Material Histories 2 – Marles Chert

(An occasional series to help you keep sane in an insane world)

Marles Chert is named after the area in Lancashire where it was first recorded many years ago. This burin was found about ten miles away from that site and the stone is likely to have been sourced from either glacial drift or a local stream. Marles like chert has been found in Cumbria and North Yorkshire as well, but is most prevalent in lithic assemblages from northern and eastern Lancashire, and the Calderdale area of West Yorkshire.

It is characterised by its glassy appearance and tiny sub-rectangular voids that occur in places. If there are not too many voids, then it makes a good robust material for creating stone tools. Its colour varies with different mineral content, and lithic implements have been found that were made of dark purplish Marles Chert. Our featured find, a Late Neolithic to Early Iron Age chert burin, is made from the typical black form of the chert.

It has been formed on a secondary piece of Marles Chert, probably a worked out core. The retained limestone cortex on the proximal end exhibits quite a high degree of wear, and there is wear gloss on most of the chert. There is sub-parallel, semi-short, abrupt retouch to the shorter of the tool’s mesals (side edges). This is probably to make the tool more ergonomic but would also have created a small but functional side scraper. The shoulder of this mesal has been reduced with a series of removals at its distal end. The longer mesal has short, abrupt, semi-parallel retouch at its proximal end. The burin has been formed at the distal point with three removals creating a concave sided point 2mm high. There are other areas on the edges and ridges which have very removals, but these are possibly the result of natural agencies.

The tool probably dates to between c2700 and c400 BC. The possibility exists that it may be an unusual Mesolithic form of burin, but the majority of burins of that period in the locale are either on existing tools or microliths or micro-debitage.