Archaeology Wordsmith

Results for chert:

chert: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: hornstone, phthanite
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A coarse type of siliceous (silica) rock, a form of quartz, used for the manufacture of stone tools where flint was not available. It is of poorer quality than flint, formed from ancient ocean sediments and often has a semi-glassy finish. It is pinkish, white, brown, gray, or blue-gray in color. Flint, chert, and other siliceous rocks like obsidian are very hard, and produce a razor-sharp edge when properly flaked into tools. This crystalline form of the mineral silica is found as nodules in limestones. Varieties of chert are jasper, chalcedony, agate, flint, and novaculite. Chert and flint provided the main source of tools and weapons for Stone Age man.
flint: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: chert, firestone
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A type of hard stone, often gray in color, found in rounded nodules and usually covered with a white incrustation. A member of the chalcedony group of water-bearing silica minerals, it was found from early use to fracture conchoidally and was ideal for making stone tools with sharp edges. It is chemically a quartz, but has a different microcrystalline structure. It can therefore be flaked readily in any direction and so shaped to many useful forms. It occurs widely, and where available was the basic material for man's tools until the advent of metal; it is commonest 'stone' of the Stone Age. The only types of stone preferred to it were obsidian and the tougher rocks used for ground tools in the Neolithic. The term is often used interchangeably with chert and also as a generic term denoting stone tools in the Old World. Nodules of flint occur commonly as seams in the upper and middle chalk of northwest Europe. During the Neolithic and Copper Age of Europe, flint workers recognized that flint from beds below ground were of superior quality to surface flint, especially for the manufacture of large tools such as axes. These beds were exploited by sinking shafts and then excavating galleries outwards. Flint mines are known from many areas of Europe and good examples occur in Poland (Krzemionki), Holland, Belgium (Spiennes) and England (Grimes Graves).
opaline: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: chalcedony, chert, agate
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A fine-grained siliceous rock type widely used for stone artifact manufacture in the southern African Stone Age
Amri: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A site in the Indus Valley in Pakistan, probably dating to the early 3rd millennium. It was the first site to be recognized as belonging to the Early Harappan Period when excavated by Majumdar in 1929. Its name has been given to a style of hand- and wheel-made painted pottery found in its Chalcolithic levels and on tells over much of Sind and up into the hills of Baluchistan. These tall globular beakers of fine buff ware are painted with geometric designs in black between red horizontal bands. Chert and some copper were used for tools and the architecture was in mud-brick. Fractional burial was the practice for the dead. Periods I and II represent the pre-Harappan settlement of agricultural farmers, who kept cattle, sheep, goat and donkey, but also hunted (or herded) gazelle. In the later part of Period II Harappan ceramics appear alongside Amri wares; Period III represents a full mature Harappan occupation. The culture was gradually succeeded by that of the Indus civilization. The uppermost levels contained Jhukar and Jhangar material.
Ayacucho complex: CATEGORY: culture; site
DEFINITION: A valley in southern Peru, north of the city of Ayacucho, with a series of caves -- notably Pikimachay (Flea) Cave and Jayamachay (Pepper) Cave -- which were the site of a complex of unifacial chipped tools (basalt and chert core tools, choppers, unifacial projectile points) and bone artifacts (horse, camel, giant sloth) dating between 15,000-11,000 BC. A human presence has been suggested in the Ayacucho Basin at that time, which would correspond with the first wave" of immigrants to the New World. Succeeding levels contain burins blades fishtail points and manos and metates. Gourds squash cotton lucuma and seed plants such as quinoa and amaranth were cultivated in the Ayacucho Basin before 3000 BC; corn and beans within the next millennium. There were also ground stone implements for milling seeds. It has been claimed that llamas and guinea pigs were domesticated within the complex. "
Bockstein: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A series of cave sites in Germany with artifacts and faunal remains of the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. Many Micoquian-style chert bifaces dated to the end of the last interglacial, plus Bockstein knives.
chalcedony: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: chalcedony
CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A fine-grained hard stone, a variety of the silica mineral quartz. A form of chert, it is found in a variety of milky or grayish colors with distinctive parallel bands of contrasting color. In antiquity, chalcedony was the stone most used by the gem engraver for beads, seals, and sometimes as a substitute for flint. The agate, carnelian, jasper, and onyx are some of the varieties still cut and polished as ornamental stones.
conchoidal: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: conchoidal fracture
CATEGORY: artifact; lithics
DEFINITION: A characteristic shell-like fracture pattern that occurs in siliceous rocks, such as obsidian, chert, and flint. The fracture has smooth shell-like convexities and concavities.
conchoidal fracture: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: conchoidal
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A characteristic shell-like fracture pattern that occurs in siliceous rocks, such as obsidian, chert, and flint. The fracture has smooth shell-like convexities and concavities.
