KNAPPED slate????

[cgode]

Anyone have examples of knapped slate....I know it is usually ground but I understand there are examples of actual knapping but are fairly uncommon.anyone have one?
I'll try and post a pic of one I have a little later.

[Butch Wilson]

cgode wrote:

Anyone have examples of knapped slate....I know it is usually ground but I understand there are examples of actual knapping but are fairly uncommon.anyone have one?
I'll try and post a pic of one I have a little later.

I only got one, I found this in Columbia SC in 1964. I believe it's called a Stallings Island Slate Point. They didn't have to do much work on this one.
Butch


  If it were made from some other material it would be your garden variety Savannah River.

[cgode]

Thanks Butch, can you imagine knapping this stuff?......I thought quartz was hard to work, but slate.....what a way to have to live!
Here's one I found recently on the Connecticut shore, a broken tip of some type....probably a knife maybe.

[Butch Wilson]

Yep, I imagine it took a steady hand, I guess they found material the correct thickness then carefully shaped it to the desired point. Hadda be tough to do. I imagine it would be extremely sharp, but just for a little while. Nice point tip ya got there, your's and one other pix are the only other ones I have  ever seen.
Butch

[CMD]

Butch, I like that point.  The slate is very similar looking to argillite, a lithic here in southern New England. Even the same shade as the argillite points we find where I live in RI.  Chris, the tip you found is actually made of argillite.  The most common shades are blue-grey and greenish-grey. I've seen argillite described as "clay slate" and it certainly is close enough to call slate, IMO, but "true" slate will easily break in cleavage planes which I'm just guessing would make it really hard to knapp. Anyway, next to quartz, argillite is the most common lithic in my particular slice of New England.  And you will find more of it where you are as well. Here's a couple from RI, a broad point resharpened as a perforator and a Wading River point
Charlie
Here's a couple I believe are brown argillite. As I understand it, if you apply more heat and pressure to argillite through eons of time, it becomes slate. Only 2 in a brown shade I've found, from same field in RI.

[cgode]

Thanks Charlie, this is the first artifact from this lithic material I have found so I wasn't sure what to call it....looked like slate, smelled like slate and tasted like....nevermind :blush: ........Argillite, new material for me to remember, thank you for your experience, I do have a lot to learn.

[CMD]

cgode wrote:

Thanks Charlie, this is the first artifact from this lithic material I have found so I wasn't sure what to call it....looked like slate, smelled like slate and tasted like....nevermind :blush: ........Argillite, new material for me to remember, thank you for your experience, I do have a lot to learn.

Chris, even the most experienced among us has a lot to learn in relation to all there is to know in this hobby/passion.  I'm sure I'll always have more questions then answers.
But if I do have the answer, only to happy to share!
Charlie

[Butch Wilson]

Charlie, I don't know a lot about geology. These points have been typed a Stallings Island Slate Points. Is that a misnomer ?
Butch

[CMD]

Butch Wilson wrote:

Charlie, I don't know a lot about geology. These points have been typed a Stallings Island Slate Points. Is that a misnomer ?
Butch

  Butch, I assumed a couple of things.  I figured the material you were showing was local/regional to the Carolinas and not 100% identical to New England argillite.
And 2nd, because you've been looking at the ground where you live for 50 years, you know your regional stuff better then I ever will, and therefore if it's not a misnomer to you, it sure isn't to me Maybe your point is made of a type of argillite but I don't have your area knowledge base to judge that.  I just thought it looked so much like the argillite we find here. Stallings Island Slate Point works for me!
Charlie

[Butch Wilson]

Thanks Charlie, I guess I'll call it that, that's a heck of a lot easier for a Southern Country Boy to say than Argillite ! Thanks for your help.
Butch

[RyanVa]

Here's a slate celt I found earlier this year. It has reduction style percussion knapping like you'd typically see on chert or flint. I have seen a few knives made of slate , some ground to an edge, and others were flaked. I'm pretty sure I have an example or two. If I locate them I'll picture and post them here.

[Hoss]

Some nice stuff in this thread. I sometimes will try this type in Chipped or Knapped Slate artifacts or points arrowheads whatever fits spears. Type what your looking for like this into the google search box "Chipped Slate Spear Point from New England" and then press the images tab
You can do the same thing with Rhode Island Argellite Spear Point or Projectile Point and press images you will get a ton of results and sometimes it will show you something very similar to what you are holding right in your hand.
Charlie I like the Rhode Island stuff Neighbor I am in Western CT Housatonic River Valley Area

[greywolf22]

Gcode -and- Butch
Thanks for the education on slate.
Jack

[CMD]

Matt, thanks.  Yes, google's a good friend, and I do like the image tab.
Charlie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argillite

One of the beaches we walk has both a lot of argillite flakes, usually green argillite, and a lot of flagstone fragments from homes that once lined the beach.  When the flagstone is green, it often grabs my eye and fools me, but flagstone is slate, not argillite.
Am I splittin hairs? Probably. But not from geology's perspective.
Add pressure plus time and:
sand becomes sandstone
mud becomes shale
silt and clay become siltstone
Add heat, pressure and time and:
sandstone becomes quartzite
shale becomes slate becomes schist
siltstone becomes argillite becomes slate becomes phylite becomes schist.
In short, argillite has just been "cooked" a little less then slate and the grain size is a bit bigger then in quarried slate, such as flagstone. They look very much alike, but, there is a differance as described above. Freshly broken surfaces of patinated New England argillite are jet black, just like the argillite called "black slate" out West. And every collector I've known from southern New England, and there have been many, refers to the material Chris's tip is made from as argillite.  That's the convention in this region by pros and amateurs alike, regardless of the convention elsewhere in other regions. Much of the argillite found at sites in southeastern New England was obtained by the natives in quarries on Conanicut Island, across from Newport and at the entrance to Narragansett Bay. And it can be found as glacial cobbles as well. And that's the end of this "education on argillite".

[Butch Wilson]

From "indian Arrowheads And Spearheads In The Carolinas, A Field Guide" Bert Bierer

I think the point I have is true slate, it sure is a thin slab