Nuts were important aboriginal foods throughout the East, beginning at least during Early Archaic times. Acorn was probably the most important plant food in the Southeast prehistorically until Mississippian times (after about A.D. 1000), although hickory seems to have dominated in some locations. Walnut is generally less abundantly represented than either hickory or acorn (Yarnell and Black 1983).
All three nut types are represented at the three sites in question. Hickory was the most abundant nut type at all three sites based on percentage by weight (Table 23). However, acorn shell fragments more easily than thick nutshell and is therefore probably greatly underrepresented. In addition, hickory nutshell represents smaller quantities of nutmeat than does acorn shell because of acorn's higher meat-to-shell ratio. Acorn shell may represent anywhere from five to 200 times as much nutmeat as an equivalent quantity of hickory shell (Lopinot 1983). Accordingly, Yarnell and Black (1983) have recommended multiplying acorn shell quantities by 50 in order to arrive at a corrected acorn-to-hickory ratio. Using site totals, the acorn-to-hickory ratio (based on estimated food quantities) for the Wall site is 5.72, in contrast to the Fredricks site value of only 0.42. The Mitchum site value is 2.97.
It is clear that acorn is much better represented at the Wall site than is hickory. By the time of the Occaneechi occupation at the Fredricks site, a shift to greater emphasis on hickory seems to have occurred. The drop in hickory nutshell as percentage of plant food remains from Wall to Fredricks may be a consequence of its highly variable representation in different contexts. In addition, hickory nutshell was more ubiquitous at both Fredricks (100.0 %) and Mitchum (100.0 %) than at Wall (83.3 %). Acorn percentage and ubiquity both show significant drops between the Wall and Fredricks sites (Table 23).
There is, therefore, good evidence for increasing emphasis on hickory nut collection during the Historic period with a concomitant decrease in the use of acorn, although the results from the 1985 excavations at the Fredricks site indicate that the differential representation of these two foods is not as great as was previously thought. Walnut is represented by small quantities at all three sites, but shows a similar decrease in both ubiquity and percentage. The Wall site population does seem to have exploited the range of available nut resources more evenly, whereas the Occaneechi focused on hickory. Using the modified Simpson index discussed above, the Wall site flotation samples show a higher diversity for nut taxa (D=.6272) than do an equal number of Fredricks site samples (D=.5412). Since richness and sample size are held constant (both sites have three nut taxa), differences in equitability must be responsible for this contrast. This finding, in contrast to the more evenly distributed representation of nut types at the Wall site, supports the notion of a focus on exploitation of one nut type at Fredricks. This conclusion is based upon ubiquity; comparison of food represented could present a different picture. Differential use of hickory and acorn seem more pronounced at Wall than at Fredricks, based on the corrected ratio.
The Mitchum site assemblage is similar to that of the Wall site in this respect. At Mitchum, acorn and walnut are both better represented as percentage of nut remains than they are at Fredricks. However, ubiquity values for the three nut types at Mitchum are closer to those for Fredricks. It is difficult to decide how to interpret these data, but it does seem that acorn was used to a greater extent than hickory at the Mitchum site, judging by its corrected acorn-to-hickory ratio.