# Rock effigy formations in Putnam Co. GA.



## Milkman (Jan 12, 2017)

The ongoing rock wall thread got me thinking about rock formations.   The attached images are of 2 of the rock formations found about 13 miles apart in what is now Putnam County Georgia. 

 The larger one is called Rock Eagle and is north of Eatonton on land owned by UGA.  The other is east of Eatonton near the dam of Lake Oconee. I think it is on land owned by Ga Power.  Both are accessible and open to the public.

Lots of rocks carried and placed by _people in the past_.  Lets discuss it.Who made them and why ?


----------



## Fuzzy D Fellers (Jan 15, 2017)

I seen rock eagle at camp. I think they were made for the star people


----------



## Milkman (Jan 15, 2017)

Migmack said:


> I seen rock eagle at camp. I think they were made for the star people



I heard of someone else who thought they had something to do with extraterrestrials


----------



## Dr. Strangelove (Jan 15, 2017)

Both are interesting formations. Not on the scale of the nazca lines, but still, these rock effigy's and some of the dirt mound animals that still exist here in the USA and other places do make one wonder, as they appear to be designed to be seen from above.

The "first" manned hot air balloon flights recorded in western history were in France in the 1780's. 

Smaller candle-operated devices had been around for thousands of years before that in various cultures.

I personally think that hot-air balloon type technology was available and used well before history records it's first use. Aliens, ehhh, no not so much.


----------



## Dr. Strangelove (Jan 15, 2017)

Addressing the reason _why_ they made them, obviously the effigy's were important to the people who made them for them to expend the amount of work that they did. Was it for religious reasons? Was it to commemorate a victory in battle? Was it to honor a peace treaty made with another tribe? 

We'll likely never know. In three thousand years, will anyone know why the Statue of Liberty stood in New York harbor? (Probably, because the chances of our information surviving that long are much higher - or maybe not, depending on how you look at it)


----------



## Dr. Strangelove (Jan 15, 2017)

I'm curious about how many of those effigy's were torn down in GA. Only because I lived in FL, where Indian mounds were torn down by the thousands to build roads in the 1920's and 30's.


----------



## Milkman (Feb 19, 2017)

Anyone else have any input ?


----------



## lagrangedave (Feb 19, 2017)

Guiding points for landings. I am a direct descendant of John Brown Gordon by the way. At least that is what I was told. My fathers brother was named after him. Waiting on 23 and me results to see heritage.............


----------



## lagrangedave (Feb 19, 2017)

He was a third degree mason and I saw his masonic bedroom suit in a small house in Luthersville GA. The masonic symbols were upside down as the slaves that built the hardware could not read.


----------



## KyDawg (Feb 19, 2017)

Use to go to 4H camp at Rock Eagle. Have been back a few times since. We were always told the Indians built it.


----------



## Milkman (Feb 20, 2017)

KyDawg said:


> Use to go to 4H camp at Rock Eagle. Have been back a few times since. We were always told the Indians built it.



But why?  For who to view from above?


----------



## Artfuldodger (Feb 20, 2017)

I've seen pictures of cave drawings that appear to show beings wearing space suits and helmets. One could read anything into a drawing though.

Maybe the builders knew God lived beyond our atmosphere and built things they thought he could see from his home. 
Their god could have been in the form of a bird as older religion's gods were often animals. Could have been an effigy of honor for this god.

Some think the mounds at Etowah and others were built as temples to get one closer to god. The Chief, living on the top, could be like a mediator between the village and god.


----------



## Milkman (Feb 23, 2017)

Artfuldodger said:


> I've seen pictures of cave drawings that appear to show beings wearing space suits and helmets. One could read anything into a drawing though.
> 
> Maybe the builders knew God lived beyond our atmosphere and built things they thought he could see from his home.
> Their god could have been in the form of a bird as older religion's gods were often animals. Could have been an effigy of honor for this god.
> ...



