Red Bluff Flint Quarries

National Register Listing

Street Address:

Address Restricted (Allendale County)

Alternate Name:

Rice Chert Quarry

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NRHP Nomination Form

Record Number:

S10817703008

Description and Narrative:

(Rice Chert Quarry) Red Bluff Flint Quarries consist of two outcrops of marine chert or flint, which were heavily used by Indians in prehistoric times as sources of tool raw materials. The quarries are low, forested, rocky hills at the edge of the Savannah River Swamp. It extends over a low hill of less than 10 acres. The chert is Oligocene in age and contains marine mollusks and quartz-crystal lined cavities. This same chert outcrops along Brier Creek in Georgia where extensive Indian quarry and workshop sites are also located, and is identified archaeologically as “Brier Creek Flint.” Red Bluff Flint Quarries were clearly utilized for raw material during thousands of years, as indicated by the great depth and volume of debris and the deep patination on some of the older flakes and fragments. Stone tools of Brier Creek Flint are found throughout South Carolina and Georgia, the tools or raw material having been obtained from the lower Savannah area and exported hundreds of miles distant. The Red Bluff and Brier Creek Quarries rank with some of the well known, extensively used, flint sources of Midwest and West. Listed in the National Register June 22, 1972.

Period of Significance:

before 1400

Level of Significance:

National

Area of Significance:

Archeology: Historic - Aboriginal

National Register Determination:

listed

Date of Certification:

June 22 1972

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