Update: Archeologist Dig For Native American Artifacts In Malvern

David Markus says, "People often think that we study dinosaurs when really archeologists study human cultures and the human past."

These archeologists are studying remains left behind by Native American in Malvern finding stone tools from the Archaic period. A time we don't know much about.

Thirteen-year-old volunteer Kate Trubitt adds, "Every now and then we find a point like this one, it's a Johnson Point around 6,000-years-old, we found in this pit."

In the two summers Archeologist have excavated at Jones Mill they've found that hunter and gathers lived and worked in the area for thousands of years between 4,000 and 1,000 B.C.

"We've also found some fish net weights so we know they were fishing out of the Ouachita River and fishing not with fish line, but with nets," Archeologist Mary Beth Trubitt says.

As archeologist and volunteers peel away the dirt they take it to be screened for small pieces. Skip Stewart-Abernathy adds, "From some of these units we're getting as many as 8-bags of artifacts a day. It's been very successful."

These stone tools may have been a minor part of ancient communities thousand of years-ago, but it's all that's left because everything else rots away.

Trubitt adds, "We use the artifacts to tell us what people were doing at that point in the past and how people lived. For me it is very interesting that folks living in this area where connected with people as far away as Mississippi and Louisiana thousands of years ago."

It will be a slow process, but Archeologist want to connect the pieces of artifacts with each state.

The Caddo tribe has been identified as one that called the Jones Mill area home.

The Archeological Survey and Arkansas Society of Archeologist have known about the site for nearly 30-years. Some mapping and remote sensing excavation was done in the 1980's.

The site is preserved on land owned by Entergy Arkansas.

Archeologist and volunteers also worked in Essex Park this week and found remnants of the 1904 race track. They'll continue to dig in Jones Mill for another week.

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