Summer 2007
Excavations at the Charles Church Rockshelter in Valle Crucis produced evidence of human use of the site for ritual and occasional residence from recent times back to about 8,000 BC.
The evidence recovered and observed to date provides a better understanding of the local prehistoric cultural sequence, human adaptation to and use of the upland region, and coincident climatic and environmental change. Porcupine skeletal remains recovered from deposits of various ages on the site may represent the first documented evidence of porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum) in North Carolina.