Graver?/Material?/Paleo?

[CMD]

Butch Wilson wrote:

Charlie,,I'm pretty sure it's a duck !

  Hmm. I was aiming for a nobler bird in my wild imagination

[gregszybala]

That chert looks real familiar. Maybe Ghost recon over at ology? Think he had posted a point or two looking for Id of material. Not sure though Charlie.
I keep looking at side B, nothing about it looks worked like side A, like a flake/spall. Chase's explanation of the area damaged by ice? or maybe fire pop? makes sense too.
Like the finds that make you scratch your head.

[CMD]

gregszybala wrote:

That chert looks real familiar. Maybe Ghost recon over at ology? Think he had posted a point or two looking for Id of material. Not sure though Charlie.
I keep looking at side B, nothing about it looks worked like side A, like a flake/spall. Chase's explanation of the area damaged by ice? or maybe fire pop? makes sense too.
Like the finds that make you scratch your head.

Thanks, Greg. Only place I see on side B is the spur itself, not sure. Could be a gunflint put to other use, I'm leaning that way at the moment for all the reasons chase first mentioned...

[Bone2stone]

Butch Wilson wrote:

Charlie,,I'm pretty sure it's a duck !

  A duck?
I see Boo Boo but no Yogi!!!
Jess B.

[painshill]

Charlie, I am very doubtful about that being a gunflint (even a re-used one) and if, it were I, further doubt it to be as early as 17th Century, or of English manufacture.
Early gunflints were most usually made by the “spall” technique and normally known as a “gunspall” rather than a “gunflint”. They don’t typically have that flatter area on top or show much precision in manufacture. Often, they have no flat surfaces at all. Gunflints made by the blade core technique certainly could have a flatter area on top (as well as a flat bottom) since they were made like this (by snapping sections from a blade code):

[Pic from “Making Your Own Gunflints” by Wyatt R Knapp]
The typical anatomy of a gunflint “commercially” made from a blade core is like this:

[Pic from Gunflints: A Study by Nancy Kenmotsu]
But, as a commercial technique it doesn’t appear until late 18th Century military gunflints from France and not long afterwards in British military gunflints. Earlier or home-made gunflints produced from blade cores might have a similar, but less precise morphology.
Generally, you can assign a gunflint to a weapon type by its width. It couldn’t be any wider than the hardware allowed and – although early weaponry was non-uniform and hand-made – the width of the flint was fairly specific to the weapon type. Thomas Hamilton’s study of gunflints suggested the following widths:
Pistols, or small trade guns - flints 34 mm
You can usually tell early British gunflints from French ones by the width and other morphological features. French gunflints tend to be slightly wider than they are long while British gunflints tend to be longer than they are wide. The British usually did not modify their gunflints after a blade segment of the correct size had been produced, although there may be secondary flaking on the sides. The French hand trimmed all of the edges except for the striking edge, and the heel was often flaked into “D-shape”. Incidentally, Native American gunflints (those they made themselves) were not produced from blade-cores. They used bifacial reduction, leading to profile that trends towards a teardrop shape.
Gunflints were held in place like this:

[Pic from Gunflints: A Study by Nancy Kenmotsu]
Repeated impact of the striking edge against the frizzen tended to drive the flint back into the capscrew causing crushing of the heel edge. That’s what creates the notch, with a diameter that ultimately broadly corresponds to the diameter of the screw. That notch on yours is on the opposing edge to what could have been the striking edge but it’s very large. It also looks more like a knapping feature rather than a crushing feature, I would suggest.
As for it being British flint, well we do have chert with that appearance but it wouldn’t have been used for gunflints. We’re knee-deep in extremely high quality true flint to the extent that no-one in their right minds would bother to make a gunflint from material with that kind of quality. Although a number of sources were exploited, the vast majority of British gunflints were made from what is known as “Brandon flint”. It’s usually dark grey or black, relatively opaque, and fine to medium grained. Other types used would also most usually be grey and opaque.
The primary sources for French gunflints were the Seine and Marne regions, where the flint is most usually translucent light yellow, blond, or honey-coloured with small whitish inclusions. Darker brown or grey approaching black is not unknown and sometimes there is a residual chalky white cortex present on the surface.
I would think what you have is local chert of some kind and it looks to be significantly weathered post-knapping (and therefore of much greater antiquity than guns).

[chase]

Thank you Roger!

[CMD]

Thanks, Roger. You are saying that broad notch, what Hoss thought might be a spokeshave, would have been the heel had it been a gunflint? And that it looks like it resulted from knapping? Also, can you tell me if the smaller grey example is a commercial gunflint, from that one photo, and therefore no earlier then late 18th century?  The dark colored gunflint, the one in good shape and I assume commercial,  is actually dark most amber colored and is translucent amber around it's edges. Would that be British?  Sorry to pepper you here, but I knew you'd have great input, and I thank you for it.
Assuming you are right about this piece not having begun it's life as a gunflint, it can only be a native made multi purpose tool, by the looks of it. Endscraper/graver(s)/spokeshave. So the most "important" unknown at the moment is that material. The reason Hoss and I thought "Paleo" is the tool type, in combination with a flint that is likely exotic. That certainly does not prove Paleo or even increase the odds for that age. I guess I will need to show this to people most experienced with lithics found here very infrequently. I've never seen this stuff in 50+ years, but that really means nothing.
Here's the dark gunflint. Couldn't get a good focus, but you can see the color. British? French?

