Old jaspers and new jaspers, need ID

[smokeythecat]

The first picture is of a tool I found along the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay in 1970. It is hand sized and is a chopper or hand ax or such. It is a brown jasper that does not seem to have been heat treated. The second picture is a piece of Pennsylvania Vera Cruz jasper I found about 6 weeks ago. The color is totally different, although it's hard to tell in these pictures which were taken inside. The third piece is a piece of the Newark (Delaware) jasper, recently collected. It also is a different color.

So my question is this? Where did the material for the first piece originate? Ideas? Thanks.

 

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[arrow86]

The Chesapeake bay was around back than ?? Lol sorry I had too ... those are all nice jaspers and of particular interest to me cause all of those places are local to me , iv always been told that all the jasper I find along the eastern shore in Maryland originated in PA from the only natural jasper quarry within a few hundred miles and was traded and carried from there. The only one I know about you mentioned (Vera Cruz) in Emmaus , PA
The 3rd piece you showed is odd looking I wonder if all the iron deposits in Newark, DE may have played a roll in that

 

[smokeythecat]

Yes, that's where it came from. And yes, the Chesapeake Bay was around in 1970. Where the first piece was found now sits a Home Depot. I tend to take pictures of historical markers and have for years. Here's the one from Newark.

On this side of the bay, we have very little brown jasper, most artifacts are made of white quartz, Delaware River black chert, which probably came down from NY, rhyolite which comes from near Three Mile Island, argellite which I don't know where they got that and I have a couple pieces of Onondaga chert from NY and Flint Ridge flint, from Ohio.

The bigger tools are either a hard mudstone of some kind, or more likely for hammerstones, hard quartz and for axes, granite.

 

[arrow86]

Yeah I grew up not far from iron hill (Rising Sun, MD) and still work around there in Elkton, MD. Do you make it up that way often ?

 

[smokeythecat]

Was up there today looking for antique stores. I only found one and they didn't have much of any interest. I do not collect up there, however. Too many places, not enough time.

 

[ptsofnc]

Here is an interesting youtube video about the Brook Run archeological site in VA where a jasper quarry was discovered. .
I've only found about 3-4 pieces of jasper in my life in my area (piedmont NC).

 

[smokeythecat]

I'll have to see if I can find a good close up of that kind of jasper. The museum curator I talked to today did notice something I hadn't, and that is the first brown piece is made right handed. She was dead on. I doesn't "fit" well in the left hand. We agreed there was a decent probability it is paleo.

 

[Mudflap]

Cool video!

 

[smokeythecat]

BTW all three pieces are each as big as my hand. AND...there is similar looking material that has come out of the Paleo Indian site halfway between Front Royal, and Limeton, VA.

 

[uniface]

Pennsylvania jasper ranges, along one continuum, from pale yellow through yellow orange to milk chocolate to dark chocolate.

Heated, these same run from pink through indian red to bruise-colored purple.

Complicating this is the amount of grey present. This can make these a colors greyish and less appealing.

And if you want the very extremes, white to black (basinite -- once mined for sale as touchstone to goldsmiths).

Then again, some of it is mottled with black or muti-colored.

You'd need a big tray of samples to cover it all.

There were, incidentally, a large number of jasper mining pits at one time all over Berks & Lehigh Counties. The industrious German farmers who settled the area filled them in.

FWIW

 

[uniface]

Should have specified that the above is Eastern Penna. jasper. There's also a brown, chertier-looking jasper (Houserville-/Bald Eagle Jasper) from Centre County. Also very good stuff, but never glossy as Eastern stuff sometimes is.

 

[redbeardrelics]

Yes, that's where it came from. And yes, the Chesapeake Bay was around in 1970. Where the first piece was found now sits a Home Depot. View attachment 1731209 I tend to take pictures of historical markers and have for years. Here's the one from Newark.

