In the Northeast, studies of lithic trade have sometimes obscured the importance of local lithic resources. Local materials may be misidentified as trade items or simply placed in the miscellaneous category. This article documents a local Connecticut Valley chert mineral much favored in the Woodland Period for thumbnail scrapers at the Quinnetuck Narrows Site, Gill, Massachusetts. Both X-ray diffraction and optical mineralogy techniques identify this as a circumscribed local chert that is unprecedented for being located in a heavily metamorphosed terrain. Outcrops, glacial boulders, and stream cobbles probably provided ready access to this material in the local area.
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