Quartz chrystals are found on many Late Woodland Iroquois sites, especially
those in the Mohawk Valley where they are found naturally and known as
"Herkimer Diamonds"  Field walking the sites while in school we found
plenty of them (those were the days, huh Sue!).  They are also found with
perhaps equal frequency in adjoining fields that were never occupied but
this is definitely not to say that the Iroquois and earlier occupants
didn't collect them for whatever reason.  I have a fruit jar full of little
ones that my Dad collected on his rockhounding expeditions as well as some
humongeous beauties.  Should I confuse future arcaheologists and bury them
by my front door?
        On Archaic and late woodland sites near Albany in the upper Hudson Valley
we found glass-clear quartz points of remarkable beauty.  Then again it was
readily available in the glacial deposits (the vast majority were made of
the mundane smokey or rose quartz)

        Dan W.


At 08:04 PM 11/3/99 -0500, you wrote:
>TRC Garrow did excavated a large site near Canton, Georgia, in 1996 that
>produced a number of quartz crystals. The site was multi-component with
>a bout 11,000 cultural features. The component that produced the quartz
>crystals dated to the Middle Woodland with Cartersville ceramics. Quartz
>crystals are common on Middle Woodland sites in this area.
>
>Pat Garrow
>