THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, March 5, 1996 TAG: 9603050185
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HATTERAS ISLAND LENGTH: Long : 124 lines
With shards of pottery, bits of bone and scores of long-buried seashells, an archaeology professor and eight of his students are piecing together the past on the Outer Banks.
One woman found a two-inch fragment of clay-colored ceramic that Native Americans living near Frisco probably made about 200 B.C.
Another digger found slivers of turtle shells and bear vertabrae at a Buxton site that are believed to be remnants of food Croatan Indians ate between 1000 and 1600 A.D.
And a Buxton woman, helping archaeologists unearth artifacts near her home, discovered a squash seed Monday that may have been buried beneath a foot of sand in a former fire pit for more than seven centuries.
``We know this is the capital village of the Croatan chiefdom that had its major occupation on the southern end of Hatteras and the northern end of Ocracoke Island from 1000 to 1700 A.D.,'' said David S. Phelps, East Carolina University archaeology laboratory director, who is leading the digs this week at previously opened sites. ``There could have been as many as 5,000 people here who farmed and fished to support themselves.
``This is the most important archaeological site on the Outer Banks - and one of the most significant in the mid-Atlantic coastal region.''
Phelps and the students are spending their spring break scooping sand from two spots near the sound: one, at the end of Rocky Rollinson Road in Buxton; the other on Brooks Creek, off Buccaneer Drive, in Frisco. The areas, marked with orange stakes, range from 6 inches to 5 feet deep and up to six feet by six feet square. The sites are unrelated, Phelps said, and probably were occupied at least a thousand years apart by Indians from two separate cultures.
Together, they may help historians understand the original occupants of North Carolina's barrier islands - and the Native Americans whom Sir Walter Raleigh's English explorers first encountered when they dropped the ``Lost Colonists'' off at Roanoke Island during voyages of the 1580s.
``John White's 1585 map marks this location as the capital of the Croatans,'' Phelps said Monday from the Buxton site. ``The queen of this chiefdom, at the time, was Manteo's mother. This was Manteo's birthplace.''
Manteo and another chief, Wanchese, accompanied the English explorers back to Britain to meet Queen Elizabeth.
Some say the ``Lost Colonists'' later left their Roanoke Island fort and fled to Hatteras Island to live with the Croatans - where they intermingled and, eventually, disappeared into the Native American culture.
At that time, Phelps explained, Buxton, Frisco and Hatteras Village were separated from the rest of Hatteras Island by an inlet just north of Cape Point. The northern part of what is now Ocracoke was attached to Hatteras Village and formed a single land mass. Native Americans dwelled throughout that southern barrier island - and were its only inhabitants until the late 16th century.
``The Croatan people were pretty much on the same plane as the English in terms of how their society was structured,'' said Phelps. ``They had a very stratified culture: royalty who inherited that right by birth, noble families and priests, then merchants and workers who lived further away from the village center. They primarily lived in long houses, 30-by-90 feet in dimension, made of wooden frames and covered with woven grass that was readily available - and waterproof.
``With these digs, we hope to learn more about how they existed, how they behaved and who, exactly, these original inhabitants were.''
Both of the sites are on private land. But local residents readily agreed to let the archaeologists dig, Phelps said. The project was unfunded, except for trowels, shovels and equipment the university already owned. Professor and students donated their time, and Outer Beaches Realty donated a cottage for them to stay in.
The oldest Indian relics Phelps' students found were from the Frisco site, under a thick bed of oyster shells about 100 yards from Pamlico Sound. The professor said he didn't even have a name for the people whose civilization was uncovered by his assistants. ``We just say they're from the Mount Pleasant Phase of culture - greatly pre-dating the Croatans,'' said Phelps. ``Most likely, they lived here from 300 B.C. to 800 A.D.
``This has the Hanover cord marking - which indicates it was made between 100 and 200 A.D.,'' the professor said, holding a half-inch-thick piece of pottery found near Frisco that had symmetrical lines etched along its outside. ``The marking is both functional and decorative. It was made by string wrapped around wooden paddles and mashed into coils of pottery. It held the pots or bowls together, and gave them a distinctive look.''
Phelps earlier had determined the basic areas to study by poring over old maps and journals. He pinpointed the Frisco site by looking at the tangled maritime forest. Thick forests like that don't grow unless there's some organic food and fire remnants that's been buried in the soil by humans, he said.
The Buxton site sort of found him. After Hurricane Emily hit Hatteras in August 1993, Fred Willard discovered an entire hillside near his Rocky Rollinson Road home had eroded. Dozens of shells, bones and bits of broken pottery were pouring from the soil.
``Whenever activity stopped here, probably in the 1500s, this is what we found - just how the Croatans left it,'' Phelps said, sifting sand and shells from the Buxton dig area beneath a thick awning of live oaks. ``This was a fire pit or oyster roasting area. You can tell by the dark, organic soil. Decaying vegetable and animal material would create this stuff - not nature. We've found pieces of double-spouted gravy boats, six-inch dippers and all sorts of cooking pots already.
``The potential of the sites on this island is really amazing for determining how native people of this area lived,'' said the professor. ``We've been here before. And we'll definitely be back to dig some more.'' ILLUSTRATION: Original Outer Banks dwellers
DREW C. WILSON
The Virginian-Pilot
Clay Swindell, an ECU student, works in a test unit at the Buxton
site of two digs. There, turtle shells and bear bones indicated an
ancient surf and turf style of dining by Croatan Indians.
SUMMER DIGS
Dr. David S. Phelps, who directs East Carolina University's
archaeology laboratory, hopes to come back to Hatteras Island this
summer to complete digs on Buxton and Frisco sites that he and his
students started on this week. The Buxton area was inhabited by
Croatan Indians from 1000 to 1700 A.D. The Frisco site was the home
of earlier Native Americans who lived there from 300 B.C. to 800
A.D.
The professor and his students need funds to finish all the work
they want to do on the Outer Banks. If you would like to help, call
Phelps at (919) 328-4862 or Outer Beaches Realty Sales Manager Tom
Hranicka, who is helping coordinate the digs, at 995-6041 or
800-627-3250.
by CNB