Another out of place flint find?

[Wandermore91]

Anyone here know their flint? A few months ago I found a piece of European flint that you guys helped me identify as a D shaped gun flint. Just yesterday I was walking a shore near my site and recognized a flake as the same material except this piece is yellow with blue undertones. It is really a unique looking flake of stone and I have no idea what it is/was and might’ve been used for. Usually I can get somewhere with a google search on my own but nothing has turned up for this one. I know flint/chert can be yellow but I can’t seem to find photographs of anything similar. I am trying to figure out if this stone is from the US or if it may have been imported as well.

Can anyone speculate what it could have been? My best guess is maybe it’s a spent gun flint, or it was used heavily to light fires. Maybe it has been exposed to heat causing the interesting coloration? Don’t know. I photographed it next to the originally found gun flint for color and size comparison. Excuse my dried up hands, long winter! Very interested in your feedback here.. thanks!

 

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[Charl]

I believe it's a flake, and not part of a gunflint or strike-a-light. But a nice flake for this region, I know I save all exotic flakes. We just don't see the flints and jaspers often enough. There are several Hudson Valley cherts that show up here, but I don't recognize what that piece might be. Only thing that comes to mind is Normanskill Chert, which can be bluish rarely, though shades of green are the most common. Could also have come from a glacially transported cobble from up north, and be unidentifiable as to origin. It's a nice flake, though, be nice to find an artifact fashioned from it....

 

[Charl]

BTW, at least as often as not, flakes of exotic material, especially jasper in my experience, are flake tools when closely examined. Does not seem to be the case here, but something to keep in mind when you find flakes of the exotics.

 

[quito]

BTW, at least as often as not, flakes of exotic material, especially jasper in my experience, are flake tools when closely examined. Does not seem to be the case here, but something to keep in mind when you find flakes of the exotics.

Good assessment and advice charl!

 

[arrow86]

Along the shores I hunt the mixture of clay , mud , sand and erosion makes a really nasty dark colored almost black muck a long the bottom of the rivers that sometime stains the lighter colored materials could be the case here especially when exposed to it for thousands of years

 

[Wandermore91]

BTW, at least as often as not, flakes of exotic material, especially jasper in my experience, are flake tools when closely examined. Does not seem to be the case here, but something to keep in mind when you find flakes of the exotics.

Thanks for the info Charl. You’re right it would have been such a beautiful artifact, too! [emoji25] oh well, I am happy I found it anyway, there is something about the look and feel of flint that is really intriguing to me. Maybe it’s just because it is so foreign to me. Very cool to think about the glacier theory. I will keep your advice in mind and hopefully I’ll stumble upon some more. Honestly wasn’t expecting to see any again after finding the gun flint. Pleasantly surprised. ...I’d love to see your flint collection!

 

[joshuaream]

Pretty material. Charl is absolutely correct, always worth picking up those pieces of exotic material looking for finer edge work.

Flakes can be fun to look at, and can tell you that at least you are in the right area.

Your piece looks to be a reduction flake made while someone was knapping a point or knife. The smoother side was the "inside" side, the other side was the outer surface that shows some previous flake removals. The smoother side has a some ripples in it, that expand as they move out showing where the original strike was made. The flake probably shattered when it was struck, which often happens on thinner flatter flakes.

 

[smokeythecat]

I also concur with exotic flint. I'm in Maryland, but years ago I found an archaic "Adena" blade made of Flint Ridge Ohio flint. That's over 500 miles from here. They did trade a lot way back in the day...way back.