Phase II and Phase III Archaeological Database and Inventory
18AN579 Timbuktu #1
Diagnostic Artifact Data
Features
Summary
The Timbuktu #1 site (18AN579) is a Late Archaic quartz cobble quarry located between Elkridge and the Arundel Mills area in northern Anne Arundel County, Maryland. The site is situated on a gently sloping terrace, above the swampy floodplain between a second order creek and a fourth order creek draining towards the Patapsco. At the time of the site’s discovery, it was wooded with river birch, sycamore, red maple, sweet gum, and tulip poplar, along with an understory and ground cover of poison ivy, Virginia creeper, greenbriers, Japanese honeysuckle, and southern arrowwood. The primary vegetation during prehistoric times likely consisted of hardwoods such as oaks, sweetgum, and yellow-poplar. Soils at the site are of the Beltsville-Chillum-Sassafras association.
The site was first identified during a Phase I survey conducted in 1985 and 1986. The field project was carried out along three proposed alternates for the expansion of MD 100. The various highway alternatives would span the roughly 7.5 miles between MD 3 and US 1, passing the Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) Airport. Since the highway improvements would receive state and federal monies, the mandates of the NHPA act and related state legislation required the fieldwork.
The field methods involved an initial ground reconnaissance of the three highway alternates to locate above ground structural remains, eliminate low probability areas from the testing strategy, and better determine moderate to high probability areas requiring further investigation. Low probability areas included steep slopes, industrial or residential disturbances, and wetlands. The remaining moderate to high probability areas were grouped together to form survey tracts and they were subjected to surface collection in areas of exposed ground surface and excavation of shovel test pits (STPs) to located buried archeological deposits. The STPs were approximately 35 cm in diameter, with depth varying according to soils in the specific area. The fill from each STP was examined (but not screened) for artifacts and the stratigraphy was recorded. In the survey tract which contained 18AN579, a total of four STPs were excavated and surface collection was undertaken along a nearby dirt road, which led to the identification of the site.
Artifacts recovered during the 1985/1986 Phase I operations at 18 AN579 included a non-diagnostic projectile point, 3 preforms, a drill, 3 other bifaces, 4 scrapers, a utilized flake, 58 flakes, 11 chunks, 44 shatter fragments, and a hammerstone. All of the recovered materials came from the top 20 cm of soil. The site was estimated to be roughly 45.5 X 15 m in size. Based on these findings, Phase II testing was carried out in 1987.
The 1987 Phase II work was also related to the MD 100 highway expansion project. At 18AN579 the Phase II fieldwork entailed the excavation of 435 STPs and nine 1 X 1 m test units. The shovel tests were placed at 3 m intervals along transects 3 m apart. Each was excavated to sterile subsoil (generally 50-60 cm below surface) and screened through hardware cloth to recover artifacts. Artifact finds were then mapped and the data was used to inform the placement of the 1 X 1 m units.
The STPs clearly revealed significant clustering of quartz gravel and artifacts. The site could be pretty clearly sub-divided into nine quartz gravel clusters. Seven of the units were situated in five of these clusters. The other two units were placed outside of cluster areas more-or-less to confirm that the site boundaries had been accurately identified through shovel testing. The test units were excavated in natural levels, except where natural levels exceeded 10 cm in depth. In the latter case, arbitrary 10 cm levels were used to subdivide the natural levels. All soil was screened through hardware cloth. Upon completion of each level, the unit was recorded on standardized forms, drawn, and photographed. Profiles were drawn documented upon completion of each full unit.
The stratigraphy of the site was found to be fairly consistent throughout: a 5-10 cm organic topsoil overlying a 10-20 cm thick yellowish brown silt layer, with a much lighter clayey subsoil beneath. Areas near the point overlooking the flooplain tend to have deeper individual layers, while the slopes are more shallow. Historic artifact were lightly scattered across the site, but rarely intrude into event he second layer of soil. The quantities of historic items are very insignificant and can be accounted for by trash dumping along the terrace edge followed by limited bioturbation and erosion. The historic artifacts are not included in the artifact tallies in the tables above. The distribution of prehistoric artifacts exhibited clear evidence of distinct lithic work areas (corresponding to the aforementioned clusters). Based on this evidence, the site appears to be essentially intact below 10 or 15 cm. These deposits continue to considerable depth throughout, especially in the north-easternmost gravel/artifact cluster. However, there is no clear domestic midden and no cultural features were identified. This would not be entirely unexpected at a site that appears to have been utilized as a lithic quarry. The relatively deep deposits of the site, suggest the possibility of examining changing use of the site over time.
Artifacts recovered during the Phase II investigations at 18AN579 include a rhyolite Holmes point, an unidentified quartz stemmed point, 16 other quartz bifaces in various stages of production, 5 utilized/retouched flakes, 23 cores, 1,562 flakes, 111 pieces of shatter, 7 tested cobbles, 56 unmodified cobbles, 26 pieces of fire-cracked rock, 4 hammerstones, an anvil/nutting stone, 6 shell fragments, and part of a turtle shell.
Site 18AN579 appears to be a quartz cobble quarry, where only bipolar reduction techniques in the very initial stages of production were used. Production at the site included all stages from procurement to the making of performs. These preforms were completed, or turned into tools, elsewhere. The character of habitation at the site may be thought of as non-domestic, although flake tools indicate that some domestic functions were probably conducted back from the terrace edge.
The aforementioned cobble/artifact clusters were interpreted to represent single work areas. In the case of the 4 smaller concentrations, they were probably used by the same group or groups of people. The 5 larger clusters could be either large work areas or several reoccupations or reuses of the same spot by unrelated groups of people alternating with more or less long periods of disuse. The clusters do not have thick layers of nearly pure debitage as has been found at some quarry sites. This suggests that none of the work areas were used over long periods or by large semi-permanent groups of people specializing in making large quantities of performs. Rather, the work areas were probably used on a temporary basis by the same group or groups of people for a period of a generation or two after which it was forgotten and no longer used. The smaller clusters would probably have been used by 3 to 5 workers at a time, or a small band of hunters replenishing their stock of performs. Extrapolating this group size would mean that some of the larger clusters probably represent two, three, or slightly more work areas. Because of the hypothesized work force and itinerant nature of lithic procurement conducted at the site, the work areas were probably rarely used at the same time.
Perhaps the most important conclusion to be drawn from the testing project is that the site does contain untapped data with which to address questions of lithic procurement during the Late Archaic Period. Specifically, the site has the potential for addressing questions concerning the internal functioning of a quarry, bipolar lithic technology, technological change, and such methodological questions as determining significant differences in object, reduction and size indices, determining significant differences in artifact patterns, or determining which artifact classes are most useful for examining culture change and process at quarry sites. Further, the site is not overpowering, in the sense that there is not so much overlapping of material that work areas cannot be defined. Apparently work areas can and have been defined. On the other hand, it is no so small or insignificant that the lessons learned could not be applied to other more complex quarries. A site such as 18AN579 might be able to produce some quarry site patterns that could be used to unravel more complex quarry sites and serve as a baseline for comparison with non-cobble, non-quartz quarries as well as with other quartz cobble quarry sites.
Ultimately, the Timbuktu #1 site (18AN579) was determined to have integrity and be capable of answering relevant archeological questions and was determined eligible for listing on the NRHP. A decision was made to preserve the site in-place, as a means of mitigating the threat to the site from the MD 100 extension project. The site was covered with geo-textile fabric and carefully buried using heavy machinery. The road was then built atop the site, essentially burying the site intact.
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