Heite, Edward F., and Cara L. Blume

1995

Data Recovery Excavations at the Blueberry Hill Prehistoric Site (7K-C-107).

Prepared by Heite Consulting, Camden, Delaware. Delaware Department of Transportation Archaeology Series No. 130.

The Blueberry Hill Site, located in the City of Dover, Kent County, Delaware, is a small stratified site in wind-borne sand deposits that contains the remains of human occupation extending from the period of earliest human settlement in the region to the beginning of pottery making. At that site, up to twelve millennia of intermittent occupations are enclosed in a meter or more of soil. The human activity at the site dates from about 6000 B.C. to about 1000 B. C., and includes the late Paleo-Indian, the Archaic, and the Woodland I Periods of prehistory. The cultural deposits at the site are separated by deposits of sterile aeolian (wind-borne) sands. The site contains intact and undisturbed activity areas from the least understood periods of Delaware prehistory (Paleo-Indian and Archaic), overlain by a micro-band base camp dating to the Woodland period. The full original extent of the site cannot be determined because of extensive disturbance to the inland side of the site location.

Site Topo with Excavation Units

The report begins with an overview of the local natural setting, the prehistory of the region, and changing human adaptations to varying environmental conditions over time. It presents a concise summary of the state of archaeological research in the area. The report includes a step-by-step narrative of the excavation process and the reasoning behind the methods used in the field. Very small excavation units were used to delineate isolated cultural deposits. The results of soils studies, pollen analysis and the evaluation of the geomorphology of nearby bay/basins and floodplain deposits, water-screening for recovery of small items and analysis of vegetable remains, and radiocarbon dating are discussed. Recovered artifacts are described and interpreted in terms of chronology, morphology, and function. Excellent drawings of the artifacts are included. Characteristics of the artifacts are used as a basis for discussion of site chronology and the variation of lithic resource preferences over time. The spatial distributions of a range of cultural materials, including fire-cracked rock, heat-reddened pebbles, charcoal, flakes, ceramics, and projectile points, are correlated with data on site stratigraphy and the location of features to reconstruct aspects of the spatial organization of the site. The features recorded include an Archaic period hearth, as well as two house-pits, four storage pits, and one post hole from the Woodland I period.

Artifacts from Zone II