Humans and human-like creatures were making and using stone tools before the discovery of fire. In this regard, it can be argued that stone or rock has been one of the most important kinds of raw material during most of human existence. The identification of rock types and the recognition of rock qualities for tool making and task production must have been second nature for humans for more than 90% or more of our existence. However, very few humans today appreciate rocks or recognize differences in their natural qualities because so little contemporary technology incorporates rock.

Archaeologists who study prehistoric technology are among the few people who handle different kinds of rock and must deal with rock classification and variability. Yet lithic raw-material identification by the archaeological community is poorly developed, owing partly to the lack of consistent lithic material definitions used by geologists and archaeologists, and partly due to the variations in local and regional use of terminology (Church 1994: 13–15; Luedtke 1992:5). Beyond problems associated with consistent terminology, many archaeologists do not understand the characteristics that are important when determining lithic types. Should archaeologists be looking for variations in color, texture, composition, grain size, or all of these things? How is texture or composition determined? This chapter introduces and describes some rudimentary techniques to help determine lithic raw-material types. However, the variation in lithic raw-material types is enormous and only a fraction of that variation is directly associated with chipped stone tools.