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Glazed Polish on Flint Tools

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

John Witthoft
John Witthoft*
Affiliation:
The University Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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Abstract

Laboratory and experimental studies of glazed polish (corn gloss) on sickle edges, trillo teeth, hoe blades, and mealing stones indicate that this polish is analogous to modern lapidary polishes which are produced as submicroscopic frictional fusion zones by rubbing with soft powders. Frictional contact with opaline inclusions in grasses has produced corn gloss by fusion of flint surfaces and by fusion to them of dehydrated molecules of opal. The one-to-one equation of corn gloss to grasses has many implications to culture history. Among others, a previously unsuspected type of intense agriculture, closely adapted to conservation of prairie soils, is indicated for Hopewell, Middle Mississippi, and other American Indian cultures.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , July 1967 , pp. 383 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1967

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References

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