2001 NOVEMBER
HIXTON SILCIFIED SANDSTONE

Fluted points and large biface all made of Hixton.
HIXTON
THE BEAUTIFUL WISCONSIN "SUGAR QUARTZ"
PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

   There are several different types of high quality easily flaked or "knappable" stone in eastern North America.  Everyone tends to remember the brightly colored ones and some of these are very colorful. They can be quite impressive and must have been especially desirable to the Native Americans who used them for at least 14,000 years. In many instances they used the most colorful cherts to make their finest ceremonial pieces, most of which were placed as offerings to the dead. But one culture, the Early Paleo nomadic people, utilized some of the highest quality and most colorful cherts and quartzites to make their utilitarian spear points and other tools. When these people first entered this continent the best quality stone was more readily available than it would have been for later peoples.
   Agatized coral is one of the most colorful materials used by Stone Age cultures in the southeast. Other examples of good quality and colorful materials used to make stone tools are Normanskill and Rama cherts in the northeast, Flint Ridge chert in Ohio, Kaolin chert in southern Illinois, Novaculite & indurated siltstone from Arkansas and different colors of jasper in the south and farther east, just to name a few. But one of the most colorful materials that was used to make stone tools in the eastern United Sates is Hixton Silicified Sandstone from Wisconsin.

HIXTON silIcified sandstone
WISCONSIN

PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
Large group of points made of Hixton Silicified Sandstone.
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PALEO, ARCHAIC AND WOODLAND ARTIFACTS

MADE OF HIXTON
MOST OF THEM WERE FOUND IN WISCONSIN
MATERIAL SOURCE---WISCONSIN
PRIVATE COLLECTION

   Hixton Silicified Sandstone, which is also known as Hixton quartzite, sugar quartz or just Hixton, is native to Wisconsin. In fact, one of the largest prehistoric quarry sites in the upper Midwest is a Hixton outcrop. This site is called Silver Mound and is located in Jackson County about 3 and 1/2 miles northeast of the town of Hixton. Silver Mound is located in Wisconsin's non-glaciated "Driftless Area". This site, which is shaped like a boomerang, rises to an elevation of 1250 feet and is 1/2 mile in length. It received its name from early Europeans who believed this site was excavated by Native Americans to mine silver. In fact, Europeans have dug there, off and on, looking for silver for approximately 200 hundred years.

Orange Hixton Folsom point from Wisconsin.
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FOLSOM POINT
A CAST OF THIS POINT IS AVAILABLE
SOUTHWESTERN WISCONSIN
PRIVATE COLLECTION

   This Folsom point was found sometime before 1950 in either Grant or Richland Counties in southwestern Wisconsin. It's made of a beautifully colored translucent piece of orange Hixton Silicified Sandstone that is believed to have come from the Silver Mound quarry site. This Folsom point measures 2 5/8 inches long.

   Hixton Silicified Sandstone was utilized by all cultures living in Wisconsin from Clovis to the Mississippian period. The area around the Silver Mound quarry site is littered with mainly thinning flakes that were left behind from the manufacture of preforms. The lighter and more easily transportable early stage preforms were then carried back to habitation sites where they were eventually flaked into finished tools. A certain percentage of these preforms were probably used as a commodity and traded throughout the Great Lakes region. 

Red Hixton Hardin Barbed point from Wisconsin.
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HARDIN BARBED POINT
WISCONSIN
PRIVATE COLLECTION

   This Early Archaic period Hardin Barbed point is made of one of the rarest colors of Hixton Silicified Sandstone. The less common colors are the darker browns, black, darker oranges, lavender, pink, and red. The most common colors are white, pale orangish brown, light brown, tan and light gray.

   The prehistoric mining at Silver Mound was accomplished by digging pits. The majority of these pits were dug on top and at the back edge of the slopes and along the vertical faces. These pits average  six to fifteen feet in diameter. Quarrying was done with the use of quartzite hammerstones weighing five to ten pounds. The prehistoric quarrymen broke their way down through layers of silicified sandstone until they reached unweathered stone suitable for making stone tools.

One of largest bifaces from Wisconsin made of Hixton.
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LARGE PREFORM
WISCONSIN
FLOYD RITTER COLLECTION

   This is an unfinished artifact in a preform stage of manufacture. It would have probably been finished into some type of large knife. This is one of the largest bifaces known that is made of Hixton Silicified Sandstone. It measures 14 3/16 inches long (36 cm).


   Hixton is a very compact stone with a hardness of 6.5 to 7.0 on the Mohs scale. It can have a translucency of 5 mm or more. The quartz sand grains are cemented together with opal-chalcedony cement and microscopic inclusions can include hematite, tourmaline, apatite, biotite, rutile and almandite or garnet (Porter 1961).

Clovis point from Illinois made of Hixton.
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CLOVIS POINT
A CAST OF THIS POINT IS AVAILABLE
FULTON COUNTY, ILLINOIS
MAURY MEADOWS COLLECTION

   This is one of the prettiest fluted points I have seen from the state of Illinois. That's because it's made of a particularly colorful variety of orange Hixton Silicified Sandstone. Clovis people are known to have utilized some of the best quality and most colorful stone to make their tools. This spear point measures 4 1/16 inches long.

   When Hixton is heated or "heat treated", as many cultures have done to various types of cherts for the last 10,000 years or more, it changes it's characteristics. This technique was used to make the stone easier to flake with an added bonus of usually making the color of the stone more enhanced and sometimes completely changing the color. But with Hixton, even though it can enhance the color, "heat treating can weaken the opal-chalcedony cement encasing the sand grains making it too brittle to use (Behm and Faulkner 1974).

"Eared" Eden point from Wisconsin made of Hixton.
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"EARED" EDEN POINT
JACKSON COUNTY, WISCONSIN
PRIVATE COLLECTION

   This is one of the best examples of a Late Paleo "Eared" Eden point ever found in Wisconsin. It's made of a more common color variety of Hixton Silcified Sandstone. It measures 6 7/8 inches long.

Agate Basin point from Illinois made of Hixton.
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AGATE BASIN POINT
STEPHENSON COUNTY, ILLINOIS
PRIVATE COLLECTION

   This Agate Basin point was found by a bulldozer operator in 1950 along with two other Agate Basin points that were made of white Burlington chert. This spear point is made of a very pretty light yellow/orange color of Hixton Silcified Sandstone.

"REFERENCES"

   1987, Central States Archaeological Journal, "Hixton Silicified Sandstone: Wisconsin's Unique Prehistoric Lithic Material", by James M. Lang, Vol. 34, No. 3, pp.132-139.

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