A Tree with a Story, Indian Artifacts, and an Alabama Creek

After the flood that lasted all day yesterday, we were anxious to get outside and do something. Daisy noticed all the tell-tale signs - picking up the camera, putting on boots etc - and got all excited. She knows those things often mean a walk in the woods. Maggie the newest dog hasn't caught on yet.

We knew the rain would bring up some prehistoric Indian artifacts. Sometimes it brings up just a bunch of flakes and chips, and sometimes it brings that up plus some finished things.

After about twenty minutes, we got to a place that gets good erosion after rains. For every fifty or so chips and flake, there is a a finished artifact here. I found this point that might have been an arrowhead, or maybe a knife or drill. Hard to tale. It has been broken on one side.



Not far from that I saw this.



A knife/scraper.



Our next find was a tree. This tree stood out from the rest of the nearby trees. It was taller for one thing...



... and had been struck by lightning.



While I was looking at the lighting damage and trying to figure out what kind of ferns were just outside the hollowed-out part of the tree...



... Kathy made a discovery on the other side... initials had been carved ...



.. and a heart ...



This is a beech tree. They can live 300 - 400 years. If this tree was in a park or someone's yard, there wouldn't be much to wonder about. But this tree is where nobody hardly walks today (I've never seen anybody), and people today generally don't just pull out a knife and start carving a tree in the middle of nowhere. Back before electricity with all the accompanying diversions it brought (like radio, phonographs and TV) they did. Since the bark of beech trees are flat and smooth, they are perfect for carving, and people often did. They recorded important moments in their lives, or they just left their mark to say they were there.

There were more markings farther up the tree, but we couldn't make out what they are. Here is one.



Possibly there are more markings even farther up the tree that were made when those areas were closer to the ground.

Woodpeckers also found something they liked at this tree.



Recently, I caught an episode of Animal Planet's "I Shouldn't Be Alive." A couple on their first date got lost in the woods and found a cave that would be a good place to spend the night. They were reluctant to go in the cave because it was pitch dark and there could have been a bear in there. The man got the bright idea to use the flash on their camera to take a picture of the inside. There were no bears in the cave, but I wondered how a sleeping bear would have reacted to a flash of white light waking him up. Anyway it have me the idea that I could take a photo of the inside of this tree. I put my camera inside and pointed in straight up.



Someday soon we care going to metal detect around this area.



This tree is very close to a pretty creek ...



... which is a possible reason it never was cut by loggers. Years ago, people lived on the water and this could have been in someone's backyard at one time. Later, loggers could have left it alone because of the lightning damage. This area has been logged for over 100 years. I have found horseshoes on logging trails that date back to when the horse and wagon was used to get the logs out.

Many smaller creeks flow into the larger one. Kathy doesn't bother trying to jump them like I do. She just wades them.



Daisy looking at the water.



Want to hear what she is hearing? Turn your speakers, click the little black arrow, and play the movie.



In the water is Maggie, the lab. She gets in the water every chance she gets. Daisy will when she has to, or when she is very hot



I never really cease looking for good things on the ground. The heavy rains had flooded the creek bank and left this when the water went back in the creek.



Even though it looked like a broken arrowhead, when I picked it up it didn't feel like the usual artifacts in the area. Looking at it closer, I could see that it was an artifact made from hematite, an iron ore. There is plenty of hematite in the area. (In fact there is a strip pit nearby over 100 years old). But most of the artifacts we find are made of chert, and to a lesser extent jasper and quartz. Those materials are easier to work with, especially chert. The hematite in the area is reddish, but this is water-stained from sitting in the creek for possibly hundreds of years.



We left the creek and walked up to higher ground. Kathy found two nice artifacts very close together.



By this time we had been walking for four hours. Even though a lot of the time was spent hanging out at the creek, we were still pretty tired and hungry. I suggested we take a break so that I could clean the best stuff that we found...



... and Kathy could shut her eyes and listen to the water roll over the rocks...