Decortication Blade

[uniface]

These are from the first removals stage in turning a nodule into a blade core. People don't so much like cortex on artifacts, but the old people actually preferred it on blades : often, the highest quality chert in a nodule is found near the outside of it, and the cortex could make for a convenient gripping surface.

 

[uniface]

Another one -- this time from the reduction of tabular chert (Delaware, in Ohio. Which apparently exists in bedded as well as nodule form).