Friday, December 23, 2022

Red Rhyolite/Jasper blade from a Falmouth beach

 
Back home:


After searching beaches most of my life, particularly in the last few years since finding arrowheads in Concord, it comes as a shock to actually find something recognizably flaked. It comes as a special kind of shock when rather than stumbling on an artifact, you go looking for it in a particular place.

I'll have more to say about where I found this and about coastal dune formation in Buzzard's Bay. When the dunes block a pond - as is common around here - the sense is that this used to be a river mouth before the sea level returned. So if you are looking for 5-7K years old artifacts, old river banks are one possibility. But I need to think more about how this rock got where it was on the beach, with this (minimal) level of wear.

Neeto!

The conclusion is that there must have been a pre-woodland site somewhere near where I found this.

1 comment :

pwax said...

I am looking at pictures online and find a good match between the red blade material and jasper, and less good match to Attleboro rhyolite.

It turns out rhyolite and jasper are not so different, something to do with the silica content.