Skip to content
Pitt Rivers Museum

2010.47.47

Quartzite flake


2010.47.47

Digital asset copyright: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

Terms and Conditions

If you wish to order a high-resolution image and/or licence its use for print or web publication, exhibition, film, promotional product or any other use, whether in the academic or commercial sector of any print run, then please visit photographic services.

Collection type
Object
Description
Quartzite flake
Long description
Quartzite flake with pointed distal end and curved promixal end. The flake appears to have been fractured along an axis running from the proximal to distal ends, indicated by the straight left edge. [CMP 27/07/2010]
Geographical reference
Southern USA Washington DC Piney Branch Park Piney Branch Quarry
Person
Field collector William Henry Holmes
PRM source Henry Balfour
Date
Date collected
1891 ?
Acquisition information
Donated: 1891 Found unentered: 23/07/2010
Materials and processes
Material Quartzite Stone, Process Flaked
Dimensions
Depth: max 14 mm, Width: max 34 mm, Length: max 72 mm, Weight 26 g
Object numbers
Accession number: 2010.47.47
Research and responses

Piney Branch is a a paleoindian quarry site, exploited approx. 8000 BC. The site was first investigated by William Holmes, an archaeologist with the Smithsonian Bureau of American Ethnology, in the 1880s. Presumably whilst visiting Piney Branch Balfour became acquainted with Holmes, as in 1894 he sent 72 implements from the site to the PRM [see 1944.11.4 .1 -.72]. Holmes published his discoveries on pages 1-26, Vol. 3 [no. 1] of the American Anthropologist in an article entitled 'A Quarry Workshop of the Flaked-Stone Implement Makers in the District of Columbia'. The article can be accessed online through JSTOR, the stable URL is http://www.jstor.org/stable/658323. [MN 23/07/2010]

Search terms: Tool, Flake