by Charles Vaughn, Aurelian Springs, North Carolina
Volume 64, Number 3, July 2017 Central States Archaeological Journal
Figure 1. The Clovis in situ
On the fourth of January 2017, my good friend Howard Boney and I decided that the rainfall the day before was enough to make conditions perfect for the first artifact hunt this year.
We visited three good sites in Halifax County, North Carolina only to find one of them in poor hunting condition. At the other two sites, we were greatly disappointed to find clear evidence of tracks from other artifact hunters who had previously been there. As a result no significant artifacts were found.
Very discouraged, we decided to get some lunch. Several miles from our planned food stop, and completely as an afterthought, we stopped at a real good site which had been farmed for peanuts last year. We immediately began to notice many chips and flakes, mostly white quartz. We set out to hunt and found half a dozen projectile points along with broken points and several hammer stones or grinding stones.
As we started to leave the field, I headed back to the car to drive up the farm path to pick Howard up and depart. About twenty feet from the car, I spotted the pictured Clovis point (Figs. 1, 2) in the middle of a farm track. I called to Howard to come see what I had found. We both were amazed and excited and began taking cell phone pictures.
The first of the pictures accompanying this article shows the Coastal Plain chert Clovis in situ (Fig. 1). The Clovis is single fluted on one face and double fluted on the other and is 2 1/8 inches long. The other picture was taken by my wife later (Fig. 2).
This is my first whole Clovis find in approximately thirty-eight years and is the finest one I have ever found.
Above: Figure 2. Both sides of the Clovis. It is made from Coastal Plain chert and measures 2 1/8 inches in length. The face on the left is double fluted.