new acquisition

The Conservancy Acquires Its First Site in Virginia

The Conover site offers evidence of the state’s prehistory.

Knowledge about Virginia’s Paleo-Indian period is limited. The Conover site, which covers six acres, could significantly expand upon that knowledge.

Virginia is perhaps best known for its connections to colonial America, and sites such as Jamestown, Mt. Vernon, and Monticello have provided archaeologists with an opportunity to better understand life during that period. Few people are aware, however, that Virginia has a rich and diverse prehistory and that this period contains some of the earliest known dates in the country. The Conservancy’s recent acquisition of the Conover Paleo-Indian site will ensure that this part of Virginia’s past is protected.

The site is in an upland coastal plain setting situated in southeastern Dinwiddie County, about 40 miles south of Richmond. Discovered in 1982 by land owner Harold Conover, the site possesses both Paleo-Indian and Archaic period materials, and has extremely high potential for contributing significantly to the very limited research data about Virginia’s Paleo-Indian period. Chert artifacts collected at the site include fluted projectile points, bifaces, unifacial tools, and flakes, some of which have been modified through use or reworking.

The site is approximately eight miles to the northeast of the Williamson site, which represents one of the largest Paleo-Indian quarry sites discovered in North America. A few miles east of Conover is the Cactus Hill site, which has radiocarbon dates to 15,000 years ago. Virginia archaeologist Joseph McAvoy has written that the Conover site was likely a small hunting camp that also might have been used as “an alternative to the Williamson site as a manufacturing location where old tools were discarded as new tools were made.”

The Conover site represents one of the few identified locations in Virginia yielding diverse artifactual data from the Paleo-Indian period. The wide range of lithic tool types and manufactured by-products recovered from either random or controlled surface collections supports the notion that the site was utilized as a quarry-related base camp or base camp maintenance station. In situ subsurface cultural deposits dating to the Paleo-Indian period are particularly rare and their possible presence at the site further enhances its research potential and significance. —Donald Craib

Conover

Conservancy Plan of Action

SITE: Conover CULTURE & TIME PERIOD: Paleo-Indian, B.C. 9500–8000 STATUS: Encroaching residential development threatens the site. ACQUISITION: The Conservancy must raise $57,000 for acquisition of the site and associated costs. HOW YOU CAN HELP: Please send contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy, Attn:Project Conover, 5301 Central Ave. NE,Suite 902,Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517.