J&J Hunt Submerged Archaeological Site - Stone Tools Recovered

Stone Tools Recovered

During the excavations at the J&J Hunt site 1,632 lithic artifacts were recovered (Tobon and Pendleton 2002). “Tools consist of unifacial scrapers (22 percent), whole and broken bifacial items (42 percent), and utilized flakes (21 percent). Cores (mostly without much cortex) combine for a total of 18 percent of the tools, and hammer stones make up an additional 4 percent” (Faught 2004b: 283). The percentage of recovered bifacial lithic remains suggest the manufacture of bifaces and the remaining lithic finds indicate the possibility of tool re-use at the site. However, there is little evidence of secondary retouch flakes at the site (Faught 2004a). The fact that most of the cores and debitage are “mostly without much cortex” infers that the raw materials that these tools were manufactured from came from another location. This is supported by the fact that no quarry areas have been located at the site.

Among the artifact assemblage at the site there are several temporally diagnostic stone tools. Of the temporally diagnostic stone tools recovered seventeen have been projectile points and fragments. Among them was one late Paleoindian Suwannee base and possibly one Suwannee perform along with five side-notched Bolen projectile points. “Other tools found at J&J Hunt diagnostic of early Holocene age and activity include one broken adze bit and two formal unifacial side scrapers ” (Faught 2004b: 283).

There are also several temporally diagnostic artifacts from the Middle Archaic period at the site. These include three Florida Archaic straight-stemmed points and one contracting-stemmed point. Interestingly, these points date to around 7,500 to 5,000 B.P., a period when the site is believed to have become completely submerged (Faught 2004b).