GC3TXMB Track Rock Petroglyphs & Soapstone*Archive 3-23-22 (Earthcache) in Georgia, United States created by The Scout Master

This cache has been archived.

The Scout Master: I called the Track Rock Office today to check on the status of the site. She said the archaeologist has still not heard back from the Tribes and the site stays closed for now. So...I have decided to go ahead and archive the cache.
Thanks so much to all who visited and experienced this wonderful site of history.

GC3TXMB ▼

A cache by The Scout Master Message this owner

Hidden : 8/18/2012

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Size: Size: other (other)

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TRACK ROCK PETROGLYPH ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE
Today, you are going to learn about PETROGLYPHS and about SOAPSTONE, also known as STEATITE.

Please: send your answers the same day you post your found it log.
Permission for the placement of this cache has been given by Sherry of the Brasstown Ranger Station, and by Jake, of the USDA Forest Service - Southern Region, Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest, Blue Ridge Ranger District, West Blairsville, Georgia.
Directions to get there:Take Hwy 76E from Blairsville, Ga. about 5 miles. Turn Right onto Trackrock Gap Rd. Travel about 2 miles to (N 34° 52.922 W 083° 52.671) and watch for a trailhead parking area turnoff to the right (there is a historical marker). DO NOT STOP ON THE ROAD!
NOTE: You MUST PARK at the parking area and WALK the short, dirt trail up to the cache site. An observation about the Terrain rating. While short and not too difficult, the path to site is not good for wheelchair bound cachers, and indeed may be beyond the ability of some with bad knees
Again, Do NOT park along the road!
DO NOT TOUCH OR IN ANY WAY BOTHER THE PETROGLYPHS!!
The Antiquities Act of 1906 and Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 protect this site.
Do not Dig, Remove, Injure, or Destroy any Historic or Prehistoric Objects, Ruins, or Sites.
Violaters are subject to arrest, and a maximum fine of $20,000, and or imprisonment.

Tucked away in the gap between Thunderstruck Mountain and Buzzard Roost Ridge, history is written in stone. Track Rock Gap is the location of a series of rock carvings, or petroglyphs, made by Native Americans in Union County, Georgia on soapstone boulders. There are over a hundred carvings of a wide range of figures.
It’s one of the most significant rock art sites in the Southeastern United States and the only such site located on public land in Georgia. Although it’s one of the best known rock art sites in the region, it was never completely recorded or studied before the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests sponsored research there in 2009.

NOTE:Since many smart phones are now used for geocaching and may limit the information that can be displayed, I am placing the logging requirements at the beginning so they may be accessed easily:
TO LOG THIS CACHE, do at least TWO of the following: NOTE: Please send the answers to me through geocaching.com. the SAME DAY you post the log. Do *NOT* post them in your log!
You do NOT need to wait for a response from me.
Again: If possible, please: send your answers the same day as your log post.

1) In your own words, Describe one of the boulders estimating its size and what you see on it in addition to the carvings. ________ _____________ ____________.

2) Study the various figures and tell me how you think they were "carved" into the stone.____ ________ ______________ _______________.
3) Select one of the carved soapstone boulders and From your observation, Tell me how much of that boulder you estimate is exposed above ground(e.g.: all of it, only the tip top, 1/2 of it, etc.). _______ ___________ _________ _______________.
4) Look around the area and see if you see any other boulders that appear to be soapstone. If you see any, why do you feel they were not carved as well? ____________ ________________.
5) Estimate the weight of the exposed portion of the large boulder using this method: Estimate the length, width, and thickness of the boulder in feet. Multiply these 3 dimensions together to determine the volume of the boulder in cubic feet. Multiply this number by 180 (which is the average weight in pounds of a cubic foot of solid soapstone). You may submit this number for the weight in pounds, OR you can divide your answer by 2000 to determine the weight in tons. __________ ____________ ______ _______________ _______________.
6) Based upon your observation of the geology of the site you see here, Why do you think early inhabitants chose to create the glyphs here? ________________ _________________ __________ _______________.
7)*OPTIONAL* while not required, a PHOTO of you and/or your group WITH YOUR GPS at the site is always welcome, AND MAY BE USED FOR ONE OF YOUR 2 REQUIRED ANSWERS!!!

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NOW FOR THE CACHE

A Petroglyph is an image created by carving into a rock or by removing part of a rock surface by incising, pecking, carving or abrading to create a desired image. The word "Petroglyph" comes from the Greek words "petra", meaning "stone", and "glyphein", meaning "to carve".The Petroglyphs we are interested in are not modern, but ancient. Before metal tools most petroglyphs were created by scratching into relatively soft rock using bones, antlers, or rocks. While it is impossible to know why such imges were created, there are numerous theories: -To express mythical or magical beliefs/ -To create a representation of the cycles of birth and death/ -To assist in superstitiuos beliefs regarding the success of a hunt/ -To capture time by recording the "look" of others in the group/ -To communicate/ -To express the carvers themselves and make "pretty pictures".
The TRACK ROCK PETROGLYPHS, as at other sites like this, do not have a single purpose. It is known that the carvings were probably made over several hundred years, possibly by different ethnic groups. They were likely made for several different reasons. It is possible that some of the carvings were made to symbolize an event that had occurred, possibly a vision quest, while others were made to influence a furture event. Other carvings may have been made as a by-product of ritual activities that ocurred here. Track Rock represents an accumulation of events and actions over time.

