 The site is near a source of chert on private land in Martin owned by Clariant Corporation, a Swiss chemical company with a plant there.The site, named after John Topper, a local resident who discovered it, has been under excavation by archeologists from the University of South Carolina for about one month a year since 1999, after an initial exploratory dig in the mid-1980s.According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (1.0%) is water.