In April 1995, Daniel Boone National Forest archaeologists excavated at the Burnt Road Site in southwestern Jackson County. They carried out this research because an arsonist had destroyed another part of the site. He had set fire to a protective rubber matting the Forest Service had placed over a section of a road that extended through the site. The information presented in this booklet draws on the results of research at this site and the decades of archaeological research that the Daniel Boone National Forest has carried out and supported.
Pages 1-2 -- Cecil, Someone Set Fire to the Tire Road Up on Carpenter Ridge......
Archaeologists routinely survey land marked for logging on Daniel Boone National Forest. during a survey along Carpenter Ridge in Jackson County, archaeologists dicovered where native peoples (Indians) had camped on and off for more than 8,000 years. On a wide spot where a smaller ridge joins the main ridge, they found prehistoric artifacts. Stone tools and the debris from making stone tools were scattered across two low knolls and a dirt road.
To protect this important prehistoric campsite from logging traffic, the Forest Service put down a tire "road" on the existing dirt road. This way, logging trucks would not disturb the fragile record of the past as they traveled farther south on the ridge.
The Forest Service planned to remove the tire road after logging was finished on Carpenter Ridge and use it again at another site. But right before logging began, someone set fire to the tires. The fire destroyed the tire road and part of the prehistoric campsite.
To make up for this loss, Forest Service Archaeologists excavated in another part of the site for about two weeks. Aided by several volunteers, they gained new insights into how native peolpes of the Escarpment Region followed their hunting and gathering way of life thousands of years ago.
Page 3 -- I Was Always Told Indians Never Lived in Kentucky......
The truth is, native peoples lived for thousands and thousands of years in the region south of the Ohio River now known as Kentucky. Down through the ages, a variety of peoples and societies have called Kentucky "home."
Our particular area of interest is the Escarpment Region. This belt of sandstone cliffs and steep-sided valleys separated by narrow ridge crests extends almost the whole length of eastern Kentucky. Erosion of less resistant stone has formed the rock shelters and natural bridges for which it is famous.
The first people, called Paleoindians by archaeologists, arrived sometime after 12,000 B.C. The climate was cooler and wetter back then. Evergreen forests, like those in Canada today, covered the Escarpment Region. Paleoindians lived in small bands. They moved across vast areas of land foraging for wild plant foods and hunting the now-extinct wooly mammoth and mastodon with large, fluted, lance-shaped spearpoints.
Table of Contents
Cecil, Someone Set Fire to the Tire Road on Carpenter Ridge...
I Was Always Told Indians Never Lived in Kentucky...
What Was Archaic Life Like Along the Escarpment 8,000 Years Ago?
