The small-tool kit includes projectile points, drills, perforators, retouched and utilized flakes, and scrapers. Retouched and utilized flakes, and possibly the few scrapers, are expedient tools manufactured on flakes. These items represent the generalized cutting and scraping tools in the assemblage. Some functional specialization is present in the small-tool kit in the form of projectile points, drills, and perforators, although these also were manufactured from flakes.
The large-tool kit represents tools made from cobbles and larger masses of stone raw material. These include choppers, hammerstones, and a variety of ground-stone and chipped-stone specimens. While the hammerstones were used in tool production, the majority of the large chipped-stone implements appear to have been used in chopping or digging. Three of the largest stones show evidence of use in food processing as grinding stones.
A number of ground-stone and a few polished-stone artifacts are also present in the assemblage. However most of these are fragments, and their exact function(s) are unknown. Several whole disks, both ground and chipped, are also present. Finally, two chunkey stones are included in the assemblage.
In sum, the Fredricks site assemblage is predominantly composed of small chipped-stone tools. The majority are cutting, scraping, or chopping tools made of local raw materials and are not highly formalized tools constructed for a long use life. The remaining portion of the assemblage includes ground-stone items, many of which are of indeterminate function.
Current evidence suggests that the impact of European metal tools on native stone technologies resulted in a difference of degree rather than kind. Such an interpretation is reinforced by a comparison of the assemblages from all the sites. Ignoring the possible bias in the near absence of ground-stone tools, the stone-tool assemblage can be characterized largely as small-tool kits (projectile points, drills, utilized/retouched flakes, and other small tools) made from flakes. The vast majority of these tools are not highly formalized and appear to have been expediently manufactured. Moreover, most of the small chipped-stone tool types are present at all six sites. In short, the organizations of the lithic technologies are basically similar.
Comparisons with assemblages from earlier Piedmont sites suggest that the introduction of guns and metal tools did not bring about major changes in the content or structure of aboriginal lithic assemblages characterized by small flake tools and projectile points. This is not to say, however, that European contact and the possession of trade goods did not change hunting techniques and tool use among Piedmont Indian groups.
There are several factors that could distort our view of the impact of European goods on the hunting methods of the Fredricks site inhabitants. There is considerable evidence elsewhere in the Southeast of changes in aboriginal hunting and food preparation methods caused by the introduction of European goods (e.g., Polhemus 1987). Perhaps in the Piedmont there was less time for the integration of European tools into the techno-economic system. Many European goods may have functioned in social and political rather than in utilitarian contexts where they would have replaced native tools. The character of the lithic assemblage at the Fredricks site also may reflect only a limited range of activities, with hunting and deerskin preparation being conducted away from the village site. As a consequence, European items would more likely be lost or discarded at other locations. This pattern also may be reflected in the distribution of bone elements at the Fredricks site. In addition, there may be specialized activity areas yet to be discovered at the Fredricks site.