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Collin
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Carolina Slate Belt - Quarries & Artifacts
Feb 2nd, 2016 at 9:53am
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http://rla.unc.edu/publications/pdf/resrep25/ch3.pdf

Interesting read if you have the time, I wouldn't mind checking a few of these spots out!
  
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JoeM
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Re: Carolina Slate Belt - Quarries & Artifacts
Reply #1 - Feb 2nd, 2016 at 8:02pm
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Hey, good job digging this up, Collin! Smiley
Not very many folks interested in this stuff but this chapter comes from the 2006 report,
"Stone Quarries and Sourcing in the Carolina Slate Belt", and is the most
recent and definitive published research done yet on the "lithic" rocks of the slate belt.
This was a combined effort of archaeologist, geoarchaeologist, and geologist from around the state.
The main goal of the project was to collect samples of rock from known prehistoric quarry sites in the slate belt
and do extensive visual and chemical analysis on the specimens to see if a "singular" trait or signature
could be found to identify one source of rock from another.
One of the big questions for archaeologist is, "where did the lithic material come from?", and  this project
was to try and get some answers to that integral question. That is what the word "Sourcing" refers to in the title of the report.
And if you Google the title above you can now find all 195 pages of the report online.
I was very happy and honored to take part in this project.
They ended up using 3 of the 5 quarry sites I showed them, 1 in Chatham Co., 1 in Durham Co., and 1 in Person Co.
Despite my pleas not to, they named one of the Chatham County quarries after me in the report.
You can see it listed on the graph there in Chapter 3, page 19. Roll Eyes

Let me know if you have any questions about this report.
The professionals were really hoping to find a key identifying signature with the chemical analysis,
chiefly Neodymium and Samarium Isotope ratios. I have always been in favor of a physical/visual identification database.
The chemical analysis was not unique enough to tell one source in a cluster area from another close source,
but there were some notable differences between "areas" further apart.
The 70'some thin sections and petrography done on the specimens, in my opinion, was work that really needed to be done.
  
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Rebecca
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Re: Carolina Slate Belt - Quarries & Artifacts
Reply #2 - Feb 2nd, 2016 at 11:00pm
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Wow Joe that is really cool you were involved in that. Important work that sounds tedious.
Back to the copper bricks!  Wink
  
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Collin
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Re: Carolina Slate Belt - Quarries & Artifacts
Reply #3 - Feb 5th, 2016 at 10:58am
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Joe, that is awesome you were involved in this.  Have you been back to explore any of the sites?
  
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JoeM
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Re: Carolina Slate Belt - Quarries & Artifacts
Reply #4 - Feb 6th, 2016 at 10:38am
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No, Collin, I haven't been to most of those spots in over a decade.
We'll have to spot check them sometime.
There is one spot that has Piedmontite in the mix and I have been wanting to get back there
and try and find some good specimens.
  
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Re: Carolina Slate Belt - Quarries & Artifacts
Reply #5 - Feb 7th, 2016 at 4:52pm
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fun story-
You know they probably would've used a fourth of the five sites I took them to
but when arriving at one of the Durham County sites we made the faux pas
of telling the owner/farmer that we were interested in the rock "quarry" on his property.
This farmer was a real nice guy and knew that there were chips and flakes
and the occasional arrowhead scattered across his fields and didn't mind giving people permission to walk and hunt for them.
But when we started talking about a quarry, he looked at us like we were in the wrong county.
This man knew about the flakes and arrowheads, but he also KNEW that there weren't no rock quarry on his property.
And as we tried to explain the "type" of quarry we were talking about
we could see him becoming more and more irritated with us.
Needless to say we decided we were going to have to skip that one. Smiley
  
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