Track Rock was a place of power within a sacred landscape. Native Americans rarely distinguished between the actions of humans and their spirit helpers, because their identities were essentially the same. Also, the setting of Track Rock in a gap places it at a threshold. In numerous Cherokee stories footprints and tracks, like those here, signify an in-between transitional state or condition. More specificlly, rocks with footprints and tracks signified the area of transition, a doorway or threshold, into the domain of dangerous spirit beings. These prints are not only physical testimony that spirit beings were there some time in the past, but that they could still be lingering somewhere close-by in the present, and that they may return unexpectably at any time in the future.

Who Made The Track Rock Petroglyphs?
It is very likely that the Cherokee, and possibly the Catawba and Creek as well, made the carvings here at Track Rock. The Blue Ridge Mountain region of North Georgia, the Carolina, and Tennessee has experienced an overlap of different linguistic groups over time, even though the mountainous region was most recently dominated by Iroquoian-speaking Cherokee. The neighboring Creek and Catawba languages are respectively Muskogee and Siouan branches of the same root liguistic background of the Cherokee. The three groups had broadly simila social structures, economic and political systems, and religious practices.

The Cherokee have a number of accounts relating to Track Rock and the area appears to have been very important to them. No references, however, appear in the ethnographics of the Creek and Catawba. However, either or both may have contributed to the creation of Track Rock.

How Were The Carvings Made And How Old Are They?
The carvings at Track Rock were made in one of two ways. Many of the figures were created by "pecking". Hard rocks, or hammer stones, were used to create the shapes by repeated blows in the same spot until the desired shape was created. Alternatively, sone of the figures were created by carving into the rock. A hard stone would be rubbed back and forth to create the design. Although soapstone is considered a soft rock, it is still rock and rather hard to carve. It took a lot of time and effort to create these figures that have lasted so long.

The earliest evidence for the carvings at Track Rock dates back at least 3,600 years. These carvings werethe result of nNative Americans removing pieces of soapstone to make bowls. The soapstone at Track Rock has a soft, yet durable make-up. This makes it easy to carve and efficient to use, and it is particularly well-suited for cooking, as it holds and rediates heat without breaking.
Most of the carvings here are more recent. These beautiful, albeit worn, examples of pre-historic Indian occupation were probably carved sometime during the Woodland Indian era (1,000 BC to 1,000 AD in Georgia). Also, based on comparison with other such sites, Jannie Loubser has concluded that most of the figures were carved in the last 1,000 years. Early American explorers describe the Track Rock site, so we know the carvings were made before 1800. Our best understanding of it is that the carvings were made during repeated visits over several hundred years, beginning around A.D. 1,000.
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NOW FOR THE GEOLOGY
Track Rock Gap is one of the best known of the petroglyph, or marked stone, sites in North Georgia. It consists of six table-sized Soapstone boulders, containing hundreds of symbols, carved or pecked into the surface. In fact, the Cherokee name for the gap is "Datsu'nalsagun'yi", or "where there are rocks", or "Degayeelun'ha", "printed" or "branded place".

Just What Is Soapstone?
The boulders at track Rock Petroglyphs are formed from Soapstone or Steatite, a naturally occurring Metamorphic Rock common to the Gerogia mountains. Soapstone is soft, easily carved with primitive tools, and often found shaped into bowls, pipes, or ornaments.

Because it is composed primarily of talc soapstone is usually soft. Soapstone is typically gray, bluish, green or brown in color, often variegated. Its name is derived from its “soapy” feel and softness.
From "Geological Survey of Georgia, SW McCallie, State Geologist. Bulletin #29, A Report on the Asbestos, Talc and Soapstone Deposits of Georgia. by Oliver B. Hopkins, Ph.D., Asst. State Geologist. Atlanta,Ga. 1914":
Soapstone is properly applied to an impure form of steatite which contains varying amounts of chlorite, tremolite, pyroxene, magnetite, pyrite, quartz, and carbonates of calcium and magnesium. Its impurity is due to the fact that it is usually derived from the alteration of a basic, igneous rock, often pyroxenite.
In common parlance this is the most widely used term, and is applied to any soft rock which can be cut readily. In Georgia it is used extensively to designate rocks in which chlorite predominates over talc.

How Does Soapstone Form?
Soapstone most often forms at convergent plate boundaries where broad areas of Earth’s crust are subjected to heat and directed pressure. Peridotites, dunites and serpentinites in this environment can be metamorphosed into soapstone. On a smaller scale soapstone can form where siliceous dolostones are altered by hot, chemically-active fluids in a process known as metasomatism.

Origin of Soapstone Deposits
Chloritic soapstone has well developed cleavage so may be called a chloritic schist. In general, the hornblendic rocks, the gabbros, hornblende gneisses and hornblende schists, give rise to chloritic soapstones, which are of wide distribution in Georgia. The soapstone thus developed is commonly schistose & as stated above might be more properly called a chloritic schist; in some instances, when derived from massive rocks, soapstone is more or less massive. In most all cases the rock is quite strong in all dimentions.
Along contact of pyroxenite and periodotite dikes with enclosing gneisses and schists, there is usually developed a layer of talc schist which is quite pure, while the central portion of the mass may be more massive soapstone.

I hope you have enjoyed your visit today to the Track Rock Petroglyph site.

HAPPY CACHING!

FTF goes to...Ent of Spades!!!

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I have proudly earned the Geological Society of America's highest level:

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Sources for the above information in addition to any already mentioned: http://wiki.answers.com http://roadsidegeorgia.com/site/track_rock.html http://www.wikipedia.org
http://www.fs.usda.gov/goto/conf/trackrock
and the Rangers at the Brasstown Ranger Station

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Track Rock Petroglyphs & Soapstone*Archive 3-23-22 EarthCache

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