Dig finds the past is the present at Fort Johnson

Archaeologists hadn't even begun the most recent dig at Fort Johnson, near an early 1800s powder magazine, when the real find was made out on the beach.

Wildlife biologist Daryl Stubbs noticed a large stone chip sticking out of the sand. Then he saw the telltale notches — it was man-made, carved by a Native American hunter or fisherman to tie off as a weapon. And when Stubbs pulled free the point, or spear blade, it was still intact. The serrated edges were so sharp it might have been chipped yesterday.

"I was dumfounded it was a whole point in as good a condition as it was. I was figuring about 300 years old," he said.

He was about to be dumfounded again. The point is 7,500-10,000 years old.

That's how singular an historic site Fort Johnson is, even in history-rich Charleston. The fort is usually thought of as the place where a cannon shot at Fort Sumter fired off the Civil War, although an earthen fort had been built on "Windmill Point" by 1707.

But not much of that military past remains besides the powder magazine and two nearby cisterns. The history of this place is its present — a guardian of health and a trove of Lowcountry life.

Read more in tomorrow's editions of The Post and Courier.