I agree I  think they were done to be viewed from above like the stuff in South America on the mountain tops. Peru I think


----------



## kmckinnie (Feb 23, 2017)

The Indians thought the gods where above. So they did it for that. 
Remember the time it was built verse the knowledge table.


----------



## trad bow (Mar 10, 2017)

According to archaeologist from UGA(1935) and the Smithsonian (1877)on studies made during those time periods, the sites were made by a race that can't be identified. The sites are estimated to be six thousand years old. The rocks are a white quartz that according to the studies these type rocks have not been located within a twenty mile radius of either site. (a Side Note, there is a old quarry located on a dairy farm that is white quartz that they may have missed. It is located between the two sites.) There also has not been a village found in that search area that dates from the same time period leaving the archeologist to believe the site was use only for special religious ceremonies. Speculation was they were made for religious ceremonies as the sites were kept meticulously clean. The Creeks did not know who made them as they were already in place when the Creeks settled this region. The mounds up and down the Oconee River that were located on the river and its tributaries above the fall line were inhabited by Creek sub tribes (Ocutes and Oconees). The book I get most of my info from was written by a local author ( Katherine  Walters) about the history of the Oconee River Valley from past to present. The book list all the articles, theses dissertations, manuscripts and books used in the writing of this book. 
Jeff


----------



## Milkman (Mar 10, 2017)

Great info Jeff


----------



## kmckinnie (Mar 10, 2017)

Yes it is. Eye opener.


----------



## specialk (Mar 10, 2017)

we use to go to rock eagle years ago and camp on the lake....open to the public back then(mid 70's)......you could rent a boat to fish out of-paddle only......my dad had a deer lease there off 441 that joined the park on the backside.........I figured it was pot smoking Indians that piled them rocks there and prayed to their god.......


----------



## Milkman (Mar 26, 2017)

trad bow said:


> According to archaeologist from UGA(1935) and the Smithsonian (1877)on studies made during those time periods, the sites were made by a race that can't be identified. The sites are estimated to be six thousand years old. The rocks are a white quartz that according to the studies these type rocks have not been located within a twenty mile radius of either site. (a Side Note, there is a old quarry located on a dairy farm that is white quartz that they may have missed. It is located between the two sites.) There also has not been a village found in that search area that dates from the same time period leaving the archeologist to believe the site was use only for special religious ceremonies. Speculation was they were made for religious ceremonies as the sites were kept meticulously clean. The Creeks did not know who made them as they were already in place when the Creeks settled this region. The mounds up and down the Oconee River that were located on the river and its tributaries above the fall line were inhabited by Creek sub tribes (Ocutes and Oconees). The book I get most of my info from was written by a local author ( Katherine  Walters) about the history of the Oconee River Valley from past to present. The book list all the articles, theses dissertations, manuscripts and books used in the writing of this book.
> Jeff



I would love to read more on this. Do you have a book or website with this information?


----------



## Miguel Cervantes (Mar 26, 2017)

Check this out.

http://lostworlds.org/rock_eagle/


----------



## trad bow (Mar 28, 2017)

Do you have a book or website with this information? 

The book I read a lot is "Oconee River- Tales to Tell" by Katherine Walters. 
My take on books is to read several on the subject as writers tend to interpret things differently at times. I also walk the Oconee NF a lot looking for old home sites, grist mills and cemeteries that have long ago been forgotten or lost to modern culture. Finding these old homesteads  and communities of days gone by lets me have a better connection to the material I am reading.


----------



## 3ringer (Mar 30, 2017)

Visited this past Sunday with my niece. I asked her what she thought. She said just a pile of rocks . I said yes , but how and who placed them there. Can you imagine the work and time involved. The mound is nearly 10 feet deep. Amazing


----------



## Bill Yox (May 1, 2017)

My opinion is that native americans always gave great thanks and offerings to gods they believed in, for their blessing. Many seemed to generate from above. Examples include the sun, the stars, weather, etc. So many of their stone tools and grave burial goods were in effigy form. As for the lack of local white quartz, that confuses me. Walk any field in the area and youll find an abundance of it. Almost every point I find while walking fields is made of it. My guess would be that they mined it very near to this site, and if it wasnt worked into quarry blanks to be carried elsewhere to be knapped further, it was set aside and eventually stacked into such effigies or decorated gravesites.


