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7 Uwharrie Rhyolite and Early Archaic Settlement Range in the Carolina Piedmont An important aspect of this study has been the identi¤cation of the sources of rhyolite so abundant at Hardaway (Chapter 3). In this chapter, the results of an extensive artifact collections survey documents the widespread movement of rhyolite beyond the Hardaway site. Given the quarryrelated function of Hardaway, tracing the movement of Uwharrie rhyolite from its source allows the site to be viewed from a regional perspective. PROBLEMS ADDRESSED As a part of this research I surveyed Early Archaic point and raw material collections to test the watershed-based settlement adaptation posited in the band-macroband model for the Yadkin–Pee Dee River (Anderson and Hanson 1988:¤gure 3). I examined the distributions of raw materials among Early Archaic points, as in the study of the frequencies of stone raw materials along the Savannah River (Anderson and Hanson 1988:280), both along the Yadkin–Pee Dee and across several drainages through the eastern Piedmont. In addition, I compared the geographic patterns of Hardaway-Dalton and Hardaway Side-Notched point distributions with Palmer and Kirk Corner-Notched point distributions. Although Anderson and Hanson’s (1988) study focused on Palmer and Kirk Corner-Notched point distributions, the inclusion of earlier points from the Hardaway complex allowed me to document possible temporal changes in raw material distributions. I paid particular attention to a comparison of the archaeological distributions of Uwharrie rhyolite both along and across the Yadkin–Pee Dee. If Early Archaic settlement adaptation was largely con¤ned to the Yadkin– Pee Dee drainage, then the use of Uwharrie rhyolite should have been restricted primarily to that river valley. That is, relatively high frequencies of Uwharrie rhyolite should extend from its source in the Piedmont along the river down into the Coastal Plain. Moreover, this pattern should be associated with a signi¤cant decrease in the occurrence of Uwharrie rhyolite across the Yadkin–Pee Dee. On the other hand, if the occurrence of Uwharrie rhyolite along the Yadkin–Pee Dee is not signi¤cantly different from that across the eastern Piedmont, then group adaptation may have encompassed more than a single drainage. COLLECTIONS SURVEY Data on the raw materials used to make Early Archaic points (i.e., Hardaway -Dalton, Hardaway Side-Notched, Palmer Corner-Notched, and Kirk Corner-Notched) were recorded in collections from counties forming two transects: the ¤rst (cutting across several major drainages, including the Yadkin–Pee Dee) I call the “eastern Piedmont transect,” and the second (roughly paralleling the course of the Yadkin–Pee Dee River) the “Yadkin– Pee Dee transect” (¤gures 7.1–7.4). The minimum level of provenance that I recorded was county location, although speci¤c site locations were noted for many artifacts. A total of 3,140 points from twenty-¤ve counties in both North and South Carolina form the sample for this analysis (Appendix C). Approximately 50 percent (n = 1,580) of these artifacts came from the extensive North Carolina collections curated by the Research Laboratories of Anthropology . The remaining portion of the sample came from private collections in both states. Of this portion, I recorded 609 points (20 percent) from twenty-seven private collections in both states. The remaining 951 points (30 percent) were recorded by Charles’s inventory of private collections in South Carolina (Charles 1981, 1983, 1986); this material comprises an additional twenty-¤ve collections from six counties along the Pee Dee River that Charles has graciously allowed me to incorporate into the present analysis. Data from Appendix C are summarized in tables 7.1–7.4 and are illustrated in ¤gures 7.1–7.4. Before I discuss these ¤gures, however, I must comment on their construction. For the purposes of this analysis, point types were combined into two groups: Hardaway-Dalton and Hardaway Side-Notched form one group, and Palmer Corner-Notched and Kirk Corner-Notched form a second group. For the Hardaway point group (n = 197), the eastern Piedmont transect included thirteen counties that covered a linear distance of approximately 300 km (¤gure 7.1). Similarly, the eastern Piedmont transect for the Palmer and Kirk Corner-Notched group Uwharrie Rhyolite and Early Archaic Settlement 171 (n = 1,015) encompassed eleven counties, covering a linear stretch just under 300 km. The Yadkin–Pee Dee transect for the Hardaway group (n = 263) included ¤fteen counties, while the Palmer Kirk Corner-Notched (n = 1,925) group included sixteen counties. These counties bordered both sides of the river and...

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