The chert veins, lenses, and bodies of this area of Lee County were perfectly positioned for utilization by aboriginal populations, unfortunately, the chert is so blocky and fractured it is very hard to get tools of any size out of it. Great material for scrapers and small projectile points, but pretty useless for making large 3-4 inch spearheads, so they are not well represented in local artifact collections.
At the bottom of a ridge running along the river the floodplain widens to about 150 yards and across this field the ancient river cut an almost vertical profile about 20 feet high in the base of the ridge.
The approximately 10 x 10 inch chert vein, which is very good size for this area, was exposed on and off in this cut for atleast 50 feet running with the contour of the foliation of the surrounding rock.
So I am "guessing" the chert in this area formed pre-pangea?
Archaic occupations were all up on the ridgetop and the floodplain would have been perfect for later Woodland occupations. I always wanted to find a triangle arrowhead made from the chert in that field but unfortunately that occupation was buried too far down under the last few hundred years of sediment and would take some digging to get to.
I am sure this vein was utilized prehistorically but doubt that it has been recorded. There hasn't been much investigation of this chert done, but here is a sample of a report. Scroll down to second article in the link,"Piedmont Chert Quarry".
http://rla.unc.edu/Archives/NCAS/Newsletters_(new_series)/Volume_2_No_3.pdfHere are pics of pieces from the brown chert vein. Note the blocky structure and white/cream colored areas. The last pic is how the slab would have been positioned in the vein. The whole vein was fractured like this about every inch along it's length. Once you have exposed the vein you can pull these slabs out almost like books off a shelf.