South Carolina Department of Archives and History
National Register Properties in South Carolina

Red Bluff Flint Quarries, Allendale County (Address Restricted)
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(Rice Chert Quarry) Red Bluff Flint Quarries consist of two outcrops of marine chert or flint, which were heavily used by Indians in prehistoric times as sources of tool raw materials. The quarries are low, forested, rocky hills at the edge of the Savannah River Swamp. It extends over a low hill of less than 10 acres. The chert is Oligocene in age and contains marine mollusks and quartz-crystal lined cavities. This same chert outcrops along Brier Creek in Georgia where extensive Indian quarry and workshop sites are also located, and is identified archaeologically as “Brier Creek Flint.” Red Bluff Flint Quarries were clearly utilized for raw material during thousands of years, as indicated by the great depth and volume of debris and the deep patination on some of the older flakes and fragments. Stone tools of Brier Creek Flint are found throughout South Carolina and Georgia, the tools or raw material having been obtained from the lower Savannah area and exported hundreds of miles distant. The Red Bluff and Brier Creek Quarries rank with some of the well known, extensively used, flint sources of Midwest and West. Listed in the National Register June 22, 1972.

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