Pap. N*o!' 2lY' JO^f^^ H- KERR RESERVOIR BASIN — MILLER 305 



Other artifacts in the Archaic assemblage are knives, axes, drills, 

 adzes, celts, discoidals, hammerstones, nutting stones, turtlebacks, 

 abraiding stones, and steatite potsherds. Flint, quartz, quartzite, 

 chert, and jasper were used to a great extent in the manufacture of 

 these objects. To a lesser extent they made use of slate, chalcedony, 

 quartz crystal, limestone, argillite, and steatite. Most of these stones 

 are brittle by nature ; they fracture with the minimum amount of force, 

 resulting in conchoidal features when the breaks are true. When the 

 break does not result in conchoidal features, there is some internal 

 fault in the stone itself. T^'lien such a stone is chipped the results are 

 not always desirable and so the artifact is discarded by its maker as 

 being inferior in f omi and execution. 



Several of the small irregular-shaped schistose slate slabs bore 

 scratched geometric patterns upon their surfaces. Similar ones have 

 been reported as coming from the Badin site near Flagtown, Mont- 

 gomery County, N.C. 



Axes are rare in the whole reservoir area. Those that have been 

 found are crudely chipped, have opposing notches for hafting with 

 moderate cutting edges, and are made from natural flat pieces of stone. 

 No attempt was made to smooth or polish their surfaces. From these 

 characteristics we would surmise that they were used as breaking 

 tools rather than true cutting tools. None of them show extensive 

 usage. 



Discoidals, while present, are rare. From the few we found it ap- 

 pears that they were first chipped into the desired size, then were 

 smoothed by pecking away the rough surfaces, and finally completed 

 by grinding, which gave the artifact a smoothed surface. Some have 

 slight depressions or concavities on either face. 



Steatite sherds occurred at a number of the sites. They were of 

 various sizes and shapes. Some were large enough so that we could 

 determine rather accurately the size of the original vessel. Usually 

 they were hemispherical with flat bases and some were furnished with 

 rough, rounded, luglike handles or knobs which were opposing, but 

 we did recover one that was roughly triangular in shape which was 

 most unusual. All sherds bore tool markings on the exterior surface, 

 while the interiors were smoothed but not always even. Several 

 showed two or more perforations in juxtaposition, suggesting that at 

 one time the vessel was either cracked or broken and later mended by 

 inserting thongs through the holes to bring the two pieces together. 

 At the present time a number of these sherds were coated on the in- 

 terior with soot and the discoloration was driven into the walls for a 

 short distance. From this, one would surmise that the vessel or ves- 

 sels were inverted over a fire allowing the soot to accumulate. Why 



