North Georgia and Eastern Tennessee Rock Piles

GF Merritt writes:

...I thought I might share some pictures relevant to your questions about stone features in Georgia. Quick background: I did graduate work in archaeology, but now I do it in my spare time rather than to make a living -- my family says my hobby is to stand out in the woods and take pictures of piles of rocks in the rain. I've been studying sites in north Georgia and eastern Tennessee for about a decade. ... These pictures were taken at a site in Pickens County, northwest of Atlanta. I've catalogued at least 35 cairns at this site, along with some other features which may be historic (as opposed to prehistoric.) Many of the cairns are not in as good condition as shown here; I suspect that some of them have been vandalized by artifact hunters or people looking for "Cherokee gold". I would caution the curious that you won't find anything underneath -- the Cherokee put their gold elsewhere -- and dismantling the cairns destroys the real treasure. A housing development is also encroaching on the site. I spoke to somebody in the sales office for the development some time back. He was aware of the features, but believed they were just "old chimneys". Closer inspection of the cairns, as well as their proximity to each other, makes this unlikely. As with other sites in the region that people have mentioned, these cairns are on the side of a fairly steep valley, although this practice seems to have changed over time. Other locations seem to be connected to a watercourse.