----------



## fishfryer (Feb 21, 2021)

Milkman said:


> I would love to read more on this. Do you have a book or website with this information?


Katherine Walters was my aunt,she was the wife of my father's brother Clarence Walters.


----------



## redneck_billcollector (May 26, 2021)

Bill Yox said:


> My opinion is that native americans always gave great thanks and offerings to gods they believed in, for their blessing. Many seemed to generate from above. Examples include the sun, the stars, weather, etc. So many of their stone tools and grave burial goods were in effigy form. As for the lack of local white quartz, that confuses me. Walk any field in the area and youll find an abundance of it. Almost every point I find while walking fields is made of it. My guess would be that they mined it very near to this site, and if it wasnt worked into quarry blanks to be carried elsewhere to be knapped further, it was set aside and eventually stacked into such effigies or decorated gravesites.


 If you look at the date of those studies, a lot is explained.  I have seen old archeology articles on the lithography from Southwest Georgia with pictures of archaic points and the article talking about it being an arrowhead from the Creeks. 90 to 100 years ago or more, archeology was still new and in many cases very naive and made some rather, what we would think now, humorous assumptions. I have seen old writings about the mounds in parts of GA being of Creek origin, which we now know is ....well, not true, the Creek  did not even exist as a nation until after DeSoto came through and the last of the Mississippian Cultures died due to European sicknesses introduced by the early explorers. Those cultures were already in decline due to a cooling climate that started in the 15th Century, this climate change is what also killed off the Scandinavian  settlements in Greenland. Many people do not stop to think that within years of DeSoto huge swaths of the native population in the southeast, and much of N. America died due to the Common Cold, Small Pox, Measles etc...etc... due to the fact that large scale animal husbandry was not practiced in America and there were few domesticated animals aside from dogs (I can only think of Llamas and Guinea Pigs in South America and Turkeys in some regions of the southwest) so they never developed immunity to the diseases that Europeans became exposed to with the domestication of animals on a large scale.


----------



## NCHillbilly (May 28, 2021)

redneck_billcollector said:


> If you look at the date of those studies, a lot is explained.  I have seen old archeology articles on the lithography from Southwest Georgia with pictures of archaic points and the article talking about it being an arrowhead from the Creeks. 90 to 100 years ago or more, archeology was still new and in many cases very naive and made some rather, what we would think now, humorous assumptions. I have seen old writings about the mounds in parts of GA being of Creek origin, which we now know is ....well, not true, the Creek  did not even exist as a nation until after DeSoto came through and the last of the Mississippian Cultures died due to European sicknesses introduced by the early explorers. Those cultures were already in decline due to a cooling climate that started in the 15th Century, this climate change is what also killed off the Scandinavian  settlements in Greenland. Many people do not stop to think that within years of DeSoto huge swaths of the native population in the southeast, and much of N. America died due to the Common Cold, Small Pox, Measles etc...etc... due to the fact that large scale animal husbandry was not practiced in America and there were few domesticated animals aside from dogs (I can only think of Llamas and Guinea Pigs in South America and Turkeys in some regions of the southwest) so they never developed immunity to the diseases that Europeans became exposed to with the domestication of animals on a large scale.


Yep. The book "1491" should be required reading.


----------



## Gary Mercer (May 30, 2021)

Redneck, I agree.  That book really tells the tale of the early America..or "Pre-America."


----------



## Milkman (May 30, 2021)

NCHillbilly said:


> Yep. The book "1491" should be required reading.



Thanks 
Ordered a copy from EBay just now. Used $5


----------



## Gary Mercer (Jun 1, 2021)

Great read


----------

