Monday, January 18, 2010

Guess these bones!

Indeed Valerie and our other blogger were right about last week's mystery artifacts! We have identified these as gunflints, though the one pictured on the left is actually made from quartz, not quartzite.

The flint on the right is English flint (French gunflints tend to be a lighter more honey-brown color), while some earlier gunflints, known as gunspalls, were generally made from chert or obsidian.

Both edges of these gunflints have been worn from repeated striking. For a bit more information about gunflints, take a look at some of our previous blogs.


For this week's challenge I invite you to take a look at the bones pictured below and identify the species to which they belong. If you are up for it, feel free to identify the specific bones as well! I figured a hint on this one would be too easy, but do not expect it to be some sort of exotic creature--this is a local fellow.


Good luck!
Kelley

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Are they deer bones? A tooth, a shoulderblade and maybe a couple of leg bones??

By the way, I came across a nice article about frontier-era flintlock firearms in rural west central Illinois yesterday in a recent issue of "Illinois Antiquity". Just loving the synchronicity of it all! :D

Thanks for the great blog, to everyone - it makes me feel in the loop, even though I'm a billion miles away in Illinois.

Val