Greenstone (archaeology)

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Greenstone staff, 1550 - 1600 AD, from the Tairona culture of present-day Colombia.
Greenstone staff, 1550 - 1600 AD, from the Tairona culture of present-day Colombia.
For other uses, see Greenstone.

Greenstone is a common generic term for valuable, green-hued minerals and stones which were used in the fashioning of jewelry, statuettes, ritual tools, and various other artefacts in early cultures. Greenstone artefacts may be made of greenschist, chlorastrolite, serpentine, omphacite, chrysoprase, or other green-hued minerals.[1] The term can also, though less commonly, refer to jade.

Greenstone minerals were presumably selected for their color rather than their chemical composition.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Joyce et al., and Pool, p. 150.

[edit] References

  • Joyce, Rosemary; Hendon, Julia (2003) Mesoamerican Archaeology: Theory and Practice, Blackwell Publishing Limited , London.
  • Pool, Christopher A. (2007). Olmec Archaeology and Early Mesoamerica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-78882-3.