The Stanfield-Worley Bluff Shelter, located on private property in Colbert County

Colbert County, Alabama

Colbert County is a county of the U.S. state of Alabama. Its name is in honor of brothers George and Levi Colbert, Chickasaw Indian chiefs. George Colbert operated a ferry across the Tennessee River in 1790 near present day Cherokee....

 in northwestern Alabama

Alabama

Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, is one of the most important prehistoric

Prehistory

Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...

 sites excavated in the state due to the archeological evidence deposited by the Paleo-Indians who once occupied the rock shelter

Rock shelter

A rock shelter is a shallow cave-like opening at the base of a bluff or cliff....

. Lying in Sanderson Cove along a tributary

Tributary

A tributary or affluent is a stream or river that flows into a main stem river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean...

 of Cane Creek approximately seven miles (11 km) south of the Tennessee Valley

Tennessee Valley

The Tennessee Valley is the drainage basin of the Tennessee River and is largely within the U.S. state of Tennessee. It stretches from southwest Kentucky to northwest Georgia and from northeast Mississippi to the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina...

, the shelter and the high bluff

Cliff

In geography and geology, a cliff is a significant vertical, or near vertical, rock exposure. Cliffs are formed as erosion landforms due to the processes of erosion and weathering that produce them. Cliffs are common on coasts, in mountainous areas, escarpments and along rivers. Cliffs are usually...

s of the surrounding valley provided a well-protected environment for the Native American occupants

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

.
According to The Earliest Americans Theme Study for the Eastern United States, Stanfield-Worley Rock Shelter is considered a strong candidate for National Historic Landmark

National Historic Landmark

A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...

 status.

History

Based on archeological evidence, the Stanfield-Worley Bluff Shelter was occupied from the Lithic stage

Lithic stage

In the sequence of North American prehistoric cultural stages first proposed by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips in 1958, the Lithic stage was the earliest period of human occupation in the Americas, accruing during the Late Pleistocene period, to time before 8,000 B.C....

 to the Mississippian period

Mississippian culture

The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally....

. The well-preserved stratigraphic zones

Stratification (archeology)

Stratification is a paramount and base concept in archaeology, especially in the course of excavation. It is largely based on the Law of Superposition...

 provide insights into the evolution of prehistoric societies in northern Alabama over a period of nine millennia.

Dalton zone

The Dalton zone, shown as Zone D in the photograph of the stratigraphic zones, represents a transitional Paleo-Indian culture of Alabama with specimens dated to approximately 7000 BCE based on radiocarbon dating

Radiocarbon dating

Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 to estimate the age of carbon-bearing materials up to about 58,000 to 62,000 years. Raw, i.e. uncalibrated, radiocarbon ages are usually reported in radiocarbon years "Before Present" ,...

. The artifacts found in this complex are typical of mobile hunter-gatherer

Hunter-gatherer

A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...

s. The Dalton occupation was remarkable in its intensity with over 150 projectile point

Projectile point

In archaeological terms, a projectile point is an object that was hafted to a projectile, such as a spear, dart, or arrow, or perhaps used as a knife....

s, in addition to Paleo-Indian uniface tools

Uniface

In archeology, a uniface is a specific type of stone tool that has been flaked on one surface only. There are two general classes of uniface tools: modified flakes—and formalized tools, which display deliberate, systematic modification of the marginal edges, evidently formed for a specific...

 such as scrapers

Scraper (archaeology)

In archaeology, scrapers are unifacial tools that were used either for hideworking or woodworking purposes. Whereas this term is often used for any unifacially flaked stone tool that defies classification, most lithic analysts maintain that the only true scrapers are defined on the base of...

 and knives

Knife

A knife is a cutting tool with an exposed cutting edge or blade, hand-held or otherwise, with or without a handle. Knives were used at least two-and-a-half million years ago, as evidenced by the Oldowan tools...

, found during the 1961 survey season. The projectile points include both Paleo-Indian (lanceolate Dalton points) and Archaic (side-notched Big Sandy points) specimens.
Other artifacts indicate manufacture of wood

Wood

Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...

, antler

Antler

Antlers are the usually large, branching bony appendages on the heads of most deer species.-Etymology:Antler originally meant the lowest tine, the "brow tine"...

