Natural Science in Archaeology

4.1 Introduction 71
rock use in ancient Egypt, see Lucas (1989). There is a vast field of archaeological
lithic materials. Here, we have concentrated on those rocks and minerals that
those interested in archaeomineralogy are likely to encounter in Old World and
New World contexts. The initial rock material for chipped stone tools is one that
will flake in a manner that allows shaping by the removal of pieces by conchoidal
fracturing (Fig. 4.2). Such rock material must be highly siliceous.
A study of the lithic industries of the Early Lower Paleolithic sites of Nolhac and
Soleilhac, Central Massif, France, are presented in Bracco (1991). These industries
utilized granite, basalt, quartz, and flint. Field investigations of the Early Paleolithic
in Africa have uncovered large numbers of spheroidal and battered spheroidal stone
artifacts. There appears to have been a greater variety of rock types selected for implement
manufacture than at any other time. These minerals and rocks include quartz,
chert, granite, basalt, dolerite, limestone, ironstone, sandstone, quartzite, and gneiss
(Willoughby 1987). Stone toolmakers utilized a very wide range of available raw
material resources. The Stone Age did not end because the world ran out of rocks.
In the mid to late fourth millennium BCE in Egypt, an influx of immigrants to
the city of Gerza on the Nile, east of the Faiyum Basin, developed superior carving
techniques for chert (Fig. 4.3), amethyst, carnelian, malachite, and imported lapis
lazuli. For nearly a thousand years of the Old Kingdom and into the 12th Dynasty
of the Middle Kingdom, the Egyptians mined turquoise at the Wadi Maghara in the
Sinai. From the Twelfth through the 20th Dynasty, the Egyptians mined turquoise,
chrysocolla, malachite, and azurite north of Wadi Maghara.
The Maori of New Zealand used a variety of lithic materials for distinct purposes,
for example, obsidian for cutting, basalt for adzing. They also utilized quartzite
boulders for chipped stone implements (Jones 1984). One of the earliest lithic
assemblages from Japan is that from the Szudai site, of Paleolithic (early Würm)
age (Bleed 1977). These lithics were primarily rhyolite and vein quartz.
Fig. 4.2 Quartz, showing (left) conchoidal fracture and (right) crystal faces