Investigations at the Sugar Potato Workshop Site: Repeated and Long-Term Exploitation of Burlington Chert from the Pinnacles Quarry in Central Missouri

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Sugar Potato site is located on an alluvial fan at the base of the Pinnacles, an eroded upland area that borders the Missouri River floodplain in central Missouri. The lower slopes of the ridges in this area contain residual deposits of high-quality Burlington chert, which were quarried for more than 2,000 years. Test excavations at the Sugar Potato site in 2015 and 2017 revealed a series of six stratified lithic-reduction workshops between 1.5 and 3.7 m below ground surface. Radiocarbon ages from four of the six workshop features indicate intensive quarrying and associated workshop reduction during the Middle Woodland and Late Woodland periods. Concentrated workshop debitage found at higher elevations in the alluvial fan suggests that exploitation of Burlington chert also occurred during later Mississippian (Steed-Kisker) and Terminal Prehistoric (Oneota) times.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24951