http://www.nativetech.org/stone/flake.html
Groundstone Technology in the Northeast;
Tools, Bowls and Ornaments.
A Presentation of NativeTech:Native American Technology and Art
© 1994 - 2007 Tara Prindle
Groundstone tools are shaped though abrasion by pecking, grinding,
smoothing or polishing one stone against another. Pecking away with a
harder hammerstone, stone pick or chisel the desired groove or form is
chipped into a softer stone material. A groundstone tool or ornament may be
roughly flaked to shape first and then systematically smoothed like on a
whetstone until it’s highly polished.
Groundstone items in the Northeast have been made from
varieties of basalt, granite, quartzite, sandstone, slate, soapstone
(or steatite) and its finer cousin called serpentine. These raw
materials come from rounded cobbles in glacial deposits or local
bedrock outcrops. Because the fracturing character of these types
of stone is uneven, they are not well suited for flaking or flint
knapping but they do make resilient pecked and ground tools
bowls and ornaments. Some groundstone tools have minimal
shaping and are simply grooved or dented cobbles used for
chopping, pounding or grinding, while other tools, bowls, pipes
and pendants are intricately carved and smoothed.
Groundstone technology has
a long history in the
Northeast. Thousands of
years ago, with a rich diverse
environment gradually
emerging after the ice age,
people developed new
techniques and additions to
their tool kits to exploit the
wider range of resources
available. Some of these
innovations included
groundstone tools such as
hafted axes, gouges, celts,
adzes, slate knives. Other
groundstone tools were
specifically for wild plant
processing such as mortars
and pestles, and nutting and
grinding stones.
Later with people’s shifts in hunting, fishing, and plant gathering
techniques we see still new manifestations in groundstone.
Delicately curved and holed bannerstones and atlatl weights
were used to increase the efficiency of throwing sticks for
spears. Rounded and elongated net sinkers and plummets were
grooved for their attachment to fishing lines or nets. Heavy
pecked, carved and polished soapstone bowls were carved
directly out of bedrock quarries, some finished bowls weighing
upwards of thirty pounds.
An increase in the use of stone bowls, mortars, pestles and other plant processing tools reflects the trend of
people living more sedentary lives over time. With the cultivation of plants and the development of ceramic
traditions there was a gradual lessening in the use of soapstone bowls, but new uses for groundstone including
beautifully carved and polished holed pendants, gorgets, birdstones, and pipes.
Some of the most amazing examples of groundstone technology in the Northeast spread out from the Ohio
and Mississippi valleys about a thousand years ago and coincide there with the intensification of agriculture,
people living in large permanent towns and rectangular plazas with platform mounds.
Northeast groundstone technologies continue through the historic period with existing Native traditions of
both functional and decorative items, and saw the addition of soapstone molds for shot, buttons and
ornaments with the adoption of lead casting techniques.
Minerals
Metamorphic
Sedimentary
Volcanic
<-- Click on the tabs or the stones to
identify samples in the categories of lithic
materials in the Northeast.
Stone tools have been part of human technology for literally millions of years, and the
Northeast Woodland region offers a unique assemblage of raw lithic materials for stone tool
technology. Different materials and tools manufactured, used and left behind at a location can
tell us a great deal peoples’ activities there. Looking at the distribution of lithic materials and
tool types through time, you can start to get a picture of people’s changing settlement patterns,
how they used the natural resources across the landscape and glimpse into distant trade routes.
A wide range of approaches can be used to study lithic technology. The approaches study the
various stages of how stone is acquired, used and disposed of and also how stone is distributed
and exchanged. Minimizing costs and using logical efficiency in the acquisition of stone, the
patterns of its procurement and consumption show how the economics of lithic technology are
tied to other systems of subsistence and social organization.
Stone is composed of minerals and can be classified into material types according to how
they formed: Mineral growth, Sedimentary, Metamorphic and Volcanic. Sedimentary
rocks are form through the deposition and compression of particulate matter, Metamorphic
rocks are changed from the effects of extreme temperature and pressure, and Volcanic rocks
are cooled from molten igneous magma. Stone types have unique textures and fracturing
characteristics due to their mineral composition and formation processes which make them
more or less suitable for the various methods of working stone in Northeastern lithic
technology.
Stones with an even fracture are ideal for flaked stone tools and percussion or pressure flaking
results in smooth concave-convex faces. The fracture is associated with rock types which have
mineral grains which are too small to be seen with the unaided eye. This category includes
those rocks which are not layered or fissile (systematic planes of weak bonding). Stones with
even fractures include the glassy, porcelain-like and non-platy textures exhibited by
chalcedony, chert and flints.
Other rocks have a rough surface and are uneven or irregular when fractured. Their
mineral grains are usually macroscopic, visible to the unaided eye, and may have nonoriented granular structure. Commonly associated with tightly packed mineral crystals of
igneous or metamorphic rocks, or the cemented grains of sedimentary rocks, these rocks are
not always ideal for flaked stone tool making. The hardness and resilience better suit these
rocks to hammer-stones, pecked and ground tools, or cooking hearths.
Some stones split into even planes when fractured. Commonly associated with shale, slate,
schist, and graphite, these rocks have cleavage planes in one direction. These rocks
usually have a fine grained texture, due to clay or platy minerals, and the general softness made
it less desirable for flaked stone tools but more appropriate for fine ground stone tools, pottery
temper or mineral pigments. Steatite, with it’s unique mineral composition, has a fibrous
texture and fractures with an uneven hackly appearance. The material is ideally suited to
pecking and carving and polishes to a high luster.
A good understanding of lithic technology, requires not only knowing how tools are made and
used, but also knowledge of the types and material characteristics of stone available to people
either locally or through long distance trade.
Common Lithic Tool Materials used in Northeastern North America
http://www.nativetech.org/stone/stonetypes/index.html