quartz
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breakin' rocks in the hot sun
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Post by quartz on Jun 27, 2013 23:59:35 GMT -5
Likely all the "knapping factories" we have run across were long since hunted out of anything readily identifiable, but an archeologist friend has been having a good time looking at the chips. Looking at the remnants, he and a few peers figure these sites date from about 800 yrs. ago clear back to the first humans in the area, about 13k yrs. How they can tell this is beyond me, or maybe they are good convincers. The material is solid quartz, lots of it in the area, colors from white to some really nice mottled stuff having greens ,reds, and a little yellow in it. The area seems to have an overstock of rattlesnakes too, especially in the wet areas; we generally stay up higher.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jun 28, 2013 10:23:35 GMT -5
Here is a quote from British explorer William Bartram about 1765 probably talking to native American about Savannah River chert quarries. Bartram hung w/the ancients. Watched them shoot a rabbit in the eye at 20 paces w/a tiny bow and arrow, etc, etc.In the same paragraph he describes them as 'parti-colored stones'. "I observed[,] rideing over A rint of A hill[,], prodigious numbers of flints[, of as many dimentions asshapes[,J &many great rocks of good flint A little above y common surface[.] I admired at first how thay came to be broke into various shapes[ ,] most of them with A smooth polish: I asked one that rode A mile with us if he had not often found in ye fields Indian arrow JOints & flint knives &hatchets: I was answered[,["]very frequently : this accounted for ye numbers that lay scattered on ye surface[,] which did not immediately answer thair purpose[.] but A gentleman observed to me another cause which seemed alIso probable[:] that iS~-,] thair fires in ye woods[,] which thay set in 1 spring to burn up ye leaves & combus~ible matterL,] which heats ye mass of flints near y surface:". Quote by John Bartram Diary of a Journey Through the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida From July 1, 1765 to April 10, 1766 ii And this is the debris I picked up and tumbled as found in a small ancient camp of 4 acres: www.flickr.com/photos/67205364@N06/sets/72157632569773602/
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jun 28, 2013 10:47:52 GMT -5
Oh Larry, forgot to mention, just took a pack of vacuum sealed(in water) rocks out of the freezer. Will let them dry in the sun to see how easy the fractures are to finish breaking thru. Non broke from the freeze alone,darnit.
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Post by Pat on Jun 28, 2013 11:15:19 GMT -5
James, would cracking occur if you immediately plunged your frozen rocks into hot water?
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jun 28, 2013 11:29:05 GMT -5
Yes Pat. They look like hot glass that was cast into water
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quartz
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breakin' rocks in the hot sun
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Post by quartz on Jun 28, 2013 23:19:10 GMT -5
Some nice mtl. you found. The one on the eighth row with the vivid band is really special. From what you quoted, I wonder if the burning had something to do with the color, something like your coral treating. It's likely hard to tell if a vacuum actually replaced air in a crack w/water. Have you a container you could put some rocks and water in and put some pressure to it; trying it the other way around? Larry
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jun 29, 2013 7:07:54 GMT -5
The coral is found in the river and rarely effected by forest fire. On the other hand, this material is scattered as float thru the pine forest and our pines like under story fires to kill competitive brush. Brush fires are common an often intentional for healthy pines 'crops'.
Much of this stuff is cooked by forest fire you are right. Probably 95% is over cooked and full of fractures. Easy to spot over heat, the exaggerated colors alone will tell you. But when you come up to topo that is flat and above a creek and the ground is covered with chips like in the photo set, you know these were cooked in a controlled situation. Plus you will find clay pottery shards and at least a broken projectile or chips that are typical of making stone tools(high speed impacted, real thin).