On this side of the bay, we have very little brown jasper, most artifacts are made of white quartz, Delaware River black chert, which probably came down from NY, rhyolite which comes from near Three Mile Island, argellite which I don't know where they got that and I have a couple pieces of Onondaga chert from NY and Flint Ridge flint, from Ohio.

The bigger tools are either a hard mudstone of some kind, or more likely for hammerstones, hard quartz and for axes, granite.

I can't add much regarding the origins of any of your 3 jasper items. I grew up on the western shore, in Harford County, and came across very little jasper while surface hunting there. I surface hunted once in about 1979 with a school friend at a large site in Edgewood, on the Otter Creek branch of Bush River, where there now sits a Home Depot. A friends' father told us boys in the 1960's that people had found a lot of arrowheads there when it was still a field. Is this the same spot your referenced?
We find a lot of jasper points and tools over here on the eastern shore. A large portion of them still retain areas of cortex indicating the artifacts were made from jasper cobbles washed down via the ancestral Susquehanna & Delaware rivers. Occasionally I'll find a larger item made from jasper with no cortex remaining, and assume it may have been a piece quarried from northern Delaware or southeastern PA, but have no clue how to identify which quarry produced which material?

 

[smokeythecat]

Yup, it came from where the Home Depot sits. I never found an arrowhead at that place. We had permission from the farmer who owned it back then, maybe 1970 or so. We'd talk to him occasionally back then and even then he had problems with people (young folks) leaving trash in his field and was considering selling the property way back then.

I kinda think it's the Berk County (Vera Cruz) jasper. I may try a trip down to Front Royal to get a sample in the future. OR not, it's a pretty long way.

 

[Huzzah!]

Here is an interesting youtube video about the Brook Run archeological site in VA where a jasper quarry was discovered. .
I've only found about 3-4 pieces of jasper in my life in my area (piedmont NC).

Ditto.

I've found a decent amount of jasper in the creeks and fields of Central Va.

 

[redbeardrelics]

Yup, it came from where the Home Depot sits. I never found an arrowhead at that place. We had permission from the farmer who owned it back then, maybe 1970 or so. We'd talk to him occasionally back then and even then he had problems with people (young folks) leaving trash in his field and was considering selling the property way back then.

I kinda think it's the Berk County (Vera Cruz) jasper. I may try a trip down to Front Royal to get a sample in the future. OR not, it's a pretty long way.

Small world...I only found one small quartz point the time lone time I hunted there. The townhouse development was already being built then around the Home Depot site, and all that was left to hunt was the area still being tilled back away from RT. 40, and closer to the creek. I remember that the dog flies were so bad that day they chased us out of there sooner than we would have liked. The school friend was just getting interested in hunting arrowheads, and had been there a few times and found a few things, but I never got to see what he found.
Between where the Home Depot sets, and RT. 40 would have been an interesting place to metal detect (and may still be), that is roughly where William Paca, a Signer of the Declaration of Independence grew up. There was still some brick rubble there where the homesite was when we snooped around, but we did not have metal detectors back then.

 

[Toecutter]

here is a few pieces iv found and thought to be jasper, i havent posted on these or had anyone look at them, i found them in a field that has produced alot of artifacts.. Thumb of Michigan

 

[smokeythecat]

Yes, that sure looks like jasper to me.

 

[Huzzah!]

Funny thing.

A few days ago I was walking a small, flat ridge at a place I often go and found this big chunk of rock that caught my attention. It was caked in mud and I was carrying a few other items, so I just sat it down as a marker in the field of where I left off. This morning I'm out there and notice the rock was clean--must have rained. Closer inspection revealed it to be a nice chunk of jasper bigger than a Coke can! Biggest piece I've found out there.

 

[theviking]

BTW all three pieces are each as big as my hand. AND...there is similar looking material that has come out of the Paleo Indian site halfway between Front Royal, and Limeton, VA.

. I live in the area if you would like to see a few examples.

 

[monsterrack]

We have jasper all the way down in South West MS. We have red, brown and a purple reddish, but it is all river gravel brought down by ancient rivers and deposited in very thick layers.