| Abstrakt: |
Grand Meadow Chert (GMC) is a distinctive and high-quality tool stone that occurs in lag deposits at the edge of the Driftless Area along the headwaters of the Root River in southeastern Minnesota. A quarry source heavily utilized for 8,000 years occurs near the town of Grand Meadow, Minnesota. Basic questions about the geological origin of the chert, its geographic distribution and nomenclature for the chert are complicated by the lack of a firm bedrock context in Minnesota. A case is made for a geological origin in the Basset Member of the Little Cedar Formation without definitive proof in Minnesota. Archaeological practice has favored the geographic name GMC in the absence of certain bedrock context. Chert from the quarry at Grand Meadow, the only known Native American source, has distinctive fossil and structural features that enable identification and differentiate it from numerous similar cherts. Replication studies were conducted to assess the suitability of GMC for core and flake tools compared to bifacial tools. While the chert itself has an ideal texture for flint knapping, natural fragments of GMC tend to occur as cuboidal nodule fragments that are well suited to core and flake tools but can also be adapted to making small thin bifacial tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
