Hickory (Carya sp.) nutshell is the most abundant plant-food remain by weight (56.1%). A high proportion of hickory shell is quite common at aboriginal sites in the eastern United States, which is due in part to the thickness of the shell and its tendency to become carbonized when fired rather than completely combusted and consequently lost from the archaeological record. There is also some evidence that hickory, as well as other types of nutshell, may have been used as fuel by some aboriginal groups (Yarnell 1982), which further increases the likelihood that it would have become carbonized. These circumstances argue for some caution in equating abundance of hickory nutshell with subsistence importance. In fact, Keene (1981) has gone so far as to suggest that hickory was probably a much less important resource in the Late Archaic of the Saginaw Valley than its abundance suggests, since it does not appear in the set of resources generated by his optimal foraging model.
However, there are other lines of evidence to indicate that hickory was a staple food at the Fredricks site. Its ubiquity based on features sampled is 94.7%, ranking second only to corn (Table 30). To some extent, high preservability may have adjusted the proportion of hickory upward in relation to other plant food types, but it seems unlikely that this factor alone accounts for both high weight proportion and high ubiquity.
In addition, there is ample historic evidence that hickory was a staple food of North Carolina Indians. John Lawson (Lefler 1967) makes a number of references to preparation of hickory "milk" and storage of nuts for winter consumption. Lawson (Lefler 1967:105) says "These nuts are gotten, in great Quanitities, by the Savages, and laid up for Stores, of which they make several dishes and Banquets." Lawson's evidence is particularly useful for assessing the Fredricks site plant remains, since he traveled extensively through the Piedmont and Coastal Plain during the period of the occupation with which we are concerned. It does not seem likely that so many types of preparation and effort of storage would be devoted to an unimportant resource. Mature hickory trees were probably abundant in the north central Piedmont in both lowland and floodplain habitats, as they are today (Moore 1973; Moore and Wood 1976). In fact, they were probably more abundant when the Fredricks site was occupied, before disturbance of forest by Euroamericans became extensive (Gleason and Cronquist 1964).
Other nut types are somewhat less well represented. Acorn (Quercus sp.), in contrast to hickory, has a thin shell that is easily fragmented and consequently less likely to survive both pre- and post-depositional disturbance. This factor may partly account for its relatively low percentage by weight (6.5). Acorn shell makes up only 10.0% of total nutshell compared to 86.2% for hickory (Table 31). Comparison of hickory and acorn quantities is further complicated by the fact that a gram of acorn shell may represent from five to 200 times as much nutmeat as a gram of hickory shell, as estimated by Lopinot (1983). To reduce the bias introduced by different food-to-nonfood ratios, acorn shell quantities can be multiplied by 50 and divided by quantity of hickory shell to produce an acorn to hickory ratio (Yarnell and Black 1985). By applying this calculation to site totals, one obtains an acorn-to-hickory ratio of 5.82, indicating that acorn may have in fact contributed more food to the diet than hickory.
In fact, this ratio contrasts strongly with that of 0.42 calculated for data from the 1983 and 1984 seasons. This led the author to suggest that acorn had declined in importance since the time of the late prehistoric occupation of the nearby Wall site (Gremillion 1985). The Wall site acorn-to-hickory ratio was 5.72. The conclusion that acorn was used less frequently than hickory at the Fredricks site must therefore be revised. Fredricks site totals for three seasons yield an acorn-to-hickory ratio of 2.15. From this figure, it can be assumed that acorn was not a less important resource than hickory at Fredricks, although the degree of differential representation of the two nut types is less at the later site.
Despite its relatively low preservability compared to hickory, acorn has a ubiquity value of 68.4%, ranking third after corn and hickory. Cumulative site totals for three seasons yield a ubiquity value of 74.3% and a rank second only to corn and hickory. Even by assigning rank according to percentage of plant food remains, acorn ranks fourth (after peach, whose remains are as durable as those of hickory). These results argue strongly that acorn and hickory were both staple foods for the Fredricks site population, with acorn probably used to a greater extent. Carbonized acorn meats also were found at Fredricks, although only in one feature.
Lawson also attests to the reliance of Piedmont groups on acorn harvesting when he recounts the processing of acorn oil made from live oak acorns (Lefler 1967:100), and there is a mention of trading of acorns in the account of the "Gentlemen" sent from Barbados to the Cape Fear River area in 1663 (Lefler 1967:77). But perhaps most illuminating is Lawson's inclusion of "Acorns and Acorn Oil" in his enumeration of Indian foods (Lefler 1967:182). We can assume that Lawson is speaking in a general way about subsistence based on his travels through the Coastal Plain as well as the Piedmont, so his account does not provide information about local variations in subsistence practices. However, it may be significant that hickory is not mentioned in this summary of foods, though he seems to have considered it important to the Indians, as evidenced by the comments cited above.
Walnut (Juglans nigra L.), in contrast to hickory and acorn, is represented only in small quantities at Fredricks (2.4%). Three-season totals provide a value (1.2%) close to that for acorn (Table 32), but it should be kept in mind that the physical composition of walnut shell (and hence its preservability) is more similar to that of hickory than of acorn. Ubiquity of walnut was 36.8% (37.1% for three-season totals) resulting in a rank of fifth (fourth for three-season totals). As percentage of total nutshell, walnut at 3.7% is much less well represented than hickory (86.2%) and somewhat less abundant than the much more fragile acorn shell (10.0%) (Table 31).
So although walnut was presumably used for food, it was apparently not a staple, as were hickory and acorn. Black walnut is not as abundant today in Piedmont forests as are oak and hickory (Moore 1973; Moore and Wood 1976) and conditions were probably similar in the recent past. Lawson does not mention walnut as a native food, so presumably he did not encounter it in this context, or did not note its use.