Date of Award

Spring 2026

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

Anthropology

First Advisor

Adam King

Abstract

The Nipper Creek site (38RD18) is an Archaic Fall-Line site in South Carolina that was excavated in 1985 to determine the Indigenous occupational history of the site following its discovery. Using Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) technology on select debitage from 1985, and on samples from known tool-stone quarries in the Southeastern United States, this study explores the differences of these samples and the attempt to determine a source location of the lithic materials excavated from the Early Archaic contexts to better understand the settlement of Nipper Creek (38RD18) as it relates to known lithic quarries.

This study compares 9 debitage samples selected from 38RD18 from Early Archaic contexts for comparison with 57 source samples from across the South Atlantic Slope (North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee). This thesis is hoped to set the foundation for future studies to support the usage of LA-ICP-MS for lithic quarry analysis, while also pushing for theoretical frameworks to be subjected to scientific scrutiny outside of macroscopic identifications.

Rights

© 2026, Joseph Alan Lindler

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