The existance of a workable, crypto-crystalline rock called Jasper was discovered on Iron Hill by Native American hunter-gatherer bands who traveled throughout the region harvesting and procuring resources necessary for their survival. Jasper, along with chert and chalcedony, is restricted to a small region called the Delaware Chalcedony Complex and provided native tool-makers
with an excellent material to make stone tools from. Iron Hill was geographically the southern-most point of access for this important resource. Groups who were traveling south would have stopped to quarry stone and fashion tools before continuing their journey into areas where suitable stone materials were unavailable. Groups from the south likewise would have traveled north to Iron Hill to acquire necessary stone resources for tool making.
It is likely that the Iron Hill site was used from Paleo through the Woodland II periods, since artifacts from each cultural period have been discovered in the area. Diagnostic artifacts recovered from an excavation of the tool making workshop itself place the site in user between the Archaic and Woodland I periods, 6500 BC through AD 1000 - a period of 7500 years.
| <<< page one | page three >>> |