[painshill]

In your picture, reproduced again for convenience, the item top right is most certainly a commercially produced gunflint and post-late-18th Century. It looks to have a myriad of tiny whitish spots and the held-up-to-the-sun picture shows it to be translucent and honey coloured. It’s undoubtedly French material on that basis. My comment about French items generally being wider than they are long only applies to early examples and so isn’t applicable here. It’s a much later example.

The grey item below? Hmmm. It has the general form for an early gunflint but I’m not terribly sure. If it is, then it’s likely home-made from domestic material. That one could be earlier than 18th century but it’s certainly not made from classic French or British material. It also looks to be the same material as the larger item on the left, with a similar high degree of weathering. On balance, I’s say not a gunflint and likely a small flake tool of greater antiquity.
The larger item on the left and its notch. Yes, if it were a gunflint then the notch would represent the heel and would have arisen through usage in the gun. It doesn’t look like that. It looks like a knapped feature and gunflints were not deliberately created with a notch like that. I’m with Hoss. It’s a spokeshave form or something similar.
I can’t comment on the exotic nature of the material versus what is in your locality, but I would just caution that it looks to me like it has had a very high degree of weathering or water immersion. The surface has become porous enough to allow iron-staining and that normally takes a long, long time. Just bear in mind that materials with which you are familiar may lose that familiar look after extreme weathering.

[CMD]

Thanks once more, Roger. I think I'll disagree mildly on the smaller grey piece. I think it's a small gunflint, but you know much more then me, so I disagree hesitantly, it's broken at the lower edge in the photo you reproduced. Here it is both sides. Slightly different color and it does not have the latticework of fine lines on the larger piece that you can see if enlarged. Yep, aware that extreme patina can change everything. As yet, not aware of any of the common NY flints that found their way here that look like this via weathering and patination. Going to send photos to an avocational archaeologist I know who is very good with material identification for our lithics and the exotics. Maybe he'll recognize it.
P.S. just noticed same kind of iron stain on smaller piece as larger piece, in the photo you reproduced . That really fooled me if not a gunflint because it has the smooth facets top and bottom, plus that smooth surface bevel in the 2nd photo here. If I had not asked, that would have always been a spent gunflint in my mind, now not so sure....


Here are photos showing the edge on beveled side above and last photo below, as well as edge on non-beveled side, first photo below. Got the photos all out of order, sorry bout that...

[Ron Kelley]

Charlie Thanks for a very interesting thread.
IT will be interesting to see what the archaeologist
has to say about the material.

[CMD]

OK, clearest photo of the material, showing the lattice work of fine lines covering the surface, including the flaked areas, such as the top right quadrant.  Thanks, again, everyone. This piece has always puzzled me, glad I asked. I guess it might yet be a Paleo tool with graver. Really need to ID the material. And will try to do just that....

In the photo, the graver spur is in the lower left corner, can just see it's tip. Looking up along that left edge, toward the top, there is a protrusion pointing left just before the end. It shows a cross section, an ancient ding, and was likely another graver. Paleo multitask tool seems feasible.

[CMD]

I heard back from my friend Bill Moody of Martha's Vineyard, who had this to say:
"Hi Charlie,
This is not a gun flint! Wrong material!  Paleo tool. The material looks like a fine grained, silicified rhyolite. I have some from a site in the North River valley that looks the same to me. I will take some photos. Jeff Boudreau would have known the lithic. It isn't common. It may have originated in Wakefield. I'll do a little research."
So, that's good info. Funny thing, I had thought rhyolite might be possible, simply because I had not seen flint like this, but I really had zero experience with such rhyolite as well.  Jeff was our regional lithics and typology guru who passed away unexpectedly last year, and Bill's right, Jeff would know this lithic immediately. Anyway, Bill's in favor of a Paleo tool and I'll share his photos when I receive them, as well as any further info he can find on this lithic.

[Butch Wilson]

Good luck Charlie, the surface of that material with the tiny flakes, scratches and cracks doesn't look like rhyolite I have around here ! But I aint from up 'ar  !

[CMD]

Butch Wilson wrote:

Good luck Charlie, the surface of that material with the tiny flakes, scratches and cracks doesn't look like rhyolite I have around here ! But I aint from up 'ar  !

  Lol, yeah Butch, its appearance is why I was willing to entertain porcelain :huh:  But the spiderwork  seems to be in the material itself, as opposed to cracks.
And of course our argillite is not called that by anyone else

[CMD]

Roger wrote:


"I can’t comment on the exotic nature of the material versus what is in your locality, but I would just caution that it looks to me like it has had a very high degree of weathering or water immersion. The surface has become porous enough to allow iron-staining and that normally takes a long, long time. Just bear in mind that materials with which you are familiar may lose that familiar look after extreme weathering."
Roger, been looking at this with newly opened eyes. Everything you're saying here now makes sense. This was found on a high bluff overlooking the mouth of a river on the Atlantic, so don't know if it ever saw water immersion,(although it would not be he first such find. Later natives curated points from earlier natives at times.) but what I do see clearly is extreme weathering. You were absolutely right. Don't know what made this artifact jump into my mind a day or two ago, it turned out to be in the last frame I dug out, of course, sure glad I did. And sounds like there may be a regional source, you were spot on there as well.