The Tiny True Arrowheads of the Piedmont
Archaeologists, historians and anthropologists have debated for many years about when the ancient people of the world actually began using the hunting and warfare device called the bow and arrow. Today, it is pretty well acknowledged that these weapons were used in southern Africa by at least 50,000 years ago. It is also firmly believed that they were being used in Europe before 10,000 years ago. But just how and when did they come to be used in the Americas? And what is the actual origin of the tiny true arrowheads of the Piedmont?
The people we call American Indians have been on the two continents here for at least 12,000 years and maybe much longer than that. These natives were nomadic hunters and gatherers for many millennia and who roamed the vast lands in search of food, water and shelter. They originally used long thrusting spears for hunting and fighting which gave way to smaller spears or darts that were thrown with the aid of a spear thrower, or as it is commonly known, an atl-atl. At some point during the last few thousand years the story begins to get murky as to the natives use of the spear versus the arrow. There is information available that seems to suggest that small arrow sized projectile points were being used in northwest Alaska about 4,000 years ago. If that is true and if the bow and arrow was brought across the Bering Sea from Asia those millennia in the past, the instruments had plenty of time to be dispersed throughout the two American continents. Other scientists, though, doubt this information to be true but instead believe the natives abruptly adopted, without any previous prototype, the bow and arrow about 1500 years ago which seems to fit the time period for when arrow sized projectile points began to appear in quantity. We know that there were many social, religious and environmental changes at that time, especially in the American Southeast, with the advent of domestic agriculture and the beginnings of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex - so maybe the invention of a completely new tool fit those changing times. These natives used local woods such as mulberry, hickory, locust, cedar and dogwood to fashion their bows. The arrow shafts were made of river cane, black haw, hickory and witch hazel and were tipped with deer antler, gar fish scales, bone and turkey cock spurs along with chipped stone points. Did some prehistoric genius suddenly take a resilient piece of hickory or locust and string it tightly with a leather thong so a long straight arrow stick could be sent flying? Or did some ancient seafarer land on our continent from Europe with the bow and arrow in his hand. Or did the instruments indeed come across the frozen northwest before traveling throughout our land? Many questions with few answers.
The bow and arrow were definitely being used in the Piedmont about 1500 years ago based on the stone arrow tips that have been found from that time period. The natives, though, probably continued to use the older short darts and spear throwers for maybe a few hundred years alongside the new weapons. The projectile points used on the darts were usually 1 to 3 inches in length and stemmed or basally notched the same as had been used for thousands of years. Suddenly though, there appeared smaller and thinner triangular shaped projectile points for use on the smaller arrow shafts. From where did the idea for these triangles emerge? Did these people suddenly dream up the bow and arrow and also these small triangular arrow points? Seems unlikely but for sure we may never know. But appear they did and while today we cannot find many remains of the wooden arrow shafts and bows, tens of thousands of stone arrowheads have been discovered. In the Piedmont of Virginia and the Carolinas there are several types of these points that have been described and archaeologically dated over the last seventy or so years of scientific work. The larger ones, some of which are called Yadkin and Roanoke and Badin, probably were among the first and will date from around an AD 500 beginning and were made for almost a thousand years after that time. They range is sizes of about one inch in length to about three inches and may or may not be true arrowheads – they may be dart or small spear points. But at least some of these larger triangles were probably also used on small arrows and as they continued to be made for the next millennium, they were also being made in progressively smaller sizes. Around AD 1200 true smaller triangles came into being that were most certainly of the sizes to fit into ¼”-3/8” diameter arrow shafts. By about AD 1400 these small triangles were becoming commonplace in the Piedmont and today go by
Hillsboro and Clarksville points such names as Hillsboro (named for Hillsboro, NC), Clarksville (named for Clarksville, VA) and Uwharrie (named for the Uwharrie River, NC). The Hillsboro and Clarksville points are normally straight sided and non-serrated equilateral triangles that are about ½” to 1” both in length and width with the Hillsboro usually being the smaller of the two. The Uwharrie is more of an isosceles triangle being longer than wide and will vary from ¾” to 1 ½” in length and about ½” in width. The basal edge and/or lateral sides of the Uwharrie point is often slightly concave and it is never serrated. All these points will date to the AD 1400 to 1600 time period with, of course, some of them being made before and after those times. They can be very well made or very crude and the material of choice was rhyolite, 
Uwharrie pointssilicified slate and white quartz. The Clarksville and Hillsboro points are normally found in the northern NC and southern VA regions while the Uwharrie points are usually encountered in the southern NC counties and into the upper SC Piedmont.
During the same time period, a group of Indians, who were true disciples of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex way of life, existed in much of South Carolina, in portions of southern and western North Carolina and in a very few locales in southern Virginia and northern NC. These people were of the Lamar Culture but are today called Pee Dee, so named for the Pee Dee River that meanders from the NC-SC border area through the Palmetto State to the Atlantic Ocean. 
Pee Dee Triangular and Pentagonal pointsThey made narrow arrow points of about ½” wide by about 1” long with often slightly concave sides and which were often serrated. These people are also known for their small, thin and distinctive pentagonal points that were probably used as knives as well as being projectile points. Their material of choice was silicified slate and rhyolite with few points/knives being quartz which probably was related to the fact that the raw material quartz was not readily found in many of their village locales. The Pee Dee Culture seems to have disappeared by around AD 1540 to 1620 with the invasion of the English and Spanish and was replaced by groups who the early Europeans called by such names as Saponi, Keyauwee, Eno, Cheraw, Occaneechi and Waccamaw. These people made arrow points of about the same size and shape and with the same materials as the Pee Dee triangles but were rarely serrated. These points are called Caraway and are named for examples found at the Keyauwee Site on Caraway Creek in Randolph Count, NC, and are the 
Caraway pointsmost common small arrow points found throughout the Virginia and Carolina Piedmont. The Carway points are, like the Uwharrie, isosceles triangles but with usually straight sides and a concave base and they are often slightly smaller than the Uwharrie points. It is difficult to differentiate between the Caraway and the Uwharrie and much misclassification and guesswork is seen. The Indians made these Caraway points until around AD 1725 when the native’s dependence on European trade guns essentially made the bow and arrow obsolete.
Today, many collectors have difficulty in distinguishing one triangle from another and that is understandable since they are similar in size and shape. In actuality, all these small triangles may be the same points used by the same people for a period of a few hundred years – just with different names. And to add to the confusion, there are many other names being used for these triangles such as Chestnut, James River, Bolar Mountain, Elk Garden, Capron and Potomac. The people of the Archaic Periods used the same styles and sizes of dart/spear points for thousands of years so it would be a reasonable assumption that these later people could have used the same small arrow points for a few hundred years. But the names used today are really of no great importance. What is of importance is from just where these triangles and the bow and arrow were derived? And those are questions that are not answerable at this time. Perhaps more research and study in the future will eventually answer these perplexing queries. But as of now, we certainly do know that the Indians used the bow and arrow for hunting and war for about fifteen hundred years and for several hundred years of that time they made and used, for whatever reason and from whatever source, the tiny true arrowheads of the Piedmont.
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