ArrowPoint

Named stone

Allendale chert and Georgia Coastal Plain cherts

Also called Allendale Coastal Plain chert, Flint River Formation chert, Savannah River chert

A kind of chert (and flint)

Allendale chert and Georgia Coastal Plain chertsChert (and flint)Southeast

Description

Allendale chert is the quarried toolstone of the lower Savannah River in the South Carolina Coastal Plain, where bedrock stone is otherwise scarce. It is silicified grainstone, fossil-rich limestone replaced by silica, from the Flint River Formation, which crops out in Allendale County, South Carolina, and across the river in Burke County, Georgia. Goodyear and Charles's 1984 survey found that prehistoric quarriers chose the more siliceous, evenly textured sources, and stone used at the Savannah River Site is highly fossiliferous. Allendale-type flakes at the Ashe Ferry site in the Carolina Piedmont are lustrous, opaque, fine grained and pink to maroon, apparently after heating. Early Archaic bands appear to have planned trips here for stone.

How to identify it

Colour
Variegated pink to maroon in thermally altered pieces from Ashe Ferry (Research Report 36).
Texture
Fine grained; lower-quality cherts elsewhere on the Savannah River are less siliceous.
Luster
Lustrous.
Inclusions
Highly fossiliferous in the sources used on the Savannah River Site (Sassaman 1987, cited in the SRARP).
Heat treatment
All the Ashe Ferry flakes attributed to the Flint River Formation appear thermally altered.

Geology

The Flint River Formation of the middle Coastal Plain contains localized chert outcrops, technically silicified grainstone, in Allendale County, South Carolina, and Burke County, Georgia, a few kilometres downstream of the Savannah River Site. Lower quality cherts occur in the Barnwell Formation of the upper Coastal Plain. Goodyear and Charles (1984) surveyed the Allendale quarries.

Where it comes from

Southeast

States

Quarries and outcrops

  • Allendale County, South Carolina (chert quarries along the Savannah River)
  • Burke County, Georgia

Used by

  • Early Archaic: planned trips to the Allendale and Uwharrie quarries for stone, in Daniel's macroband model (as summarized by Abbott)
  • Found at (not a source): Savannah River Site, Aiken, Barnwell and Allendale counties (users of the stone)
  • Found at (not a source): Ashe Ferry site, Carolina Piedmont (nine flakes of Allendale-type chert)

Look-alikes

Stones that are easy to confuse with Allendale chert and Georgia Coastal Plain cherts.

  • Uwharrie metavolcanic rock, the other main quarry stone of the region
  • Barnwell Formation chert (lower quality, upper Coastal Plain)
  • Georgia equivalents from the Flint and Chattahoochee drainages (not opened)

Sources

  1. Savannah River Archaeological Research Program (SRARP) and U.S. Department of Energy. Programmatic Agreement and Archaeological Resource Management Plan, Savannah River Site.energy.gov (opens in a new tab)
  2. Research Laboratories of Archaeology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Research Report 36, Chapter 6: Chipped-Stone, Ground-Stone, and Other Artifacts (Ashe Ferry site, Carolina Piedmont; PDF dated 2015).rla.unc.edu (opens in a new tab)
  3. Abbott, Lawrence E., Jr. 2004. An Assessment of Lithic Extraction Technology at a Metavolcanic Quarry in the Slate Belt of North Carolina. Office of State Archaeology, North Carolina.archaeology.ncdcr.gov (opens in a new tab)
  4. Research Laboratories of Archaeology, UNC Chapel Hill. Research Report 36, Chapter 6 (Ashe Ferry site).rla.unc.edu (opens in a new tab)

All materials