Dryer,
All of these are artifacts except for the mounted arrowheads.

As you point out, the rock availability is quite different around the country. There is a scale of difficulty but anyrock without a lot of quartz is hard. The shale scraper in one photo was probably made by an expert, with poor rock. Obsidian is the best and the prettiest and was traded widely. Some of THESE flakes may have been flaked thousands of years ago.

One method of making blades is to use a punch of deer antler and to go around and around a core punching off long spalls. This leaves a very clear set of identifiable marks in the rock. I have a core so old that the shiny spots where flakes came off are weathered and slightly pockmarked (meaning a couple thousand years old,) AND it has recent fresh marks from being found and reused as a core in the last few hundred years.

The hatchet was ground, so no flaking. Jade tools are used someplaces. Jade cannot be flaked, but can easily be ground and holds an edge well.

I've never worked anything but obsidian but the materials in my collection and my friends run the gamut. I have a beautiful Rhyolite arrowhead thats afavorite. The 9 arrowheads on the red background look mostly like chert to me, and I think they are mostly from the midwest. My shoulder gave out after making 13 arrowheads, couldn't even lay in a dentist chair till I quit flaking for 9 months.

If I was a hunter I might get more into making arrows and try to make a good bow. I made 2 as a kid, but they weren't much good.
Jim <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />
P.S. This is why I say you don't need a knife, compass, flashlight, sunscreen, first aid kit, repair kit or canteen. Now Weapons were certainly part of survival a thousand years ago and a bow and a knife were needed for combat as well as gathering food, but what real purpose do they serve modern campers making a low impact visit to the woods?