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Pre-Historic Spear Points
Written By: Jane Gibson Nardy - Cashiers Historical Society | Issue: 2016/07 - July
During the 1980s, High Hampton Inn and Country Club held a several day long workshop on prehistoric humans in Western North Carolina, taught by professors from the University of North Carolina.
I had a handful of stone artifacts given to me by a mountain friend who said they were arrowheads that had been turned up when plowing local fields for spring planting. The next day I brought the artifacts to class and showed them to the professor who quickly said, “These aren’t arrowheads, they are spear points made and used by pre-historic humans who were hunters and gatherers. They pre-date the use of bows and arrows.”
The other class members came up front to take a close look and we were all thinking of how we were touching artifacts once held by ancient man.
Now let’s fast forward to June 2009 when the Cashiers Historical Society brought 30 people around the area to see the six one-room schoolhouses still standing. To get to the old Pine Creek School, which is now a residence, we parked on the paved road and walked on a long narrow dirt driveway that paralleled a recently plowed field. Some in the large group stepped over into the field, looking down to watch their step.
Then they started bending down and picking up something on the ground, calling out, “Oh, look what I found.” I stopped and walked back to see what was being picked up and immediately realized that they were gathering spear-points. This chance encounter with human beings’ ancient past became the highlight of the day.
The photograph used in this article shows the late Johnny Wayne Coggins, a lifelong resident of Pine Creek, standing in front of his impressive collection of spear-points, collected over many years. His family grew cabbage, known as “Coggins Cabbage” and although most of the family members undoubtedly found spear-points among the cabbages, no one in the family was as dedicated to the pursuit of these artifacts as was Johnny Wayne Coggins.
