What an exhausting read! Wow. It's a little weird that with all that you know about rocks and artifacts and such, that you mistook a piece of colonial pottery for NA pottery. I would have loved to find the marble- a nice one you have there and a good find for sure. The rock/mineral looks a heck of a lot like what I see around here- used as fill or support against erosion. What I see around here is this interesting green (mineral?)- I'm not rock hound, but am interested enough to look and collect. I don't have an example or pic to show, but it's striated- has a definite grain. It's green- and light won't shine through it but will illuminate the edges a little bit. Not much. This is combined with all the black crush n' run they use around park areas, beach erosion control, etc. So I don't know what it is, and I barely know how to describe it AND I don't have a picture. Not much help, but that's the very first thing that popped in my head when I saw your 'finds'. I picked up a couple pieces when I first moved here and didn't know- then I started seeing it everywhere- so I chucked it in the driveway. So, besides the fact that you haven't up-loaded a better pic of that particular piece, why... what were you really so excited about- enough to say WOOWOO!
I don't get it. Are you just testing us to see if we know what NA pottery looks like? Because the other 2 things aren't even NA artifacts. There's a rock and gem forum. And there's a marble forum too. So it all really boils down to the pottery. So...
And as far as knapping material- and hard-stone, I might add that there are really excellent examples of chert and jasper that were brought from as far as Ohio- right here on the Eastern Shore-- as well as the general mid-Atlantic region. Quartz was a last resort and something generally used (but not exclusively by any means) when the community because more permanent, growing crops, etc., and no longer hunting and gathering all the time. At that point, the local lithic was used- and I find a lot of it. But it's rough, generally (but not without exception). The preferred lithic is sedentary rock-- ie, chert, flint, jasper, obsidian (out west mostly)... but you already knew that, I'm sure.
A good idea may be for you to go back through this forum and see what folks here have discussed in the past. Obviously, you know a thing or two about rocks and artifacts, but so do the members here. I doubt we need to be 'tested'. And I'm still not certain how satisfied you are with a) your finds, and b)the answers you received. Please forgive me if I ruffled your feathers by what I've written here. I don't mean to. I just don't get it.
I think I need something other than this bottle of water right now... perhaps a frosty glass of somethingorother...
Yakker
