Archaeological Data Recovery at the Charlotte Woods Soapstone Quarry (9DA248), Dekalb County

This report documents the results of archaeological data recovery at the Charlotte Woods Soapstone Quarry (9Da248) located within the confines of the Live Oak Landfill property in Dekalb County, Georgia. This project was sponsored by Waste Management of Georgia, Inc. This is the second archaeological data recovery at a soapstone quarry on the Live Oak Landfill and Recycling Center property. The Charlotte Woods Soapstone Quarry is dated to the Late Archaic period based on the abundant evidence of soapstone bowl quarrying manifested as quarrying scars on the soapstone boulders, quarry tool fragments, and soapstone bowl rejects and fragments. Although the site produced an abundance of bowl fragments in various stages of manufacture, few whole bowls were located. Similarly, these data recovery investigations recovered many quarry tool fragments and resharpening debitage, but very few whole quarry tools. The assemblage of soapstone bowls and bowl fragments was dominated by those with a convex base. The convex base form of bowl is suggested to be an early form in the soapstone bowl chronology. If this theory is proven correct, then the Charlotte Woods Soapstone Quarry constitutes a soapstone quarry most extensively utilized relatively early in the development of soapstone bowl technology. It follows then, that the quarry scar types may also be representative of early soapstone procurement. Unfortunately, no subsurface pit features or structural remains relating to this time period were encountered. Consequently, 9Da248 did not yield any radiocarbon samples. This quarry site is centrally located in what was a significant late nineteenth and early through mid-twentieth century neighborhood on Soapstone Ridge. Undoubtedly, many bowl rejects found on the ground surface had been collected by the surrounding residents. Those collected during the course of archaeological data recovery were possibly not previously collected because they were obscured by vegetation, buried, or decidedly too heavy to be carried off by a site visitor. Archaeological data recovery at 9Da248 has added to the slowly growing data base of soapstone archaeology. The most significant contributions made by 9Da248 are: 1) the predominance of bowls with a convex base possibly indicative of a relatively early soapstone bowl industry in the Southeast; 2) the number and variety of quarry scar types, and their potential early cultural affiliation; and 3) spatial information retrieved from the distribution of artifacts.