The purpose of this website is to identify chert types in Illinois. Chert being a quartzy, sedimentary rock which is formed in limestone. The term "flint" will be included as a subgroup of chert and will be referred to as "chert" in this website. The thirteen chert types described in this website are by no means the only chert types found in Illinois.
Chert is significant to archaeologists, because it indicates the area from which the raw material is acquired. The raw material can be obtained for use by the initial people who quarried it or traded to another area for use. Trade routes and interaction between groups may be traced by the movement of goods, which includes chert.
Each chert type will be identified by physical appearance and source location. Without the widespread use of a color identification chart, the color of chert is subjected to personal interpretations. Therefore, a single piece of chert could be identified using various color terms. Texture description can also be widely variable.
One of the goals of the website is to pull together sparse descriptions of chert types in order to produce a full description. Color, form, parent material, and age are just a few things that will be described. Also stated will be the relationship of chert to each other.
Some of the described chert types may overlap in physical characteristics. Poor quality Cobden/Dongola and high quality St. Louis chert with their blue-grey color is one example. Another example is the overlap of Burlington and Crescent Hills chert (Morrow 1988). Because of the overlap in characteristics, it can be hard to tell the type of chert when it is not in its source area. |
