FLEETWOOD, NORTH CAROLINA—Appalachian State University announced that archaeologists were recently summoned to a university property after workers tending a vegetable garden unexpectedly turned up stone projectile points from the soil. A team led by the Department of Anthropology’s Alice Wright conducted a formal investigation at the site of Blackburn Vannoy Estate and Farm near Fleetwood, which serves as a teaching and research farm. Excavations uncovered dozens of spear and arrow points, pieces of pottery, a storage pit, and a hearth that represent the remnants of an ancient Native American campsite. The artifacts span the late Archaic and Woodland periods between 8,000 and 1,000 years ago. The points were mostly made from quartz, quartzite, and rhyolite sourced from the Piedmont or the Mount Rogers area, while artifacts made from flint and jasper likely came from outcroppings in Virginia. Some shards of flint-knapped quartz indicate there may have even been a local quarry nearby to supply toolmaking materials. Wright believes that ancestors of the Cherokee, Catawba, and other tribes were drawn to the site’s fertile soils and natural resources, and used the camp seasonally before retreating back down the mountain to escape the harsh winters. To read about Woodland period Cherokee ritual imagery discovered deep inside caves in the South, go to "Artists of the Dark Zone."