The 4 acre camp above was timbered and the deep disc plowed lifting the ancients goodies up and out from below the forest fire damaged top layer. Collecting chips and cores from camps is where I get a lot of my tumbling stock. They broke some hi grade stuff down for their use and I am collecting their leftovers. I can never find hi grade like they could. The source could have been passed down 10-20 generations. Great great great great great grandfather may have told grandson to dig from the red/yellow vein at ?<&%$ creek bend found 1000 years before that. Savannah River chert has been collected for years by lapidary folks. They all get hillside stuff-boulders-and break it down. Well, you can look at google images and I bet you will not see much as colorful as that stuff in those photos above. That pumps me up when old school lapidary guy says 'where did you find those!?'.And can I go with you?:)I have had 4 local guys ask me where I found those. One of them was there last weekend from Florida and I gave him directions so he and his wife could fill buckets. I collected those this winter, but the black berries were starting 2nd season so I went twice to clean out as much as I could. This fellow was getting torn up by thorns.
I have heat treated coral and this agate in sand with a wood fire. Two hours per 100 degrees up to 550-650 is as fast as you want to go or you will fracture your hard earned rocks. ALMOST EVERYTIME, a wind comes up and blows the fire up way too hot, way to fast. I gave up and went to control of electric oven. Rock down in the sand deep under a real hot forest fire can be nicely heat treated, but it is a narrow band.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jun 29, 2013 7:16:11 GMT -5
Likely all the "knapping factories" we have run across were long since hunted out of anything readily identifiable, but an archeologist friend has been having a good time looking at the chips. Read more: forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/thread/60598/reduced-fossilized-coral-tumbling-treating?page=3#ixzz2XbfH6eMKWhat did you guys conclude about these knapping areas? Our chert /flint outcrops are few and far between and were heavily mined by ancient folks. Out west it seems like you have flints/agates everywhere. Do you think they heat treated?
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quartz
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breakin' rocks in the hot sun
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Post by quartz on Jun 29, 2013 22:09:19 GMT -5
I didn't hear of any thing other than the supposed age of the sites, and one shared thought is that the people were probably knapping points while watching for potential dinner to come within range. This conclusion because of small chipping sites generally located at good observation sites. Heat treated, doubtful, the chips look like the raw material found in the area. One thing odd to us, we haven't found any obsidian chips there, yet we found a mahogony obsidian point west of McDermitt, Nev. The McDermitt site roughly twice as far from Glass Butte [the only place the mahogany is found around here] as our chipping factory site collecting area.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jun 30, 2013 8:38:42 GMT -5
Totally interesting. The chips are an information trail. Universal language.
I will enter a clear cut of 100-1000 acres and drive the logging road w/window down and spot chips.
That is how I find spot to collect. In every case the camps are on a flat rise above flood level lose to creek. And rivers.
Florida's flat topography and rock swallowing sand make this method useless though.
Ridges have small vantage sites with micro chip piles. Good observation sites as you mentioned(and common travel route).
I can not imagine an obsidian mine. I see you are aware of the locations of certain materials. It's like forensics. Blood splatter:>
I am not sure why they heat coastal cherts and coral. I need to send you some. The sharp stuff. Pm your address if you want to play w/some.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2013 18:03:19 GMT -5
Take him up on it. He loves to share and the material is unique!
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quartz
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breakin' rocks in the hot sun
Member since February 2010
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Post by quartz on Jul 2, 2013 1:17:51 GMT -5
You bet I am, what I have to do is figure out what we have in Oregon that he will like in trade. This offer, to us, is a great opportunity to get a piece of mtl. very new to us, and it is a really special rock.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jul 2, 2013 5:41:30 GMT -5
Scott is right. When I get back I will send you some Larry.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2013 12:26:43 GMT -5
Oh Larry, forgot to mention, just took a pack of vacuum sealed(in water) rocks out of the freezer. Will let them dry in the sun to see how easy the fractures are to finish breaking thru. Non broke from the freeze alone,darnit. Might need to freeze thaw a few hundred times to get the effect. Freeze all night take out all day, every day for a year. That will simulate years of winters.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jul 2, 2013 12:40:34 GMT -5
Scott, i was hoping vacuum would draw water in deeper(than nature). I have not tried to help the fractures along yet.
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