In a previous season, we paid our first visit to the mysterious Red Bird River Shelter petroglyphs, or rock carvings, in Clay County. We returned to this site to explore its Native American connections. A researcher from the University of Cincinnati even sees connections to the great Sequoyah (1776-1843), who created the written Cherokee language.

The site has long been connected to Native Americans and with the Cherokee chief Red Bird, who gave his name to the nearby river. Kenneth B. Tankersley, an archaeologist at the University of Cincinnati and himself a member of the Cherokee nation, found 15 characters from the Cherokee language carved into the sandstone along with a date of 1808 or 1818—making them the earliest known example of the Cherokee script. Tankersley believes the carvings could have been done by Sequoyah himself.

He is exploring the possibility of links between these Cherokee symbols and the much older pictographs carved into the rock. If there is a link, it could make this Clay County site the Rosetta Stone of the Cherokee language.

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