Not Named
Historic Property
Alternate Name:
Red Bluff Hint Quarries (38AL14)
Street Address:
13 miles SW of Allendale; 3 miles S of US 301: 6.5 m. N of mouth of Brier Creek, Ga.
Site Number:
S108042001300200
Date Surveyed:
1973
Category:
Site
Construction Date:
before 1400
Current Use:
Vacant/Not In Use
Signficant Architectural Features:
Red Bluff Flint Quarries consist of 2 outcrops of marine chert or flint which were heavilv used bv Indians in prehistoric times as sources of tool raw materials. The northernmost of the 2 quarries is on Watch Call Creek. It extends over a low hill of less than 10 acres. A recent bulldozer swath across this side exposed 3' or more of quarry debris (unused and rejected flakes and fragments and partially worked tools). The material removed by the bulldozer was used on an adjacent road leading to Red Bluff Landing on the river. The southernmost quarry, 1/4 mile away on King Creek, is unaltered. 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 archeologically as "Brier Creek Flint." OUTBUILDINGS:
Alterations:
Altered (see description)
Historical Information:
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 S. C. & Ga., the tools or raw materials having been obtained from the lower Savannah area and exported hundreds of miles distant. No other stone raw material was used so extensively in this area in prehistoric times. Thus the Red Bluff and Brier Creek Quarries rank with some of the well known, extensively used, flint sources of the Midwest and West. The Red Bluff, S. C., quarries should be excavated & investigated in detail. One would expect evidence of long use from the Paleo-Indian period, ca. 12,000 years ago, until the arrival of the Europeans.
Source of Historical Information:
National Register nomination, prepared in 1971
Survey:
Allendale County, 1979-1980
Archives Location:
Box 13, Series 108042, Survey of historic resources (county by county data on surface properties), circa 1971-2014
