Dabbs Site
The Dabbs Site is an archaeological site located on terraces overlooking the Etowah River near Cartersville, Georgia in the United States.
Location
The Dabbs Site is located in Bartow County, Georgia. It lies directly across the Etowah River from the Leake Mounds and is northwest of the Etowah Indian Mounds. The site is on private property that has been farmed for more than a century by the Dabbs family. It includes two small areas that have been excavated as part of an archaeology field school for undergraduate students at Kennesaw State University. The Upper Dig is on the second terrace above the Etowah River, with excavation beginning in the 2012 season. The Lower Dig is on the first terrace above the Etowah River, with excavation beginning in the 2015 season.
Lower Dig
The Lower Dig, or Lower Dabbs Site, is presumed to have been the location of a small village of the Cartersville phase. Features uncovered at the site include post holes, storage pits, refuse pits, and a possible hearth. The post holes contained daub, suggesting that the posts had supported one or more structures. Recovered artifacts included ceramics, lithics, shell, and bone. The ceramics included sherds of Cartersville Simple Stamped, Check Stamped, and Linear Check Stamped pottery.
Sixteen complete points, (eleven symmetrical projectile points, four asymmetrical projectile point/knives, and one unfacial tool), as well as a number of incomplete points and tools, preforms, flake tools, and tools made from shale or slate, were found at the Lower Dig site. The 16 complete points and 21 of the incomplete points were assigned to types. Yadkin, Coosa and Coosa points, known from the Middle Woodland period, were found in association with Cartersville Simple Stamped and Dunlap Fabric Marked ceramic sherds, also dated to the Middle Woodland. This association, together with radiocarbon dates from the same period, support a long period of habitation at the Dabbs Site during the Middle Woodland. Most of the other points also dated to the Middle Woodland. A few points found at the Lower Dig, of The Appalachian, Parris Island, and Savannah River types, date to the Archaic period (before 1000 BCE). One point found at the site, a Mississippian Triangular point, dates from the Mississippian period, which followed the Woodland period.
Upper Dig
The Upper Dig, or Upper Dabbs Site, is in a field that had been plowed and subject to erosion for many years. Features found in the site include post holes, refuse pits, and storage pits. Human remains found in a grave at the site were removed and repatriated to an appropriate tribal authority. Artifacts including ceramic sherds, chert tools, shell beads, a shale gorget, and pieces of worked stones, as well as charcoal, seeds, nuts, and maize were found in some of the features.