Halifax
Defining Attributes
The Halifax point has a slender blade and a broad base, with wide, shallow side notches.
Chronology
The Halifax point dates to the Middle and Late Archaic periods. McAvoy and McAvoy (1997) found Halifax points in numerous features radiocarbon dated between 5500 and 4850 BP (approximately 4350-3600 BC in calendar years) along the Nottoway River in Virginia. At site 44PW1292, located near the Potomac River on Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virgina, 20 Halifax points were found in contexts that produced five radiocarbon dates between 5020 and 4770 BP, or 3850-3550 BC calendar (Bedell et al. 2014). A radiocarbon date of 5440 ± 350 BP was obtained from a Halifax provenience at the Gaston site in North Carolina Coe (1964).
Description
Blade
The blade is usually long and narrow, with slightly convex sides. Some examples are shorter and have straight or concave sides, which appear to be the result of re-sharpening. The maximum width frequently occurs two-thirds down the length of the blade, from the tip.
Haft Element
The base is typically ground. It is usually straight or slightly concave, and is a little narrower than the maximum width of the blade. The broad and shallow side notches are also frequently ground. Notches begin at the point of maximum width and continue to the base. In some examples, the point seems more stemmed than notched.
Size
Length ranges from 29 to 56 mm, with an average of 44 mm. Width ranges from 17 to 25 mm, with an average of 20 mm. Thickness ranges from 8 to 11 mm.
Technique of Manufacture
Soft percussion and pressure flaking; a typical Halifax point is relatively thick, and was made from a core rather than a thin flake.
Material
In the Monocacy River drainage, 47% of 43 Halifax points were quartz, with 42% rhyolite and 11% chert (Kavanagh 1982). The Halifax points in the middle Potomac Valley are commonly quartz, but also appear in quartzite and rhyolite (Hranicky 2002:149).
Discussion
Coe (1964) observes that the Halifax point is a relatively common find in eastern North Carolina, particularly north and east of the Roanoke River Basin. They are ubiquitous across the Piedmont and Coastal Plain of Virginia, but Maryland seems to be their northern limit. They are rarely reported in Southern Maryland, and they are present but not common in the middle Potomac River Valley (Hranicky 2002).
The Halifax has been described as a shorter, notched version of the slightly earlier Guilford point, and the similarities between Guilford, Halifax, and Savannah River points may indicate a certain degree of Archaic period cultural continuity (Ward and Davis 1999). Similarity with the Vernon point has also been noted, and some researchers combine the two types (Wanser 1982; LeeDecker and Koldehoff 1991). The “Type C” points from the Higgins site in Anne Arundel County were similar to the Halifax, but had a more deeply indented base (Ebright 1992).
Defined in Literature
Halifax points were originally defined by Coe (1964), based on points recovered from the Gaston site in the North Carolina Piedmont.
References
2014 Phase III Archaeological Investigations, Russell Road, Marine Corps Base Quantico, Prince William County, Virginia. Report submitted the Dept. of the Navy, Naval Facilities Engineering Command Washington.
1964 The Formative Cultures of the Carolina Piedmont. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 54(5). Philadelphia.
1992 Early Native American Prehistory on the Maryland Western Shore: Archeological Investigations at the Higgins Site. Maryland State Highway Administration Archeological Report Number 1. Report prepared for the Maryland State Railroad Administration.
2002 Lithic Technology in the Middle Potomac River Valley of Maryland and Virginia. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York.
1991 Excavation of the Indian Creek V Site (18PR94), Prince George’s County, Maryland. Report prepared for Wallace Roberts & Todd and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority by Louis Berger and Associates, Inc.
1997 Archaeological Investigations of Site 44SX202, Cactus Hill, Sussex County. Virginia Department of Historic Resources Research Report Series n. 8, Richmond.
1982 A Survey of Artifact Collections from Central Southern Maryland. Maryland Historical Trust Manuscript Series 23. Maryland Historical Trust and Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Annapolis.
1999 Time Before History: The Archaeology of North Carolina. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.