Prehistory of West Virginia - Stone Industry

Stone Industry

Traditionally, archaeologists visually identify the geological origin of cherts using color and texture as the principal criteria. Officials and scientists from the Midwest to Missouri, Indiana, Alabama, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia, working together in workshops, are now using Neutron Activation Analysis, Macroscopic, microscopic, and geochemical identification techniques to help identify regional cherts and chert sources.

Rarely seen in the mountain valleys of West Virginia, Indiana, to date, has 23 distinct chert types, which is considerably more varied than in West Virginia. Documentation in a large-scale data set from Kirk horizons at Indiana's Farnsley Site (12Hr520) near Louisville, Kentucky, of the Muldraugh chert and Wyandotte chert, has suggested a pattern of routine movement of Archaic Kirk towards the south and east. Representative samples of lithics from West Virginia are Kanawha Black Flint, Hillsdale/Greenbrier, Helderberg, Hughes River among Flint Ridge, Carter Cave, Paoli, Knox, rhyolite, and ferruginous sandstone that were brought in from surrounding states (CWVA).

Towards the northern half of the state, common projectile points are from Flint Ridge, Ohio, Kanawha Black flint Mount Carbon outcrops, Hughes River Flint, and Goose Creek outcrop in Ritchie County according to Mr Cox, The Ritchie Gazette, 1979. Historian, Captain William A. Cox, Jr. described the Hughes River Flint outcrop as "twelve to fifteen feet thick, where best developed. . . The color varies from light, almost milky white, to buff, to grayish black." Kanawha Black flint ranges from Gauley Mountain near Kanawha Falls through down stream tributaries to Charlestown. In the Bluestone Lake area, Woodland projectiles of red chert came from Mid-Atlantic states or The Carolinas outcrops.

It is legal to dig for "arrow heads" on one's own private property. However, for any suspected human bone find, one must stop digging and report the questionable bone to the county sheriff in West Virginia. This lawful department will notify the appropriate people for you. For hobbyist considerations, recorded details and location photos of the find increases value if not to the scientific community. The Council for West Virginia Archaeology (CWVA) and the West Virginia Archeology Society (WVAS) offer a list of resources to both formal school and 'club' educators. They promote the understanding of our prehistoric heritage. "Since ours is only part of a larger regional picture", CWVA and WVAS have selected some credible Internet resources. Their link can be found in the reference section below.

Upper Ohio Valley Lithic Sources
(Mayer-Oakes, Carnegy Museum)

• Goose Creek outcrop
• Hughes River Flint
• Kanawha Flint
• Slade (aka Newman) Southwest to East in Kentucky

Bedrock chert along the both sides of the Upper Ohio Valley to the Big Sandy River's lower stream region is called:

• Brush Creek

Bedrock chert from counties surrounding Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania include:

• Loyalhanna
• Monongahela
• Uniontown
• Ten Mile

Stream cobble cherts of north eastern Ohio and westernmost Pennsylvania along Lake Erie (Alluvial cherts) include:

• Onondaga, secondary to Ohio Valley
• Gull River, secondary to Ohio Valley

Exotic to Upper Ohio Valley types include:

• Upper Mercer, counties of Coshocton, Ohio
• Flint Ridge (Vanport cherts) southeast of Upper Mercer
• Delaware chert Franklin County, Ohio area, common west of the Scioto River.