Devil's Lair: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A limestone cave near the southwest coast of Western Australia, containing deep, well-preserved organic and stone deposits dating from 27,000-10,000 BC. It is one of the longest occupation sequences in Australia, with well-defined hearths and occupation floors and a rich faunal assemblage. The stone assemblage included cores, scrapers, denticulate flakes, retouched flakes, and adze flakes of chert or quartz. Undersea-drill cores from the nearby continental shelf have produced the same Eocene chert from a zone which would have been exposed during Pleistocene low sea-levels. Three unifacially incised limestone plaques (10,000-18,400 BC) and a piece of artificially perforated marl have been interpreted as ritual items or adornments. Bone tool artifacts included points dating to c 27,000 BC and beads of macropod (kangaroo/wallaby) fibulae between 13,000-10,000 BC, claimed to be the oldest known ornaments in Australia.
flintknapping: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: flint-knapping, knapping
CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: The technique of striking flakes or blades from a large flint stone (core or nucleus) and the shaping of cores and flakes into tools. The most commonly used stone was flint (chert), a hard, brittle stone, commonly found as nodules in limestone areas, that breaks with a conchoidal fracture. Flintknapping began with the simple striking of one stone against another. Later methods include the use of antler and wooden strikers for both direct and indirect percussion, and bone and antler pressure-flaking tools.
gorytos: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A sheath, combining quiver and bowcase, which was characteristic of the Scythians in the 6th-3rd centuries BC. Fancy ones, covered with golden plaques decorated with artistic relief scenes, are known from the Scythian Kurgans of the 4th century BC, such as Solokha and Chertomlyk. There is a depiction of a gorytos on the famous golden Scythian vase from the Kul'-oba kurgan.
heat treating: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: The process of baking a flint or chert nodule at a high temperature (350-500 degrees Fahrenheit) for 30-50 hours in order to increase the workability of the stone
Hoshino: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A Palaeolithic site in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan, with many cultural strata providing the stone tool chronology for the Kanto region. Tools, mostly of chert, were recovered from 13+ layers and choppers, scrapers, and flakes in the lowest layers are 40-50,000 bp according to radiocarbon and fission track ages of pumice beds between the layers. Blades and bifacial points in the top layers date to between 21,000-10,000 years ago. The dates are considerably older than most of the Japanese Palaeolithic sites, lending support to the idea that the archipelago was occupied in the Middle Pleistocene.
jasper: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A high-quality chert or agate often used as raw material for the manufacture of stone tools. It is an opaque, fine-grained or dense variety of the silica mineral that is mainly brick red to brownish red. Jasper has long been used for jewelry and ornamentation, has a dull luster but takes a fine polish. Its hardness and other physical properties are those of quartz.
Levanna projectile point: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: Levanna projectile points are usually associated with Late Woodland and Contact Period occupations in southern New England (ca. 700-300 Years B.P.). Common material types associated with this point include quartz, quartzite, hornfels, and basalt. Non-local cherts were also used in the manufacture of this point type. The Levanna point type is characterized by the equilateral triangular form and concave base.
Munsell Color Chart: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Munsell
CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A color identification system for sediment, soil, chert, pottery, and rock; an aid used in the physical examination and recording of objects where color is felt to be an essential or at least a significant aspect of the analysis. Devised by Albert H. Munsell, the three factors of hue, value, and chroma are taken into consideration, all rated on a scale of 0-10 and expressed quantitatively. Hue describes the colors of the spectrum present, value their concentration, and chroma their purity. The color of soil or, for example, pottery, can be matched in the chart and given a value, so that anyone with a similar set of charts can understand the exact color of the material. The method allows direct comparison of colors without physically moving the material, and is clearly preferable to the use of such subjective descriptions as 'reddish-brown' or 'yellowish-gray'. The charts are contained in a loose-leaf notebook with pages of hundreds of standardized color chips, each perforated with a hole through which the color of the soil or other material can be compared with the standard sample.
