The Ravensford Tract Archeological Project

The archeological research conducted on the Ravensford Tract over the last 6 years has been the largest single research project ever conducted in Cherokee archeology in North Carolina. More than 30 acres of land has been stripped and over a hundred structures have been investigated. Although we predicted the tract to be rich in archeological data, it has exceeded our most liberal expectations.
This article provides interesting data on several aspects of the occupational sequence at Ravensford Tract. The data certainly refined our chronological understanding of this development and better defined the economic, subsistence, social organization and community patterns in this part of the Cherokee domain. This new interpretation is because Ravensford has provided a rich assemblage of material for study. The Early Qualla materials, briefly described here, represent the largest fifteenth century assemblage known from the Cherokee heartland. The structure, feature, ceramic, and subsistence data from these assemblages give us very good insight into developments during this period, one in which multiple influences seem to have combined to give birth to what we consider the Qualla ceramic tradition.