Is this Upper Mercer/Coshocton Flint?

petsnazspetsnaz

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Feb 24, 2013
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Manitoba, Canada
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I found this biface and was wondering if there is anyone who would know what material it is. I was told on another site that it might be a mercer or zaleski chert from Ohio. I have been researching upper mercer flint on google and I am finding examples that look quite similar.

If it is upper mercer flint, the really cool part would be that this biface was found in southwestern Manitoba in Canada. About 1,300 miles from the source in Ohio.

I have attached some pictures that show the material under various lighting. Its very glossy material and so its hard to get a clear picture of it. Hopefully somebody will be able to identify it!
 

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Nice artifact. Most of mine is black that I find but a lot of different types here.
 

Nice piece!Looks like you have allot of field to hunt there.
 

Can we some of your local finds? Id be interested as to what your normal lithic looks like. Thanks
 

Here are some examples of Coshocton and Zaleski. I don't think yours is Coshocton because I don;t see any Fossil Inclusions or "lightning" streaks from Quartz veins in the material. The first four pics are all Coshocton. The next three pics show piece made from Zaleski which is a very glossy and waxy black Flint with little or no inclusions. It rare to find inclusions in it at all. The last pic of the tray has a Zaleski piece in the top left corner and all of the others are varieties of Coshocton including the bluish Upper Mercer variety that is in the lower left corner. Yours may be Zaleski because it was a highly prized material could have been traded that far, but it may be just a type of glossy black material found closer to you.
 

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Rock, here are some pictures of the material we find up here. The first pic shows fused shale on the left and tongue river silica on the right- not the most common materials I've seen.
The second shows a few points mostly made from Swan River Chert- it is the most common material here. its overall poor quality to work with but it is the most accessible so thats why it is used so much. It's comes in a variety of colours and qualities depending on if it was heat treated properly.
Third pic is knife river flint from North Dakota which is the second most common material here and

last pic is porcelinite - not common but bot unheard of here.
 

Nice pieces thanks for the view.
 

I go along with Reaper, it is hard to tell with just a photo, but a prized piece of stone they would go along way for it. It is not heard of stone going that distance, it happened all the time this far south in Ms.
 

I seriously doubt it. There is black chert flint throughout much of the continent, from Mexico to Canuckland that highly resembles Mercer & Zaleski...but isn't. Even our Redbird (Bayou Menard) chert here in Oklahoma is a dead ringer for it.
 

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