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These pages are dedicated to the Native Americans (NA) that inhabited a small valley, now named Campbell Hollow, on the north fork of the Holston river. The site was buried under by dirt sliding off the adjacent valley slopes. Settlers arrived and built the 1st log cabin around 1760 due to the pure water source, arriving from underground and maintaining a constant temperature of 52-53 degrees year round. The farm eventually grew and was occupied by a 1900 barn and farm house when I arrived in 1990. There was in addition a 1970 a frame home. Most finds of NA nobody knew of the buried village till I dug a ditch and found a long midden layer. A midden layer is a black compost like layer of organic material laid down over years of habitation. All the midden was completely decomposed so as to contain no trace of seed, bone, or other identifiable material. This was due to the high acidic condition of the soil. There were artifacts galore and as it it turned out after years of study, ended up as the second undesturbed Native American village discovered in the state of Virginia. The habitation of the village dated from the early nomadic archaic peoples (6-8,000 BP) to the settled communitys (2,000 BP to?) This later date estimation becomes more complex which I will not go into here. I hold in the highest respect these peoples and the years spent in the dirt digging and studying changed me dramatically. I learned things far beyond the facts of what was there. Far beyond becoming an archaeologist I learned to feel what the earth taught me. The experience was spiritual from the start. One of the first finds, and the only find of its kind, was a gorget, worn by archaic peoples.
I will add pages and links to help you learn about these peoples. You will find some of my views a bit different archaeologically. One in particular feel strongly about:
I avoid most names of points as many are named after complete European ancestral settlers, like “Johnson “ for example. This may be of benefit to the classification system. This is a bastardization of the peoples who flaked these works of art in my view. Even the Holston point named after the river I avoid . Did the Cherokee call this point that? Many points ( and cities etc.) are named after NA tribes were conquered. So instead of naming some that may be OK ( Turkey tail ) and not naming others by the classification system I will only refer to points as to 1) material type, 2) function 3) era and sometimes 4) area or distribution finding of the artifact. Chalcedony knife of early archaic era common to..... for example. The description is the accompanied picture. This is what is important in understanding the artifacts anyway.
Index
Village summary presented to ASV 1995
Village Map village site map
Points document of points and tool artifact findings
Debitage document of other stuff artifact findings
Ceramics document of ceramic artifact findings
Dr "Rocks" letter to DOC after ASV meeting
Links to village related sites
Artifact photos of Village artifacts coming , please return
Native American Native American of Va history
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