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Peter P Cooper II Memorial Page

This page is in memory and honor of Peter P. Cooper II. Mr. Cooper was a registered professional archaeologist, who was well published on the archaeology of Virginia and the surrounding region. In the 1970's and early 80's he was a professor at Catawba College located in Salisbury NC. Bill Earnhardt meet him in the early 70's and although Mr. Cooper was not a flintknapper himself, he encouraged Bill and became instrumental in Bill's early progression in the art of flintknapping. Mr. Cooper gave Bill numerous publications on flintknapping such as Plains Anthropolgist by George Faison, An Introduction to Flintknapping by Don Crabtree and literature Mr. Cooper himself had written for his Catawba College classes. Mr. Cooper encouraged Bill to keep notes of all his flintknapping endeavors which lead to several notebooks full of notes by Bill.  One must remember in those days there was no internet enabling a person to make contact with other flintknappers. At that time, Bill had never meet another knapper and didn't until meeting Robbie Robinson in the early 80's.

In the mid 70's, Mr. Cooper started bringing his students to Bill's house for Bill to put on flintknapping demonstrations for them.

He did many archaeological digs in North Carolina, which Bill would help him with on occasion. I actually went to one of Mr. Coopers digs myself when i was probably 10 years old.(late 70's).

Bill's first piece of Obsidian was given to him by Mr. Cooper. Up until that time Bill had only worked the local North Carolina stone of Rhyolite. I was actually there at Catawba College on this occasion. I still remember seeing the chunk of obsidian for the first time and my father's face when Mr. Cooper gave it to him. To us, at the time, it was like seeing a chunk of gold.

Mr. Cooper named an actual artifact type point, he named it "Rowan" which was the county Catawba county is located in and the county Bill lived in as well. The Rowan point type can be found in the Piedmont areas of North and South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia. There are pictures of it and history of the Rowan point and information on Mr. Cooper at Link

Sadly, Mr. Cooper died at the young age of 56 in the mid 1980's from cancer. Bill is forever grateful for the encouragement and help Mr. Cooper gave him.

Below are pictures of Mr. Cooper and a replica of the Rowan point that Bill made in his honor and copies of literature and notes that Mr. Cooper gave to Bill.

Article written by Dwayne Earnhardt

 

 

Picture of Mr. Cooper and back side of picture.

 

Pictures of one of the publications Mr. Cooper gave to Bill as well as a note he wrote on the inside of the cover and another note of encouragement.

The Rowan replica point Bill made in honor of Mr. Cooper.