NC man planting shrub unearths cache of prehistoric weapons
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/mark-washburn/article81687687.htmlNEW LONDON
His wife had been reminding him for quite some time that she wanted three spirea bushes moved from the front yard to the back.
“I was getting nagged,” says Leonard Shelor, so on Feb. 22, 2014, he decided to do his duty.
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One of the projectiles removed from the yard of Leonard Shelor Courtesy Lori Gross, East Carolina University
Bush No. 1 was in its appointed spot, and bush No. 2 was just snuggling in the red clay when the couple noticed a sharp point sticking out of the excavated dirt.
“If I didn’t know better,” said Karen Shelor, “I’d think this was an arrowhead.”
It was bigger than an arrowhead, about 3 three inches long, but sharp and chipped. They looked closer and found more. And more. Out of the hole that afternoon came 65 carved points.
In what could only be described as a freak discovery with the longest of odds, the Shelors had unearthed a cache of prehistoric blades dating back thousands of years.
Rare? Rare like hitting the lottery, says Randy Daniel, chair of the anthropology department at East Carolina University. Daniel walked the Uwharrie Mountains looking for ancient quarries as part of his dissertation research. Only about a dozen such finds have been documented in the state, he says.
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