Tag: Radiolarite

I mentioned in the last post how this very knappable material was not present in the museum lithic collections or associated text books for the area of Tuscany we were staying in.

I really enjoyed collecting these materials, and they were mostly eroding from a low wall that ran along the path to the house. I have realised subsequently that in fact all the pieces I picked up were from humanly produced structures.

Quarrying for materials is generally accepted to be part of the Early Neolithic, and in Britain some of the earliest monuments are flint mines. The Radiolarite (if that is what it is) may not have been easily available, or available at all to the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic populations using the area if it in fact comes from a deep stratigraphic context.

So my materials collection experience, whilst useful for getting to know the Radiolarite and its properties, was very much a post prehistoric experience, and actually more similar to my visits to the bottle tip. Those are my thoughts from the experience and evidence to date. Looks like I will have to come back to Tuscany if I want to categorically find out….

We are staying with a friend, David, in their Tuscan farmhouse villa, and the place is literally surrounded by this amazing knappable material.

It’s interesting as it seems to break up into tabular form, but also has linear inclusions running through it, perpendicular to the tabular planes. In the above photo you can see how the flakes stop as they run into the inclusion line.

The inclusion line is perhaps more obvious on the other face. A quick Wikipedia search suggests it is Radiolarite chert, and a visit to the local museum gives the impression that stone tools found in the area were made from an imported flint, not this material.

Anyway, I am bringing the first two artefacts home, the rest are for David, our host, and his neighbours who made the mistake of expressing an interest in what I was doing.

What a lovely week, spent with David, Chrissy, Penny, Karen, and my new friend, Radiolarite chert.