NC Quartzite Knife

[CMD]

Bill wrote:

NC_Stone_Collector, don't confuse regular Quartsite with Orthoquartsite. I have seen NC Orthoquartsite so I know it exists there.
CMD, with lithics the Indians used I have learned never to say never. I found a North Carolina Morrow Mountain knife, guilford, and an expedient Middle Archaic knife that all were made out of Schist. Therefore some grades of Schist were apparently highly metamorphosed enough for the Indians to have knaped decently.

  I can appreciate that, Bill. I have one small Brewerton Point made of RI Formation shale, and it was knapped somehow.

[Bill]

NC_Stone_Collector, don't confuse regular Quartsite with Orthoquartsite. I have seen NC Orthoquartsite so I know it exists there.
CMD, with lithics the Indians used I have learned never to say never. I found a North Carolina Morrow Mountain knife, guilford, and an expedient Middle Archaic knife that all were made out of Schist. Therefore some grades of Schist were apparently highly metamorphosed enough for the Indians to have knaped decently.

[NC_Stone_Collector]

I agree with Bill that the finer the grain, the better to knap.  He made a good point to take a closer look at the grain.  Both is the same with basalt and quartzite.  I do see that basalts can change to a brown or rust-red color due to oxidation.  True basalts have less than 20% quartz by volume and olivine is a common ingredient, which is a green color.  However, quartz can contain impurities, such as iron, which will give them a red or brown color too.  The three in my hand are metamorphosed white quartz sands.  From what I have researched and compared, I can't classify the knife as basalt yet.  All the basalt arrowheads I compared to has no visible grains.  Basalt can have coarser grains though, but I don't think that quality is good enough to knap.  I still think that the knife and the Adena must be quartzite with iron impurities.  I'm not 100% sure, but that is the best geological explanation I can conclude with on these materials.  Thanks for everyone's help!

[CMD]

Bill wrote:

Remember, the point to which I was refering is what we would call a Morrow Mountain, a middle Archaic point and it apears green in color and is pictured alone.
I am a North Carolina lithics wonk because I was born there and North Carolina is still part of my back yard.

  Right, the last photo? It's not schist. Schist is fissile and splits in thin layers. You can't knap schist. I've seen some as burial offerings though, strangely enough. But those were ground into shape.

[Bill]

Remember, the point to which I was refering is what we would call a Morrow Mountain, a middle Archaic point and it apears green in color and is pictured alone.
I am a North Carolina lithics wonk because I was born there and North Carolina is still part of my back yard.

[CMD]

Bill wrote:

Three may be a form of Quartsite but one is definitely not. The picture of the green artifact is pretty clear and to me it looks like either a pretty poor grade of Basalt or more likely is Schist. 
Geologists will define a rock type by melting it and performing a geochemical analysis of the composition.
That is the only way to truly settle a lithics "what kind of rock is this" question. Until then, a rock type remains purely an opinion.

  I'll disagree up to a point. There are many lithics that collectors recognize from their own regions and they can ID those materials. If someone shows up with a white quartz point and wants to know the material, I can tell them it's quartz, I don't have to really qualify it by saying it's only my opinion and a sample will have to be destructively tested to be certain.  We don't need to refine our descriptions to that degree on an artifact forum, unless it's the subject of a thread or discussion. Most quartzite is metamorphosed sandstone. It's too common in my own region, from so coarse grained that it's almost still sandstone to sight, to extremely fine grained, to Ramah chert-like "sugar" quartz quartzite. Many shades and colors, from near white to black, and of course in between. In the first photo showing 3, the middle is certainly quartzite, others likely are, but it's pretty blurry. The last dark green point is definitely not schist, clearly looks to be quartzite.

[Bill]

Three may be a form of Quartsite but one is definitely not. The picture of the green artifact is pretty clear and to me it looks like either a pretty poor grade of Basalt or more likely is Schist. 
Geologists will define a rock type by melting it and performing a geochemical analysis of the composition.
That is the only way to truly settle a lithics "what kind of rock is this" question. Until then, a rock type remains purely an opinion.

[CMD]

The 4 points above, including the Adena, look like quartzite to my eyes.

[NC_Stone_Collector]

This knife has a distinct smell, like an earthy, smoky smell.  It doesn't look like the 3 quartzite pieces I have either.  I do have a basalt Gatecliff point from WA.  It doesn't look nothing like it either.  However, I have an Adena found in the Arkansas River.  I have it labeled as quartzite too.  I'm including a few pictures of these that I think is quartzite.  Lets see about 4 these pieces.  That one of the left I'm not real sure about either.  It has the texture of quartzite.  Any other arrowhead from my NC collection, I can identify as rhyolite, jasper, or quartz easily.  This material here is giving me a lil harder time to figure out I guess.

[Bill]

That's cool and it sounds like you are on the way. You are giving lithics some serious thought and that is he first step in becomming a Slate Belt lithics expert.
The cool thing about North Carolina lithics is that the use of almost all of the same lithic material types repeat through out every Indian cutural period.
I simply recognize the basic types the hard rock Geologist identified for me and sure enough these same basic lithics do appear repeatedly throughout North Carolina prehistory.
Gabbro and Basalt are related however you are correct about most Basalts the Indians used. These were pretty fine grained and therefore, when used, were knapped pretty decently.

[NC_Stone_Collector]

I think you must be talking about gabbro then.  That is a coarse grained type of basalt.  I'll research this out a lil more and see what all I come up with.  Thanks for you friendly help.

[Bill]

NC_Stone Collector, I apologize for seeming like a rock know-it-all. when I first began looking for Indian artifacts, I realized I had no idea what the rocks were they were made out of. I heard there was an Archaeologist who had started out as a Geologist. He really knew his rocks and identified the lithics my points had been made out of. So I guess I am now a lithics wonk!
Place your knife beside points that were made out of different types of Quartsite. I believe you should notice your artifact wasn't made from Quartsite. Some Balsalt cooled beneath the surface (intrusive) and didn't solidify as rapidly as other types that pushed through the ground surface (extrusive). This type is very fine grained and apparently knapped pretty well.
Yours isn't very fine grained so the material is a little rough so perhaps it was the intrusive type.
Now on the other hand, Your knife may not be Basalt at all but might be Schist. Schist is a metamorphosed form of Shale and was worked by the Late Archaic and Woodland Indians (when they  absolutely had to!). Looking at Schist knives and points, that stuff didn't seem to knap worth a dang and anyway with Rhyolite around who needed Schist anyway?
Most Schist I have seen is green in color while Basalt may be either shades of green or gray.

[NC_Stone_Collector]

Yea I see what you mean, but basalt is so fine grained that the individual minerals are not visible.  Quartzite, however has visible grains and mine looks like rounded grains of sand.  I really don't know much about NC quartzite materials.  I have only about 4 artifact made of quartzite.  This knife has more visible grains than the others I have and it's opaque.  The others are semi-translucent.  I'm not sure really how to date a quartzite artifact that why I asked for some help.  I researched some more on Woodland artifacts.  It appears that smaller quantities of quartz and quartzite artifacts are found in the Woodland period; the majority was rhyolite and Carolina slate.

[Bill]

That's a nice artifact NC_Stone Collector.
I can't be completely sure from the picture but the material it was made out of looks like Basalt to me.

[Dakota Elliott]

Hey Brandon,
I agree with Cliff, looks woodland era....I have one that looks exactly like that I found here in Maryland