Two Dogs Site facts for kids
The Two Dogs Site is a special place in Person County, North Carolina, where people long ago found and used stones. This ancient archaeological site dates back to the Middle Archaic and Woodland Periods. It's called a lithic quarry site because thousands of stone tools and pieces of stone were found there.
The site is located in an area known as the Carolina Slate Belt. The stones found at Two Dogs were easy for ancient people to get. They mainly used these stones to make tools as they traveled between their homes and other places. Scientists dug up the Two Dogs Site from 2004 to 2005, after some initial tests were done earlier. They studied the stones to figure out where they came from and what they were used for. The Two Dogs Site was not a place where people lived or farmed. Instead, it was a place where people from nearby communities could easily get the stones they needed.
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Discovering the Two Dogs Site
The Two Dogs Site was first found when a company called Environmental Services, Inc. did some shovel tests. This means they dug small holes over a large area, almost 70,000 square meters. They found many stone materials, which showed them this was an important site.
Digging Up the Past
Archaeologists dug at Two Dogs during the winter of 2004 and 2005. They had a plan to study the site because there were so many stone pieces. They wanted to make sure they could dig up, list, and study all the important finds.
Following standard archaeological rules, the site was divided into five sections, called areas A through E. They used a special method to choose 225 test spots to dig first. No two spots were closer than five meters, which helped them dig evenly across the site.
After mapping these spots with GPS, the information from the 225 new spots was combined with data from 149 shovel tests done in 2001. This helped them find the best places to dig more. They then chose 13 one-meter by one-meter areas to dig more deeply. These areas were chosen based on how many artifacts were found and what kinds of stones were there. This big digging project uncovered thousands of stone artifacts. They did not find any signs of buildings or battles at the site.
What the Artifacts Tell Us
Scientists used special computer systems called GIS to figure out where most artifacts were found. They learned that larger stone pieces stayed on the surface, while smaller ones were pushed deeper into the ground. This happened because falling trees moved the soil around.
Studying the Stones
They also took stone samples from both the site and nearby areas to study their chemistry and rock types. In total, 32,904 artifacts were found at the Two Dogs Site. Most of these were a type of rock called dacite, with some quartz and other materials.
Studies showed that all the local stone samples were a type of volcanic rock. The stones from outside the site were also volcanic, but a bit different. Experts found that these stones were very strong and could be shaped to have a very sharp edge. This made them perfect for making stone tools.
To understand how the land changed over time, archaeologists dug five extra trenches using backhoes. These trenches provided six more stone samples for study. Chemical tests using special markers confirmed that the stones from Two Dogs came from the nearby Virgilina and Uwharrie natural regions.
Why the Two Dogs Site Is Important
Based on all the digging and analysis, scientists believe the Two Dogs Site was mainly a place where ancient people got stones to make or fix their tools. They used it while traveling between their homes.
During the Middle Archaic and Woodland Periods, people started to live in one place for longer periods. Most groups in the region had permanent homes and stayed in a consistent area. So, for these communities, the Two Dogs Site was a reliable and easy source of stones. People didn't have to dig deep holes to get the stones; they were available right on the surface. This made it easy to quickly make strong stone tools.
The Two Dogs Site is a very important archaeological discovery. So far, there's no sign that people lived or farmed there during this time. Also, very few weapon tips were found at the site. This suggests that people didn't fight over the stone resources at Two Dogs.
The many discoveries at this site also encourage archaeologists to do more detailed studies of stones from other ancient quarry sites in the region. This is especially true when looking at how ancient groups moved around. The stones from the Two Dogs Site have been studied more thoroughly than artifacts from many other similar sites.
