Here it is, National Historic Landmark - Hardaway Site. Every American archeologist knows of this place. I have known of this place for decades but it was off limits and still is. Three Rivers Land Trust arranged with Morrow Mountain State Park for a visit following a lecture by Randy Daniels of East Carolina University, at the 1913 Badin Inn.
It was a packed house for the lecture. Travis Morehead, Executive Director of TRLT gave introductions followed by Randy Daniels lecture. Daniels, a university professor, gave an excellent account of the Native American historic presence in the area, the quarry and excavation sites nearby.
Dr Randy Daniels
Besides Hardaway, two other significant archeological sites are nearby, Lowders Ferry, now under the parking lot at the Morrow Mountain boat launch, and Doerschuck, named for amateur archeologist Herbert Doerschuck. The points, tools and lithics from these sites came from stone quarried nearby. The majority of this stone came from Morrow Mountain. Other mountains in the area may also have contributed to the tool making going on. The stone from Morrow is Aphyric rhyolite which has a lava banding pattern (like a Zebra). From specimens in Hardaway, 68% are that type of stone. The second most numerous stone found is Porphyritic rhyolite, a speckled stone. These likely came from other nearby quarries.
Daniels and Dr Bob Butler of UNC teamed up around 1990 to determine where the stone found at Hardaway came from. It was not obvious that Morrow Mountain was the source. There are no rhyolite outcrops on Morrow whereas nearby Stony and Biles Mountains are loaded with huge rhyolite outcrops. Eventually, Daniels and Butler realized it was Morrow and the reason there were no outcrops was because the Native Americans hammered the stone away. Although, the CCC and state park built a parking lot and picnic area on top of Morrow, there is much more up there. Daniels and Butler located debris from the quarry which was as much as 6 feet deep. If you walk the trail around the top of Morrow, you'll see stone debris everywhere.
Daniels calls Hardaway a base camp associated with a quarry. It is thought, the native Americans hammered large chunks of rhyolite from outcrops and brought them to Hardaway and the other sites where they could be crafted into tools, primarily points and scrapers. Both Lowders Ferry and Doerschuck where in the flood plain of the Yadkin River. Hardaway was on top of a hill next to the river. When these sites were excavated, the strata from the two flood plain sites showed artifacts from Woodland, Paleoindian and Archaic cultures separated by strata of debris from floods. Hardaway had clean strata levels dating back to Archaic and possibly Clovis cultures. This makes the site at least 9000 years old and possibly older if the sites dates to Clovis. Lowders and Doerschuck were not dug as deep as Hardaway due to their closeness to the water and concern about the holes collapsing.
Daniels explained that Hardaway was not continually occupied. Bands of people of those earlier cultures, likely traveled in circuits throughout the year accessing resources that would help them survive throughout the seasons. Possibly, the shad run was the time to be by the Yadkin where could also restock their toolkits and points. In order to know the range of these bands, Daniels traveled throughout the Carolinas and Georgia to visit local collections of scrapers and points. Morrow Mountain rhyolite was found in a large oval area extending into South Carolina and central North Carolina. The western boundary of this area was the Catawba/Wateree/Santee River. Although Morrow Mountain stone does occur outside this area, it seems obvious that those that visited Morrow Mountain to make points and tools, traveled within this area and may have traded outside the area where fewer specimens were found in local collections.
Hardaway is named for the Hardaway Construction Company from Georgia that was the lead contractor for the Badin Dam. Completed in 1917, the dam supplied electricity for the Carolina Aluminum Company. In the late 1920s, an employee mentioned the site to Herbert Doerschuck, a local electrical engineer, amateur archeologist and collector. Doerschuck probably dug some at the site before telling Joffre Coe, a UNC professor of archeology. Coe did not dig the site until 1948 and continued to 1980. Later digs were performed but nothing has taken place for more than 20 years. The site has been reclaimed by vegetation and time so much so that no one on this outing could find the location of the dig. Supposedly, Coe left a mark on a rock to locate the spot but we were unable to find that.
After the lecture we traveled by vans to the Hardaway site. It is located within Morrow Mountain State Park. We traveled through a couple gates to get to the site. The park has video cameras in the area which alert park employees by cell phone when motion is detected. One employee told me that they do get photos of trespassers. There is occasional looting happening now but not like the looting that went on years ago. Much of the surface layer was ravaged by pot hunters after Coe published some early findings in a scientific journal.
Even though we didn't find the site, it was a great experience to see the area and understand what has gone on there for over 10,000 years.
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