1000 B.C. Northeast Vessels carved from a stone called steatite are a common trade item from New England to the southern Appalachian Mountains. ================================================================ Appalachian Stemmed Phase (3000-1000 B.C.) The Appalachian Stemmed Phase is an eastern variant of the Middle Tennessee Ledbetter phase. The main differences between the Appalachian Stemmed and Ledbetter PPK types are the raw materials. Ledbetters are mainly made of cherts while Appalachian Stemmed examples are made mainly of quartzites and other rough stones. These differences reflect the availability of large lithic resources rather than any real cultural differences. In North Carolina, this phase is identified as the Savannah River phase. The Appalachian Stemmed type is a large broad triangular bladed form with straight to contracting stems. A second PPK type, the Iddins, was also associated with the Late Archaic. Tools are mainly made of local materials, especially in the Blue Ridge Province. Ground stone implements such as prismatic and winged bannerstones, steatite (soapstone) bowls, tubular pipes, and drilled gorgets are common. Bone and shell artifacts were also common but were only recovered on sites containing good faunal preservation (Bass 1977; Chapman 1981; Keel 1976). During the Late Archaic, there was a shift to the use of large stemmed PPKs over most of the eastern woodlands (Justice 1987). At the same time smaller stemmed PPKs such as the Iddins/Otarre types were also used. These two PPK traditions may have been used for differing types of hunting techniques by the same cultures. It has been suggested that the large quartzite Appalachian Stemmed types were used in a shift in hunting technology to entrapment of large mammals and the dispatching of them with heavy spears (Brett Riggs personal communication 1993). If this shift did occur then the Appalachian Stemmed type may represent this type of hunting practice while the smaller lighter types may represent hunting practices involving stalking and killing animals from a distance. At the Iddins site in the lower Little Tennessee River Valley, deep midden deposits and numerous storage pits suggest a base camp type settlement system. The abundance of carbonized nut remains and the high number of net sinkers suggest that the camp functioned primarily for the collection of black walnuts and other arboreal seeds and the exploitation of fish and other aquatic resources. This site may have served as a nuclear camp for smaller ancillary camps such as Bacon Bend (Chapman 1981). Iddins and Otarre PPKs have also been recovered from upland sites indicating that the settlement pattern included the use of upland as well as bottom land sites. At the Mead site in Sullivan County, Tennessee, two Iddins examples of this type were recovered from this saddle site which has been identified as an upland hunting area (Alvey 1994:96). Data from the Bacon Bend site on the Little Tennessee River suggests that Late Archaic populations were breaking up into small units, possibly family groups, and occupying small sites for short periods of time. The number of features recorded on this site suggests that the site was occupied at different times during the Late Archaic period (Chapman 1981). Late Archaic cultural remains have been recorded at the Icehouse Bottom, Rose Island, and Harrison Branch sites in the Ridge and Valley Province. The Late Archaic occupations at these sites were light consisting of some tools and a few features (Chapman 1973, 1977). In the I-181 corridor in Unicoi County, Tennessee, the first evidence of extensive utilization of the South Indian Creek drainage was during the Late Archaic. Late Archaic components were excavated at the Spivey Creek and Mill Creek sites. At both sites Appalachian Stemmed PPKs were recovered from a variety of pit feature types. On the Spivey Creek sites, both Appalachian Stemmed and Iddins/Ottare PPKs were recovered from a group of heavily fired earth ovens. These features consisted of straight sided to slightly expanded sided pits which contained heavy amounts of FCR and masses of charcoal. These pits had been so heavily fired that the subsoil on the outer edges had been baked a dark reddish brown. Radiocarbon dates were obtained from two of these features, these dates were 3980±90 B.P. (2030 B.C.) and 4100±70 B.P. (2150 B.C.) (Alvey and Lanham 1998; Alvey 1998a:122; Alvey 1998b). On site 40HK5 in Hancock County, a Late Archaic habitation was indicated by four feature clusters. Over three quarters of the features were storage facilities. This pattern is more reminiscent of Middle Tennessee Ledbetter sites than of East Tennessee Appalachian Stemmed sites (Meyers et al. 1998:67). In the Blue Ridge Province, an increase in the identified number of Late Archaic artifacts over the number of recovered Middle Archaic ones suggests an increase in population. During a survey of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a change from Middle Archaic settlement patterns was noted during the Late Archaic period. A majority of the Late Archaic sites (69%) were located in the floodplains of the lower river valleys. These were probably base camps for smaller hunting camps along the upper river valleys, coves, and benches. It was also noted that quartzite was used almost exclusively for tool manufacture (Bass 1977:90). Very little excavated Late Archaic material has been recovered from the Blue Ridge Province. The Warren Wilson site in North Carolina has produced stratified data from the Late Archaic Savannah River culture. Among the evidence of occupation were numerous rock filled hearths and rectangular patterns of stone, averaging 2.7 m x 1.5 m (Keel 1976:210). At the Tuckasegee site in North Carolina, Savannah River PPKs were recovered from a fire-cracked rock filled hearth. Other features on this site yielded Savannah River PPKs in association with netsinkers and steatite artifacts. To read more about this and the other phases, please follow this link: spencemeyers/arch/larchaice.html
Posted on: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 17:40:35 +0000
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