QUAD, Soday and Cambron (Cambron and Waters, 1959a): A-73
GENERAL DESCRIPTION: The Quad is a medium sized, broad, unfluted or fluted, point with an expanded-rounded, auriculate hafting area.
MEASUREMENTS: Fifty-one examples from thirty-one sites in the Tennessee River Valley (Soday and Cambron, n. d.) provided the following measurements: unfluted points—maximum length, 86 mm.; minimum length, 47 mm.; average length, 57 mm.; average width, 23 mm.; average thickness, 7 mm.: fluted points—maximum length, 79 mm.; minimum length, 39 mm.; average length, 52 mm.; width, 24 mm.; average thickness, 7 mm. The illustrated example provided the following measurements: length, 60 mm.; width at base, 31 mm.; width of blade above hafting area, 29 mm.; width of hafting constriction, 28 mm.; depth of basal concavity, 7 mm.
FORM: The cross-section may be flattened or biconvex. Blade edges above the hafting area are convex. The distal end is acute. The auriculate hafting area is expanded-rounded with a hafting constriction along the side edges near the auricles. The base is incurvate and may be thinned or fluted. Hafting area edges are usually ground, especially the constriction.
FLAKING: Flaking on the faces is usually random but may be collateral. Retouch with short, fairly deep flaking, is usual on all edges. Because of the thinness of these points, fluted examples have short flutes similar to the Clovis points.
COMMENTS: The type was named from points found on and near the Quad Site (Soday, 1954) in Limestone County, Alabama. The illustrated example is from Cambron Site 76 (Pine Tree) near the Quad Site. The unfluted variant was described by Bell (1960), and he suggests a date of some portion of the period from 8000 B. C. to 4000 B. C. He illustrates examples from Tennessee and Ohio. An unfluted example was found in Level 11 at the University of Alabama Site Ms 201 in Marshall County, Alabama, in the same stratum as Wheeler, Paint Rock Valley, Cumberland, Dalton, and other points. An example from Flint Creek Rock Shelter (Cambron and Waters, 1961) was recovered in pre-Archaic Stratum III along with a Beaver Lake point. A Quad-like point was recovered from the Quad Site in the same stratum as a fluted midsection, Dalton, and Big Sandy I points (Cambron and Hulse, 1960a). Coe (1959) found similar points associated with Daltons on the lower levels of the Hardaway Site in Piedmont, North Carolina. The above evidence and surface associations indicate a transitional Paleo association with an age of 10,000 years ago or more.