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Richard Turner
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I know others have probably ran across the Cherokee Traditions Channel, but here is an episode on flint knapping arrowheads, very interesting.
Arrowhead Flint Knapping
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Interesting. But he has the terms 'flint' and 'chert' somewhat confused. Also, he says heat helps with flaking. That is controversial. From what I have read from many sources is heat does not help at all. Never tried it so dunno first hand.
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try it. helps with SOME types of chert.
Phil Coffins
69 Cal.
I’ve heat treated jasper and it changed the color as well as gave a finer grain.
user 48702
Richard Turner
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I know that flint is defined as a type of chert, and in the chert family. Not a true flint, but that's what the old timers called it. Good flint is formed in chalk. The chert we have in our area is various colors, pale blue, yellow, white, and a toffee colored brown, are just some of the colors. We have a lot of yellow clay and white clay that the old timers called crawfish clay. Most of our property is where a mountain of chert was dug for county roads
over a hundred years ago. My back yard pretty much has no topsoil, nothing but chert. Several chert pits are dug out all across the area. Our community is called Clay, and the adjacent community is called Chalkville. I haven't tried knapping, but we are not in short supply. All you have to do to find nodules is walk the creek banks. East to find arrowheads and spear points.
over a hundred years ago. My back yard pretty much has no topsoil, nothing but chert. Several chert pits are dug out all across the area. Our community is called Clay, and the adjacent community is called Chalkville. I haven't tried knapping, but we are not in short supply. All you have to do to find nodules is walk the creek banks. East to find arrowheads and spear points.
The terms are confusing. I once wrote to three universities with geology departments and my Arkansas state department of geology for an explanation. They all responded with the same answer. Flint is flint, chert is flint. The difference in terms only refers to how it is found in the earth. Nodules (and, yes, I agree, the best is from chalk deposit nodules) are classed as flint because of where they are found. Chert is ground deposited and not so neatly formed as with the nodules. And, in my experience chert found flint is lousy quality for knapping. That said, there are area museums and collectors with many knapped arrowheads made from local area chert/flint.
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Richard Turner
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Over the past 30 years, I had plenty of interaction face to face with university geologist and archeologist from across the Southern U.S., due to the fact that I owned an unusual limestone cavern in which they had an interest, and said it was an anomaly, due to the fact that its type shouldn't have been that far south. The majority of the caves in our area are pits, and most you have to climb down or rappel into, but to get to ours, you have to climb 500'+ up the side of the mountain. The entrance is about 16' ft in height and about 8' ft wide. It is also a dry cave with angular sedimentary lines showing that many moons ago, it was formed by an underground river, and during a massive plate shift or earthquake, there was a massive uplift breaking the underground cave into, forcing it up about 40 degrees, forming an entrance on the side of the mountain. During the cavern's past commercial days, it was also known as Crystal Caverns due to seeing quartz and sparkling crystals along segments of the walls.
Didn't mean to get off into the cave, but I needed to put it into context regarding the minerals here in the area. Over the years, I had asked geologist the difference between flint and chert, and everyone stated that flint is chert and chert is chert. He said a good analogy is trees, there are different types of trees, but when you get down to it, they're still trees. Flint is primarily formed in chalk deposits, and what we know as chert being formed in quartz and limestone deposits. I told one geologist that I was surprised there was so much chert in the adjacent mountains and lands and mountain the cavern is on is primarily limestone and quartz. He said why? Your town's name is Clay, and Chalkville is 5 miles down the road. Matter of fact, there is so much chert in my feed lot, that I let my horses go barefoot and rarely have to trim hooves due to the fact that the chert gravel in the soil is like a grinding compound. Photo of one of the feed lots.
Flint, Chert, and Jasper
Didn't mean to get off into the cave, but I needed to put it into context regarding the minerals here in the area. Over the years, I had asked geologist the difference between flint and chert, and everyone stated that flint is chert and chert is chert. He said a good analogy is trees, there are different types of trees, but when you get down to it, they're still trees. Flint is primarily formed in chalk deposits, and what we know as chert being formed in quartz and limestone deposits. I told one geologist that I was surprised there was so much chert in the adjacent mountains and lands and mountain the cavern is on is primarily limestone and quartz. He said why? Your town's name is Clay, and Chalkville is 5 miles down the road. Matter of fact, there is so much chert in my feed lot, that I let my horses go barefoot and rarely have to trim hooves due to the fact that the chert gravel in the soil is like a grinding compound. Photo of one of the feed lots.
Flint, Chert, and Jasper
tomato/tomato?
