Quarry Albemarle-Nelson

Figure 3, Chondrite-normalized rare earth element patterns of soapstone samples from quarries in the Mbe-marle-Nelson County regions of Virginia and in Crete. For the Albemarh-Nelson quarries f — the two lines give the range of 12 samples analyzed, and for the Crete samples (O — O) the two lines define the range of 19 samples. Two artifacts made of soapstone from the Albemarle-Nelson quarries are shown. One — M) is a pot from a habitation site in Cherokee County, NC and the other (A-- A) a pot from a habitation site near the quarry in Buckingham County, VA.

An example of this last point is a comparison between the utilization of the Albemarle-Nelson quarries and of the Chula quarry (Figure 7). Although the Chula outcrop is small, it was utilized quite extensively east of the fall line. 

County (the former north and the latter south of the Albemarle-Nelson outcrops but along the Blue Ridge Mountains) appear to have been utilized in a manner very similar to that of the Albemarle-Nelson quarries. In other words the artifacts were found south and west of the quarries. On the other hand, artifacts from quarries in Northern Virginia near Washington, D.C. were distributed more like the Chula materials (Figure 8). 

Figure 5. Chondrite-normalized REE patterns for some soapstone outcrops along the eastern U,S. Piedmont. The source is indicated by the abbreviation of the state. The Md. sample is from Ednor quarry, Montgomery County, MD Va. is from the Albemarle-Nelson County, VA quarry Pa. (A) and (B) are representative of the two types of samples from outcrops in Lancaster and Chester Counties, PA N.C. is from an outcrop in Watuga County, NC R.L is from Oaklawn, RI and Mass, is from Westfield, Mass.

Figure 7. (bottom) Utilization of soapstone or steatite trade in Virginia, Soap-stone from extensive exposures in Albemarle-Nelson Counties ( ) were found in over half of the habitation sites (O) in Virginia, most of them west of the fall line. The Madison County quarry (A) was used less extensively but in the same area, A relatively small outcrop near Chula ( ) was used extensively, being found primarily in habitation sites (O) of the fall line. Other samples in this region came from northern Virginia ( ) and Pennsylvania (X),... 

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