The Carbaugh Run Rhyolite Quarry Site is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

in Franklin Township, Adams County,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It is composed of two smaller sites: a group of small

quarries A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their environ ...

on top of Snaggy Ridge, and the remnants of what may have been a campsite along Carbaugh Run below the ridge. Since their discovery by Norman Keefer in the 1920s, the quarries have been examined informally by a wide range of archaeologists, but no formal study of the site has been conducted. Several other prehistoric quarries are located in the area; it is one of three known quarries along South Mountain alone. The site has been rated as one of Pennsylvania's leading

rhyolite Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The mineral ...

quarries: with forty or more pits, it is one of the largest rhyolite quarry sites in the state. It is believed that the stone still present at the site can be used to determine the origins of rhyolite found in other sites statewide, thus providing clues about trade networks during the period that the quarries were worked. Also significant is the potential connection between the quarries and the streamside site, which may reveal evidence of settlement patterns in the region. In 1986, the Carbaugh Run Rhyolite Quarry Site was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

for its archaeological significance.

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Further reading