and entire settlements have been, and continue to be, unearthed. At the Etowah Mounds in Cartersville, one of the country’s most important sites, more than 300 sets of human remains have been excavated over the last century. Near the Snellville cemetery, arrowheads, pipes, pottery and tomahawks were found in abundance. A large prehistoric settlement has been excavated near the Mall of Georgia; one of the largest villages ever found, dating back to 800 AD, was unearthed in Canton; and a significant prehistoric campsite and rock shelter has been discovered in Rockdale County.
History is as close to Carron Frost as her own back yard. Her property, which borders Little Mulberry, holds two Native American burial mounds. “I’m just glad we are here because we will never disturb them,” she says. “We have taught the children to respect them and not touch them.”
Most artifacts found in Gwinnett are stored at the State University of West Georgia in Carrollton or at a storage facility in Alabama, where archaeologists can study them further. While not every site is important enough to preserve, Garrow believes that as many as possible should be documented before they are bulldozed. “That way at least we know what we lost,” he says.
Deshong Crossing would not be the first to vanish under a bulldozer. Garrow estimates that 80 percent of all metro Atlanta sites have been lost to development. Many developers neglect to mention the discovery of artifacts in order to avoid a land survey, Chase says.
“People are unaware that there are so many sites being destroyed,” he says. “And there is not much willingness for developers to cooperate, to the point of contractors becoming secretive about it when they find things.”
But secrecy alone is no crime. Developers who come across artifacts they suspect may be of historical value are only required to halt clearing and construction when working under federal permit or funding, or unless they encounter human remains. According to the Georgia Abandoned Cemeteries and Burial Grounds Act of 1991, no known cemetery, burial ground, human remains or burial object must be disturbed. Under that law, development must stop until a genealogical survey has been conducted and a permit applied for in order to move the remains — at the property owner’s cost.
Summertown residents hoping to invoke the law focused a last-ditch effort on what they believe are Native American burial mounds on the Deshong Crossing property.
But Garrow’s survey concluded that the rock piles in question likely were placed there by farmers. While Rutherford acknowledges there are more recent rock piles on the property, she questions whether the survey even reviewed the spots neighbors believe to be burial mounds.
“There is a stone mound 10 meters long by 5 meters wide and 1-1/2 meters high back there, and it is situated up on a slope. I don’t believe a farmer would go to that extent to move a pile of stones, and set them in such a perfect oval shape. We have asked the developer permission to hire and send in an independent archaeologist to do a survey, but were told no,” she says.
Facing other threats

Local Native American descendents certainly favor sparing any remnants of their heritage.
“If there is even a question that there may be graves on the property, then that needs to be respected,” says Edward Reynolds, a Lawrenceville genealogist and Cherokee descendant. “What is really sacred to us are these graves, and I still do not understand why some people insist on digging us up. It is grave-robbing, it is disrespectful and I absolutely cannot comprehend the mentality.”
Diamond Brown of Stone Mountain is a full-blood Cherokee who travels to schools around the country to teach children about the Cherokee culture. To him, anything that remains from his ancestry is important.
“I can travel all over the country and never see any natives, whether it’s Mohawk, Creek or any other tribe,” he says. “I may see ancestors, but our bloodline has fizzled out and that is a lonely feeling. That’s why you have to understand that, to me, this is my homeland. These are my people, and even having their graves around makes me feel comforted.”
Unfortunately, Brown and Reynold’s heritage face threats other than developers. Guided by recent news coverage, so-called “pot hunters” are already coming out of the woodwork, ready to loot the Deshong Crossing sites for ancient relics to sell on a black market where arrowheads are traded like baseball cards. Neighbor Peggy Chandler already has received several suspicious calls from people who want her help locating specific sites. “I just refuse to show them where they are,” she says.
“Pot hunters are the biggest problem we have because they specifically target significant sites,” Garrow says. “At least with developers, they don’t target these sites; on the contrary.”
To foil looters, site locations are kept secret whenever possible. Debbie Walls, curator of collections with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, recalls that as soon as news about the excavation in Canton broke, they had to post armed guards there around the clock.
Nancy Beck, a park ranger with the Chattahoochee National Recreation Area adds, “We have several sites along the river, but we never give a hint where they are because people will dig them up. And that goes for Civil War sites, too.”
But even pot hunters will not be able to get to an artifact if it is buried under a strip mall parking lot. So, for now, it is the bulldozers the Summertown resi-dents are trying to keep away from Deshong Crossing.
“John Dunn is the only one who can save the area now,” says Rutherford, who speculates that the county considers the property overpriced. To local histor-ians and activists, however, it is clear that the historical value outweighs the dollar value.