34 PIECE CACHE COMES TO LIGHT

My 8 year old son CB and I were walking a favorite site in the Upper Piedmont of North Carolina on the Fall line on Thursday, June 17, 1999. Stepping into the washed field, we heard a tenant hollar from his porch. We had the landowner's permission to walk, but I was afraid that he might walk it himself and hassle us. Instead, he offered to sell me the following finds from another local site where he had previously lived. As he unpacked his sack, we could see many large blades mixed with whole and broken points and a Guilford chipped axe. Also emerging from the sack was a nice 6 1/2" hoe with heavy soil polish on the bit. He had found the thin(3/8"-5/8")quarry blades as a plowed out cache one spring when he was younger.I bought them all for the sum of $37, for what turned out to be a cache of 34 preforms made of high quality black silicified shale, heavily patinated to reveal the bands in the beautiful material. The banding became evident only after taking them home for a rinse, as they were still covered in dirt! I believe that the degree of patination on the 34 pieces is consistant with that of pieces of the same material that I've found from a Middle Archaic time period. Joeffre Coe identifies this shape and better quality of preform as belonging to the Stanly(5000BC) occupation, at the Doerschuk site on NC's Yadkin River in Montgomery County. One can easily see a stemmed Stanly or Savannah River spear/knife could be made with very little trouble by notching the basal sides to create the stem.

3 REPRESENTATIVE QUARRY BLADES FROM A CACHE OF 34

All 34 cache blades were found several years ago on a small hill on a swamp, plowed out over a 20 foot area. The center one is the best one, that on the left representative of the average, and the right one (note the black dings) is probably the least attractive of the 32 complete blades. Two of the 34 blades are only 60% complete due to fresh breaks. They range in size from 3 1/2" to 4 1/2". I have installed them in a 24" square oak frame and they are quite impressive as a cache of quarry blades. A picture of all 34 together would not do them justice because of the size and number.

GUILFORD AXE and SPADE or HOE

BOTTOM-The Guilford axe (4000 BC) is typical of many chipped axes found in our area. This one has a squared poll end, and is in a well used condition with no new dings. TOP- The 6 1/2" hoe is made of the same coarse material as the axe. It is fairly crudely made, with a bifacial edge only on the bottom side and bit at left. The handle end is squared, and the bit is smoothly polished on one edge from use as a digging tool.

CB's FINDS on CACHE DAY

Before "discovering" the cache, we walked several other sites. CB (my 8 year old son) found these relics, including his first chipped axe. He gave a hollar when he found the small stemmed point and jumped up and down over the large Guilford perforator/knife tool at the bottom.

This is what I picked up on June 17(CACHE DAY). It looks like knives were the relics of the day. From top left, a speckled Rowan,2 Guilford knives, a quartz gamestone and a speckled rhyolite Paleo beveled scraper. Bottom left, a slightly bifurcated quartz point, a Guilford, a Kirk snapped base, a Guilford knife, and a tiny Woodland drill.

These 4 beautiful crystal quartz pieces all came from a site here in Warren County that I previously mentioned. All were found on August 22 1999. The TINY one is uniface but flaked all around. This has to be one of the smallest birds ever!

These were found the weekend of September 11, 1999. The spear is a Savannah River, and the birdpoints and the thin stemmed knife all came from the cutover down the road a mile or two. The broken Eared Yadkin is included , as it is a sweet heartbreaker.

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