Residual material and staining.
You may be noticing that residual material and/or staining is another common feature. The most common colours I see are orange, red, black, grey and purple. The closer you look at many of these pieces the more of these common features you will see.
This next piece is interesting because it has an off white residual stain under the orange residual stain which I believe is ochre. Although it doesn’t look like it in this picture, the colour is very similar to the colour of the piece of ochre below it that I found at the same site. You should also notice the striations are under both layers of residual staining.
The next piece still has an incredibly vibrant red colour (ochre?) stain that can be removed by rubbing or scraping.
Another piece with three different colours/shades of residual stains.
A small scraper with striations and grey residual staining.
Black residual stain is most common on the red and green argillite I find in the area.
This purple colour is not as common as the others.
Below is an authenticated tool on display at the Smithsonian, National Museum of the American Indian.
This next piece is in my collection. The colour of the residual stain on both is very similar. This shape is a common repeating pattern that I find. To me it has a shape similar to a foot. The most common feature I see on this shape is a polished concave groove next to, what I consider, the big toe.
This next image is the underside you can see the polished concave groove on the top left.
