Sixteenth-Century Flintknapping Kits from the King Site, Georgia

Abstract

Excavations at the King Site, a late Mississippian period village in NW Georgia, have yielded over 250 burials, of which 10 contained the flintknapping kits considered in this study. Despite some variation in the kit assemblages, they share strong similarities in hammerstone types and related tools and contain tools that appear to have been used for activities in addition to flintknapping, such as woodworking.

The demographic profile of the associated skeletons—flintknappers, presumably—indicates they were primarily older males, some appearing to have held high status, based on other funerary items associated with the burials. But the spatial distribution of flintknapper burials, combined with the overall patterning of associated mortuary goods, suggests that there was no correlation between high status and flintknapping. The knappers appear to have been part-time specialists who held multiple social roles, but their skill as craftsmen conferred little in the way of prestige.