Effects of Weathering on the Coloration of Chert and Its Implications for Provenance Studies

ABSTRACT

Black colored chert artifacts have been found at Cerros and other coastal Maya sites in Northern Belize. Most of the Cerros assemblage is made of banded brown and gray cherts which were imported from lithic Workshops located 90 kilometers to the south, but no block colored chert occurs in the Workshops. Some researchers have suggested that the black coloration results from the submersion of chert artifacts in water, while other findings suggested that a black chert source might exist. We inspected cross-sections of black colored samples and found that the coloration only occurred in narrow bands that closely followed the perimeter of the piece, indicating that it is the result of a weathering process. These findings are important, because they demonstrate that the surficial coloration of some lithic artifacts cannot be used as a basis to visually source the material.