Research Laboratories of Archaeology


The Site


The Catawba Indian Nation was one of the most populous and powerful native polities in the Carolinas prior to European settlement. During the first half of the 18th century, members of the Catawba Nation were situated in several towns near the Catawba River at Nation Ford, just a few miles south of Charlotte. Following a devastating smallpox epidemic which struck the Catawba settlements in 1759, the survivors abandoned the Nation Ford area and by the early 1760s had resettled in two separate communities located several miles downriver near the mouth of Twelvemile Creek. Maps after 1770, only a decade later, depict a single Catawba town. This area comprised the heart of the Catawba Nation during the Revolutionary War and into the early 19th century, and today many Catawbas live on a small reservation on the opposite side of the river.

Recent UNC archaeological field schools have excavated several of these mid 18th-century to early 19th-century Catawba sites, and this summer we plan to continue our investigations at a town site near Nation Ford that dates to the 1700-1750 period, when Catawbas were a dominant economic, political, and military power throughout much of the Carolina Piedmont. We expect to identify and sample household refuse deposits and other refuse-filled pits associated with one or more Catawba cabins. Excavations of similar deposits at the nearby mid 18th-century sites of Nassaw-Weyapee and Charraw Town have yielded extensive amounts of native pottery, animal bone, and botanical remains, as well as European-made trade materials. The 2017 field school excavations will add to this growing body of archaeological evidence about the Catawba and, in doing so, will provide significant insight into this important period of Catawba history.


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