Natural Science in Archaeology

4.1 Introduction 73
for garnet and silex resinita for obsidian. Silexite is the name for an igneous rock
composed essentially of quartz [e.g. a quartz dike]. Many quartz lithics undoubtedly
are a silexite because they are composed primarily of silica. Della Casa (2005)
labels radiolarite and flint as silex.
At the Neolithic site of Çatal Höyük in Anatolia, none of the lithic raw materials
were truly local. Volcanic and limestone rocks were brought from 100 km distant,
and good obsidian from a little further afield. The nearest sources for chert and
“flint” were south of the Taurus Mountains. Good “flint” is not available on the
south Anatolian plateau. However, the brown, yellow, and red cherts that were available
were little used (Mellaart 1967). The ceremonial “flint” dagger and similar
objects from Çatal Höyük required long-distance trade or exchange.
A description of the general petrographic characteristics and possible raw material
sources of the stone material at sites in the southern Urals is given by Zaykov
et al. (1999). There, studies showed that various lithic types were made from chert,
jasper, diabase, gabbro, epidosites, and dacites. All raw materials came from the
region. Projectile points and drilling tools were made from a variety of high-silica
rocks. Clastic rocks with grains of quartz were used as abrasives. Tools for metal
foundry work were made from talcose rocks that have high heat resistance. Striking
tools were produced from epidosites, high-silica sedimentary rocks, and jaspers.
The distinctive prismatic jointing in the epidosites was used in the manufacture of
hammers.
Nearly all excavation reports list and discuss lithic/stone artifacts. Most of
the discussion concerns typology or chronology. Discussion of lithology (rock or
mineral types) ranges normally from nonexistent to limited. Occasionally, greater
efforts have been made. Unfortunately, the author has had a chance to check the
lithologies from some eastern Mediterranean excavations where nonspecialists who
apparently did not perform simple hydrochloric acid tests for marble and limestone
or scratch tests for hardness made the assignments. There are also cases where discussions
of the lithology are misleading. For example, Gatsov (1995), in discussing
flint production in Bulgaria from the ninth to the sixth millennium BCE, says,
“Local varieties of flint, like quartzite, dominate late Palaeolithic assemblages and
continued in use through the Neolithic.” Using flint and chert as synonymous may
be understandable, but to include quartzite as a flint is certainly misleading.
In recent years, identifying the lithology of stone artifacts has been on the increase
and apparently with much greater care. Of the 444 stone implements and weapons
from Anyang, the last capital of China’s Shang dynasty, studied by petrologists, 91%
consisted of just eight lithologies, slate (61.5%), diabase (8%), marble (7%), limestone
(3.6%), quartzite (3.6%), phyllite (3%), sandstone (2.5%), and jade (1.5%).
Diabase and limestone were most often used for axes and adzes; slate was used for
harvesting knives; weapons were made of slate and jade (Chang 1980).
In an in-depth study of the chipped stone raw materials at the well-known site of
Black Mesa, Arizona, USA, Green (1985) and a geologist colleague determined the
sources of the lithic materials listed below. They identified 38 types of raw materials
from 29 sources. Their study illustrates the wide diversity of lithic raw materials
that some prehistoric groups were able to utilize.