Hike trails through the 533-acre preserve and see ancient pits left by American Indians who came from the surrounding area to quarry flint. The unique rainbow-colored flint was used as an item of trade, tools and weapons. Within the museum, learn about Ohio’s official gemstone and the shaping of flint into tools, known as knapping.
Flint Ridge is a nearly eight-mile-long vein of high-quality flint located in Licking and Muskingum counties of eastern Ohio. Hundreds of quarry pits and workshop sites are scattered across more than 2,000 acres of ridge top in these Appalachian foothills. It has been called the “Great Indian Quarry of Ohio.”
Flint Ridge seems to have been well known in the ancient world, as small amounts of it have been found at American Indian sites across the present-day eastern United States. Because of this flint’s great beauty, it has been respected throughout the ages in the tools, weapons and ceremonial objects of native cultures and in modern times in the production of jewelry.
Flint Ridge Ancient Quarries & Nature Preserve is managed locally by the Ohio History Connection.
Flint Ridge was less than a day's walk from Newark, and one of ancient North America's greatest treasure sources. From its many pits, generations of Natives obtained beautiful, multicolored flint for shaping into weapons and tools, as early as 10,000 years before the nearby earthworks were built.
Flint Ridge is a nearly eight-mile-long vein of high-quality flint located in Licking and Muskingum counties of eastern Ohio. Hundreds of quarry pits and workshop sites are scattered across more than 2,000 acres of ridge top in these Appalachian foothills. It has been called the “Great Indian Quarry of Ohio.”
American Indians have used Flint Ridge as a quarry for over 15,000 years, but the popularity of this rainbow-colored flint reached its peak during the Middle Woodland period, between 2,100 and 1,500 years ago.
Throughout the development of prehistoric civilizations, flint was the most utilized rock type. It was fashioned by early hunters into spear points, knives, hide scrapers, drills, and a variety of other implements for daily and ceremonial use.
Several flint beds of archaeological and mineralogical significance occur throughout the state. Many localities were discovered and quarried by precolonial Native Americans, who used the flint as a raw material for making tools and weapons.
In Ohio, flint occurs as lenses, nodules, or sheet-like deposits within marine limestones. The limestones were deposited in shallow inland seas that covered much of Ohio during the Paleozoic Era. Sources of the silica (SiO2) for Ohio flint deposits are not well understood.
Chert and flint occur as individual nodules or layers of nodules in limestone or dolomite; they are common in rocks of all ages (notably in the Cretaceous chalk of England).
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