Before Greer: Native American history

Where does history begin? Our Museum is named the “Greer Heritage Museum” because it is focused on the history of this town; so that’s really where we start, with a town that didn’t exist before 1873. The history of the area before that time is important — critically important! — but is not this Museum’s area of focus.

At the same time, no town pops out of a vacuum, we do have a responsibility to address the factors that influenced its founding, and we do have artifacts on display. So here’s an overview.

Summary

By the 1500s the Iroquois-speaking Cherokee had migrated south, pushing the Creek Indians to the west and the Sioux-speaking Catawba to the east. Their newly-acquired lands came at a price, however, and battles were fought between the Cherokee and their neighbors. During one battle near Rock Hill, both nations sustained approximate losses of 1,600 warriors before agreeing to a treaty. The terms of the treaty limited the Catawba to the east side of the Catawba River, the Cherokees to the west of the Broad River, with the area in between (our area!) to serve as a common hunting ground. The alleged battle and subsequent treaty are thought to be the reason that there were no permanent Native American settlements in a vast swath of the upstate, including present-day Greer. Both groups hunted in the area, however, and we have numerous stone points as a result.

European settlers started to move in around 1750. They set up trading stations, looking for deer skins. At one point there were reportedly 225,000 deer skins collected in one year in the Piedmont and sent to Charles Town! Deer were hunted to near-extinction in the area.

Pre-revolutionary South Carolina was divided into four huge counties, and what is now Greenville County was then part of Colleton County. The whole county was “Indian land” through 1776. Tensions between native groups and encroaching Europeans led to creation of the Cherokee Territory, with its border running straight down through what is now Greer (at Line Street), and European settlers were generally forbidden to live on the west side of that line until 1777. During that “forbidden” time, though, there were numerous skirmishes and conflicts between settlers and Cherokee, including at least two significant “massacres” in the Greer area.

Our artifacts

We have a wonderful collection of stone points that reflect both the Cherokee and the various peoples and cultural groups that lived here before them for thousands of years. Very few of the points are actually “arrowheads,” as arrows were a late development; most of them are spear points, knives, and drills. You see them labeled by different cultural groups and phases across many thousands of years. One of the key distinguishing factors of these different archaeological phases is that each of them made their stone tools using different techniques and shapes; these distinctive characteristics allow us to date them more precise than some would think. On the middle left shelf are trade beads. These were made in Europe, and given to the Cherokee in trade for deer skins. Our best and most beautiful examples of trade beads are in the Dark Corner exhibit, and worth pointing out to guests.

The pottery

In the case are some pieces of pottery. We believe that none of these pieces are from this area; they were collected by a Greer resident who must have traveled a lot, and built this collection of pots from across the United States with one being from Turkey! Unfortunately, we now know that most or all of the pots are forgeries or reproductions made for the tourist trade. They will not end up as a permanent part of our pre-Greer story.

A neat highlight

While most of our stone items are points and tools, there is one that is different and very special: a small sculpture, called an “effigy,” of a bird head. Can you find it?

A deeper dive

Our modern culture has extremely simplified the pre-history story; in this area, people think of “the Cherokee” as the original inhabitants of the land, and that’s all. In reality, they were relatively late-comers to the area and there were numerous people groups before them. Recent and growing evidence suggests the possibility of humans in South Carolina as early as 18,000 years ago (now called the “Pre-Paleoindian Period,”) but the widely-accepted early date is about 13,000 years ago. So we really start looking at our history with that first major cultural civilization in this area: the Clovis. The history in Greenville County unfolds something like this:

Before 8,000BC: Paleoindian Period. Hunter-gatherer nomadic peoples who usually lived in small groups of 20 to 60 people. Early evidence of these peoples includes “Clovis” points, which are long, fluted chipped stone projectile points. So the oldest are known as the Clovis culture. We have Clovis points in our collection that were found just north of Greer. Then, in this area, there was a cultural phase known as the Simpson/Suwanee.

8,000 – 6,000BC: Early Archaic Period.  The whole Archaic is still mobile gathering-and-hunting people. Important Archaic cultural developments included the use of notched and stemmed projectile points, the atlatl, containers of stone and pottery, and ground and polished stone artifacts. We have a variety of stone points and tools from various phases across the Archaic. The groups here during the Early Archaic start with the Dalton culture, then the Palmer/Kirk, and then Bifurcate.

6,000 – 4,000BC: Middle Archaic Period.  Stanley, then Morrow Mountain, then Guilford/MALA phases.

4,000 – 200BC: Late Archaic Period.  Savannah River phase.

Up to this point in history, each of these mobile cultural groups covered the entirety of our area, moving in and out and across. From this point on though, we start to see separation of the groups living in the Piedmont area of Greenville County and those living in the mountainous area of Greenville County.

200BC – 1200AD: Woodland Period.  The Woodland Period is characterized by increasing horticultural expertise, use of ceramics, less mobility and more and social complexity. Pottery technology improved, and we have numerous Woodland pottery shards and stone point in our collection, all found in the Greer area. Just listing the various peoples in our area is complicated. At the most general level it starts with the Swannanoah in the mountains; then Badin move in to the Piedmont; then Dunlap take over both areas; then the Pigeon in the mountains, then Yadkin in the Piedmont, then Cartersville in both. Then Connestee in the mountains, Uwharrie in Piedmont, and finally Napier across the whole county.

1200AD – 1520AD: Mississippian Period.  This period is characterized by groups who grew maize, lived in chiefdoms, had larger villages, and constructed earthen mounds in some villages. In Greenville County we start with the Etowah in the Piedmont, then the Pisgah (and maybe Quallah) in the mountains. The Lamar come into both areas, then the Pee Dee move into the Piedmont.

1520AD – 1670AD: Exploratory Period.  Europeans arrive and begin interacting, trading, and claiming land.

1670AD – present: Historic Period.  This period begins with colonization by the British in late 1600s. Trading posts were established to trade deer skins.

The word “Cherokee” doesn’t appear in any of that! So who were they? The ancestors of the Cherokee are considered part of that late Pisgah Phase of the Mississippian culture in the south Appalachian mountains. The Cherokee are members of the Iroquoian language-family of North American indigenous peoples, and are believed to have migrated from the Great Lakes area; the migration is recounted in their oral history. By 1500 they had established a homeland across western Virginia, southeastern Tennessee, western North and South Carolina, and northeastern Georgia.

More information

We have a few superb expanded introductions to this subject available on our website.

• An excellent, easy-to-read overview of the pre-history can be found in the Greer 2017 Historical Resources Report.
• A very interesting history and explanation of why we have very few artifacts from the pre-historic eras is in the Archaeological Survey of the Proposed Greer/Riverside High School Site.
• An overview of the broader 13,000-year history of people who lived here is in the Preliminary Archaeological Context for Greenville County, SC.