Data recovery excavations at 31 WK223, located along the Reddies River in Wilkes County, North Carolina, recorded intact floodplain deposits in a portion of the site. These deposits contained stratified features and artifact deposits from the Middle and Late Archaic periods. Evidence for Middle and Late Woodland occupations was also documented, through largely in a disturbed plow zone above the intact deposits. Geoarchaeological investigation showed that the site was located in a protected cove where sediment accumulated slowly through the Holocene. Particle size analyses determined that the deposits were stratified, with the sedimentary processes that buried the cultural horizons preserving cultural context. Analysis of macroplant remains suggests that the site represents a series of fall occupations during which harvesting and processing of nutmast took place, and artifact analyses suggest shifting orientations with respect to resources and traditions of the Piedmont and mountainous areas. The results add to the growing body of research documenting Archaic and Woodland sites in the Western Foothills and Appalachian Summit archaeological regions and stress the potential for the preservation of archaeological context in the floodplains of smaller tributaries in the mountainous portion of the state.

Archaeological sequences from stratified Archaic sites in the floodplains of the North Carolina Piedmont have been well documented in studies by South (1959, 2005), Coe (1964), Claggett and Cable (1982), and Larsen and Schuldenrein (1990). In contrast, the view of the Archaic period in the Appalachian Summit and Western Foothills …