The Logan Museum of Anthropology houses several lithic artifacts that are classified as being made of Hixton Silicified Sandstone (HSS), a material originating in western Wisconsin, roughly between La Crosse and Eau Claire. These artifacts, which are up to 12,000 years old, include various projectile points, blades, and other tools, and were created by some of the earliest people in this region. The HSS comes from portions of the Cambrian Wonewoc Formation in which the grains of sandstone have been cemented together by silica, creating lenses and nodules of very hard rock with physical properties similar to chert. Besides the HSS, other, similarly silicified sandstones exist nearby, namely the Cataract and Arcadia silicified sandstones, which differ in elemental composition and lithology. The goal of this project is to gain a better understanding of where the Logan Museum material, which was often brought considerable distances from its origin, was geologically sourced. This, in turn, can provide information about aspects of how the people who created these artifacts lived, such as where they traded and what materials they preferred to use for tools.

This project will involve using both geochemical and lithological analyses on samples collected from 6 different outcrops, covering a range of silicified sandstone materials, as well as 25 artifacts from the Logan Museum. The elemental composition of these artifacts and samples will be determined through (non-destructive) pXRF analysis. In addition, lithological characteristics such as color, grain size, sorting of grains, etc will be determined through visual examination. This project will result in a better understanding of the source material used to create Logan Museum artifacts.