Obsidian was valued in Stone Age cultures because, like flint, it could be fractured to produce sharp blades or arrowheads.  Like all glass and some other types of naturally occurring rocks, obsidian breaks with a characteristic conchoidal fracture.  It was also polished to create early mirrors.  Modern archaeologists have developed a relative dating system, obsidian hydration dating, to calculate the age of obsidian artifacts.

Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable.  Shale is characterized by breaks along thin laminae or parallel layering or bedding less than one centimeter in thickness, called fissility. Mudstones, on the other hand, are similar in composition but do not show the fissility.

Gemstone Arrowheads are hand-knapped from natural fancy jasper. Knapping is the art of cleaving and shaping an object by chipping one stone against another. A popular style for Native American designs, wire wrapped and non wire-wrapped arrowheads pendants are also available (See SN-249 & SN-251).

Sizes May Vary Slightly