Dig turns up 3,000-year-old pottery shards in mayor's yard

Thu, May 8, 2008

By BRANDEE A. THOMAS

The Brunswick News

Brunswick Mayor Bryan Thompson may have a little history in his backyard at 805 Albany St.

At least that's what the archaeologists digging there think. And they may be right.

In a recent survey of Thompson's property, a team of archaeologists found pottery shards they say are 3,000 years old.

It's something Fred Cook, an archaeologist who's more than just a little familiar with Brunswick, has suspected for decades.

"My grandparents built the house (next door to Thompson's) in 1919 and my family lived there until the early 1980s," said Cook, a senior archaeologist with Brunswick-based FCAS Archaeological Consultants.

"I plowed a garden back there 25 years ago and found some pottery pieces. I just put it in a box and didn't think much about it," said Cook. "I opened it up recently and realized that I had about a 3,000 year span of pottery in that little box."

Cook's earlier find inspired him to approach Thompson about surveying his backyard. Thompson said OK, and after digging around, Cook hit pay dirt.

Kevin Kiernan, from left, Bill Steed, and mayor Bryan Thompson look through dirt from Thompson's backyard in search of artifacts.

So far, he and his team have found a musket ball dating to the 19th century and Swift Creek pottery shards that possibly date back to 600 A.D., among other things.

"This is really a pleasant surprise," Cook said. "It is so rare to find archaeological sites in urban development."

Cook said the findings are indicative of several things.

"These artifacts tell us that we're looking at Indians coming to a site repeatedly, but we don't know why," he said. "This shows that Brunswick was an area very much like St. Simons Island, in that Indians lived here too, not just on the island."

Thompson is also excited about the findings.

"I think this is all just really cool," he said. "It's not something I would've thought of.

"I'm so interested in learning the history of this area and I sometimes forget that the history spans further back than 1771 (when Brunswick was laid out)."

Thompson isn't alone in his thinking, Cook says.

"Living in modern society, we have such a narrow view of what history is," Cook said. "We can read about history, but we often have a hard time imagining history."

Cook points out that there are other historic sites to be discovered in Brunswick, but notes that some may never be unearthed because of the high costs involved.

While Cook is continuing to explore Thompson's backyard, it is not his intention to unearth every single artifact that may be buried there.

"The normal procedure for an archaeological dig is to leave something for future studies," Cook said.

"The only sites that should be completely emptied are those that are going to be destroyed by development. Otherwise you want to leave something behind because you never know what questions could be answered with future techniques."

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