Savannah River Stemmed

This large, broad-bladed stone projectile point with a prominent square stem is known as a Savannah River Stemmed. It was found at a multi-component site (31WA2199) in eastern Wake County, NC. The point gets its name from the Savannah River which separates South Carolina and Georgia, and the Stallings Island site where this point type was first described. This artifact was used as a spear or dart point and may have been secondarily used as a knife and/or scraping tool. Savannah River points have been recovered archaeologically at several deeply buried sites, including the important Doerschuk site, where it was found stratigraphically below ceramic bearing deposits and above the Morrow Mountain and Guilford type points indicating it dates to the Late Archaic period (c. 3000-1000 BC). This artifact is made from a metavolcanic stone commonly called rhyolite and measures 7.35 cm long, 3.0 cm wide, and 1.0 cm thick. Constructed by David Cranford using 43 photos in Agisoft Metashape software. (Credit: NCDNCR/OSA)