Munsell soil color charts: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Munsell Color Chart
CATEGORY: tool
DEFINITION: A color identification system for sediment, soil, chert, pottery, and rock; an aid used in the physical examination and recording of objects where color is felt to be an essential or at least a significant aspect of the analysis. Devised by Albert H. Munsell, the three factors of hue, value, and chroma are taken into consideration, all rated on a scale of 0-10 and expressed quantitatively. Hue describes the colors of the spectrum present, value their concentration, and chroma their purity. The color of soil or, for example, pottery, can be matched in the chart and given a value, so that anyone with a similar set of charts can understand the exact color of the material. The method allows direct comparison of colors without physically moving the material, and is clearly preferable to the use of such subjective descriptions as 'reddish-brown' or 'yellowish-gray'. The charts are contained in a loose-leaf notebook with pages of hundreds of standardized color chips, each perforated with a hole through which the color of the soil or other material can be compared with the standard sample.
nodule: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: A hard mass of mineral, usually rounded, found in various forms in soil created by the deposition of minerals from solution. The way nodules are formed can assist in palaeoenvironmental reconstruction and the age of the conditions under which they formed. Nodules are often elongate with a knobby irregular surface; they usually are oriented parallel to the bedding. Chert and flint often occur as dense and structureless nodules of nearly pure silica in limestone or chalk, where they seem to be replacements of the carbonate rock by silica.
Norton: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Norton tradition phase
CATEGORY: culture
DEFINITION: A series of Arctic Alaska cultures, mainly coastal, dating from c 500 BC-1100 AD, with the first pottery of the region. The Choris culture, the earliest manifestation, has pottery that is Asiatic in origin, fiber-tempered with linear- and check-stamp decoration. Sometimes designated Paleo-Eskimo, the Norton tradition embraces the cultural continuum Choris-Norton-Ipiutak. The Norton aspect of this continuum is typically represented by the presence of poorly fired, check-stamped pottery and tools of crude appearance, made from basalt rather than chert. Polished slate implements and oil lamps appear as well as points, tips, side blades; discoidal scraper bits, broad flat labrets, and toggling harpoon heads. Cape Denbigh, Cape Krusenstern and Onion Portage for example, all have a Norton component. The extent to which the Norton tradition was ancestral to any of the Eskimos is open to interpretation, though the Yup'ik Eskimo are likely descendants of Norton people.
prepared core: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A nodule of chert, flint, or obsidian which has been shaped to easily produce blades.
quartzite: CATEGORY: geology
DEFINITION: Metamorphic rock based on sandstone and consisting mostly of quartz; it is dense hard rock that fractures concoidally. Flaked tools were made of quartzite when there was no chert or flint and it was important for heavy monumental building stone. Pebbles of it were made into hammerstones and hand axes.
rind: CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: The deeply patinated or weathered surface of a nodule or other piece of stone, flint, chert or other material.
ripple: CATEGORY: lithics
DEFINITION: A wave-like undulation visible on flakes that result from transmission of a shock wave through glass or chert.
Santa Isabel Iztapán: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Two mammoth kill-sites in southeast Chiapas, Mexico, with human occupation dating to 9250 years ago. At one site, a skeleton was found scrapers, knives, and blades of flint and obsidian, as well as a stemmed projectile point of flint. The second mammoth site yielded a chert knife, a leaf-shaped point of flint, and a lanceolate point with a flat base. Similar kill sites were found at San Bartolo Atepehuacan, on the outskirts of Mexico City and at Tepexpan. The site is important as an indicator of the rapidity with which newly arrived (Asian) hunters dispersed southward. Stone tools of both the Big Game Hunting Tradition and the Old Cordilleran Tradition were found in the same levels, which is puzzling and infers a combination of hunting techniques were used.
Shriver: CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Woodland culture site in Missouri with a Folsom occupation and an assemblage of chert flaked tools (which are dated to 10,700-13,000 BP).
Tinkayu: SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Tinkayu
CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: Series of sites on the edge of a now-dry lake near the Madai Caves in eastern Sabah, Borneo. The pebble and flake industry produced many well-made bifacially flaked lanceolate knives and large tabular bifaces of chert -- of a kind previously unknown from Southeast Asia. They are dated c 28,000-17,000 BP.

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