A Pecking / Peening Question

[vonfatman]

Where we live the glaciers left their Till. Lots of that pretty Sioux Quartzite was
included. Lots!
Many of the quartzite tools look to have been pecked/peened into what they became.
Do these tools look pecked to you?
When was pecking /peening done? It seems that pressure flaking would be easier and faster, but I really do not know!

If someone asked me when were tools like that (quartzite tools in pics) made. What would I say to them?
Was there a period of time when pecking was the go-to method for hard rock tools.

Thanks!

vfm

 

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[releventchair]

I see no pecking.

Pecking is not for flint but rather material similar to yours.
Meaning the stuff you have pictured won't flake in a manner conductive to doing much with it.
But what you pictured can be worked. Ground . Pecked. Polished , ect..

Keep in mind a cutting tool needs to be harder than what is being cut.
Can you take a piece of your material and rub it against another to polish it? To shape it by reduction? I'm only guessing yes , both. One edge(end) on one of your narrow pieces almost looks shaped by abrasion.
IF you tried your material you'd erode the piece you are using to erode the/a other. Because of the type material. But more because of the cutting tool rule.

IF you had a harder piece of granite and tried to shape sandstone ; what would happen?
Abrading might keep from breaking the sandstone.
To put a ring around the granite by pecking to hold a folded sapling handle or place it in a live split limb for a couple years...Sandstone wouldn't work well for the pecking. But wouldn't break the sandstone.

So it's material type and characteristic that steer how a type is worked.
Flint is more like glass than chert. But chert is on the lower end of the scale (just brittle/hard enough) to work similar to flint.

Slate is not ideal for knapping. But can be polished (how?) really nice by the right hands using the right tools/surfaces.

pipestone.
Clayt.
Volcanic rock . Well that varies in type/character . Obsidian gets a yes vote for using similar to flint. And importantly, working like flint. Because of it's glass like character.

With patient study you can identify recognized styles of work.
Which allows you to research when.
Be conservative . And know folks still shape lithics.

Lithics Basics (Chapter 2) - Stone Tools in the Paleolithic and Neolithic Near East

Stone Tools in the Paleolithic and Neolithic Near East - February 2013

www.cambridge.org

 

[releventchair]

Lithic stage - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[releventchair]

List of archaeological periods (North America) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[vonfatman]

Thank you very much. With so much of this stuff (non-chert tools) I am very pleased with your help! I want to learn. Maybe my mouth will say less silly things!

vfm

 

[releventchair]

Thank you very much. With so much of this stuff (non-chert tools) I am very pleased with your help! I want to learn. Maybe my mouth will say less silly things!

vfm

Stuff was transported.
Some materials can be traced back to thier origins.
BUT. Folks tried to make do with what was at hand too.
Of all the different types of material , there was a preference among a given group of people in your area during a given time period. Than could even be a type of bone for example. And "good" stuff from elsewhere would have held interest...

I say silly things too.
And am no authority on stone tools.
Worked examples can be crude. And most are very nice! So obvious just by looking at them , I don't find them when looking on the gravel bars in the nearest river!

Someone handed me a large polished slate "spear head" to look over when I was a kid. It was shaped perfect. Perhaps it was a decorative or ceremonial knife. Could even have been a sacrifice to the river. Or better said , to what was in the river.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_panther

Just about any other relic I could eyeball got eyeballed as well. Or fondled given the chance.

 

[Older The Better]

Sioux quartzite was used, in my mind it was more for hammer stones, grinders, and such but I’ve never actually looked into it’s ability to hold an edge. I found a hunk buried in a site here in se Kansas about an hour from Oklahoma, glaciers never got this far so it must have had some value to transport it. For what it’s worth that site is early archaic and pushing transitional. Pics are the same piece

 

[ToddsPoint]

Quartzite is fairly easy to work by pecking and polishing. The only artifacts found here made of it are banner stones. It’s way too weak for axes or celts. They also used it to cook their food. They heated rocks in a fire then put the rock in a clay pot to heat water or food. Eventually the quartzite shatters from heat and quenching and is discarded. Habitation sites are usually littered with fire cracked rock, quartzite is common cracked like that.

 

[vonfatman]

Thanks so much folks. I will pull together a sampling of the tools that we see here made of S. Quartzite. The two uses we see the most are Hafted Front Scrapers (way and above the greatest number of pieces from a pencil sized hafting on up to large hafted agricultural tools like spades and hoes) & Grinding Platforms. I do not use the word Metate because most of these "platforms" are not large have be pecked to be smooth /level for "small" work etc. Who knows. Guessing is half the fun as to usage and the exact hafting used always drives me crazy. But hey, it is probably good for me to "stretch" my little brain!

vm