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CUMBERLAND
GRAVER SIDE-SCRAPER
PHIL STRATTON SITE
LOGAN COUNTY, KENTUCKY
COPYRIGHT
AUGUST 31, 2005 PETER A. BOSTROM
ORIGINAL ARTIFACT ILLUSTRATED
CAST
#P-56
By Michael Richard
Gramly
This finely crafted combination side-scraper and graver made of St.
Genevieve chert was excavated from the Phil Stratton site in Logan
County, southwestern Kentucky (Gramly 2005). The Phil Stratton site is a
closed or single-component encampment of the Cumberland archaeological
culture. Completed fluted projectile points, point preforms, a variety
of scrapers and utilized flakes – most made on prismatic blades –
are among the 200 flaked tools recovered to date (7-22-05).
The
Phil Stratton site occupies a bluff above a ford across the meandering
Red River, here deeply entrenched within limestone, and may have been an
ideal place to intercept game. Gravels of the Red River also supplied
tool-stone to Cumberland knappers, who left thousands of flakes at the
Phil Stratton site.
The
age of the Cumberland culture is yet imperfectly known, although it is
expected that the Phil Stratton encampment will yield some valuable
clues.
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