, and bone tool

Bone tool

Bone tools have been documented from the advent of Homo sapiens and are also known from Homo neanderthalensis contexts or even earlier. Bone is a ubiquitous material in hunter-gatherer societies even when other tool materials were not scarce or unavailable...

s.

Paleo-Indian sites with preserved fauna

Fauna

Fauna or faunæ is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora.Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess shale fauna"...

l and flora

Flora

Flora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animals is fauna.-Etymology:...

l records, such as Stanfield-Worley Bluff Shelter, are important to understanding cultural development during the period. The faunal remains of the site contain bone

Bone

Bones are rigid organs that constitute part of the endoskeleton of vertebrates. They support, and protect the various organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells and store minerals. Bone tissue is a type of dense connective tissue...

s of modern animals including deer

Deer

Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...

, squirrel

Squirrel

Squirrels belong to a large family of small or medium-sized rodents called the Sciuridae. The family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels, chipmunks, marmots , flying squirrels, and prairie dogs. Squirrels are indigenous to the Americas, Eurasia, and Africa and have been introduced to Australia...

, turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, and porcupine

Porcupine

Porcupines are rodents with a coat of sharp spines, or quills, that defend or camouflage them from predators. They are indigenous to the Americas, southern Asia, and Africa. Porcupines are the third largest of the rodents, behind the capybara and the beaver. Most porcupines are about long, with...

. The shelter is located below the southern extent of the current range of porcupines. In addition, remains of the extinct

Extinction

In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...

 passenger pigeon

Passenger Pigeon

The Passenger Pigeon or Wild Pigeon was a bird, now extinct, that existed in North America and lived in enormous migratory flocks until the early 20th century...

 have been found. Although the animals which the Dalton occupants hunted

Hunting

Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...

 are similar to those hunted by Archaic peoples, there is no evidence in the zone of shellfish

Shellfish

Shellfish is a culinary and fisheries term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish are harvested from saltwater environments, some kinds are found only in freshwater...

 collection or seed

Seed

A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...

 processing, traits of established Archaic societies.

Middle Archaic through Mississippian periods

Zone B in the photograph of the stratigraphic zones contains specimens from the Morrow Mountain Phase of the Middle Archaic period. The excavation of this intermediate layer yielded three sets of human remains as well as projectile points, bone awls

Stitching awl

A stitching awl is a simple tool with which holes can be punctured in a variety of materials, or existing holes can be enlarged. It is also used for sewing heavy materials, such as leather or canvas. It is a thin, tapered metal shaft, coming to a sharp point, either straight or slightly bent....

, and other tools. The youngest stratigraphic zone (Zone A, not shown in the photograph) contained specimens from the Archaic through Mississippian periods.

Archeological surveys

The excavation of the Stanfield-Worley Bluff Shelter commenced in 1960, after gaining approval of the property owner, Robert B. Stanfield. The project was under the guidance of the North Alabama Project, a partnership between the University of Alabama

University of Alabama

The University of Alabama is a public coeducational university located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States....

 and the Archaeological Research Association of Alabama. The first two field seasons (1960 and 1961) were reported by David L. DeJarnette and colleagues. The excavation of the third and final season (1963) was smaller in scale with the results never being published.

The trench and block technique was utilized in the excavation of the site. In this technique, individual blocks are created by digging trenches in a defined pattern. The exposed sides of the resulting blocks allow excavation to proceed by individual zones or strata. The trenches and blocks are pictured in the photograph on the upper right. The resulting collection includes over 11,000 specimens.

Archeological significance

By 1960, it was clear that north Alabama had possibly the densest concentration of Paleo-Indian sites within the United States. The importance of the Stanfield-Worley Bluff Shelter, one such Paleo-Indian site, lies in its ability to establish an accurate timeframe for Dalton projectile points. This resulted in references to the site in almost every summary of eastern North American prehistory.

With over 150 projectile points recovered in the 1960 season alone, the site provided invaluable information regarding Paleo-Indian artifacts. The projectile points were divided into "fifty-six taxonomic types and six residual categories or provisional types." Much of the information was incorporated into the Handbook of Alabama Archaeology.

Both Robert E. Bell and Charles H. Fairbanks lauded the success of the North Alabama project in raising funds

Fundraising

Fundraising or fund raising is the process of soliciting and gathering voluntary contributions as money or other resources, by requesting donations from individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies...

to further archaeological research.