The upstate of South Carolina has produced much evidence of Native American presence over the years.  I know many of us know about the importance of these findings, so I wanted to pull some of the artifacts and information from our area together for you in a brief summary. 

First, and oldest probably, is the 12,000-year-old Clovis Point that was unearthed in a plowed field near Fork Shoals several years ago.  That point is now in the historical collection at Furman University.  It is a nearly perfect artifact, one of the best found in our state.  It is documented in the Fork Shoals pictorial history by the Fork Shoals Historical Society.

Then, also near Fork Shoals, petroglyphs have been found by a family moving dirt and stones for a retaining wall at a new home site along a small creek feeding into the Reedy River.  There are other sites along creeks and the river that also have provided such carvings and multitudes of arrow heads and other points.  And the archeology society believes there was a native hunting village at the falls of the Reedy in what is now Cedar Falls Park.  The Cherokee and Catawba shared Greenville County as hunting grounds for the prolific deer and earlier buffalo herds roaming through.

During the 1500s Hernando DeSoto and Juan Pardo of Spanish fame traveled through South Carolina documenting their encounters with Natives and one particular encounter by DeSoto in a South Carolina town called Cofiticique is significant.  Scholars disagree on where that town was in SC, but one places it in Anderson County.  DeSoto’s scribes took detailed notes on the daily activities and sent the records to Spain for documentation of his travels.  At this site the matriarchal head of the village was kidnapped, and carried into North Carolina, but soon escaped.  One scholar specifically places this village on the Saluda River.  The travels of De Soto have been studied but not proven by two main scholars, Swanton and Hudson.  Swanton’s trail suggests that De Soto and his army traveled through Anderson County, and the county celebrates that study.  Below is a map by Dennis Blanton in his book, Conquistador’s Wake, that the route has not been specifically identified.  His research at the Glass Site suggests that De Soto traveled through a Native American village there.

At one site north of Fork Shoals along the Reedy a small cave was visited by Piedmont’s early archeologist.  A.S. Rowell was led to it by locals when he was visiting the mill at the Reedy River shoals.  That area has produced a significant number of stone points and even clay pottery sherds.  He documented it in a letter to the Charleston History Museum in the early 1900s.  It is now protected on private property.  Rowell and another local researcher and historian, Crittendon, investigated mounds in the county, and Rowell left evidence in letters to the Charleston Museum.  Crittendon published his book on Greenville History, The Century Book, in 1901.  Rowell also wrote of his research in The Silver Bullet in 1895.

 From A.S. Rowell’s letter to Charleston Museum.

Also, Osteen Hill between Piedmont and Pelzer on the Saluda River has been documented in several ways as probably an early native village.  Mr. Rowell gave a portion of his 40,000-artifact collection to the Charleston History Museum in 1916, and I am so glad he did, because his museum burned in the 1940s and the artifacts were lost.  This collection includes potsherds, stone tools and points that are available to view at the museum in Charleston, but are not on display.  This site is on the Saluda River, but it is private property.  Please honor that.  But Rowell’s collection documents the existance of a large Native presence for hundreds of years.  Also, the fact that the shoals below the Piedmont Mill dam was called The Great Shoals of the Saluda by natives is another bit of evidence.  These are probably mostly Woodland Indians products indicating habitation between 1000 BC and 1000 AD when there were semi-permanent villages.

These sherds and the Clovis Point, as well as the petroglyphs and DeSoto/Pardo narratives, are definitive evidence of the continuous presence of our Native American ancestors from twelve thousand years ago to the present.

If you have other evidence of Natives in our area, I would love to see it.  Please contact me at acpeden07@gmail.com.

Anne Peden, PhD
Greenville County Historic Preservation Commission
Fork Shoals Historical Society
Piedmont Historical Preservation Society●