The majority of the artifacts I come across in the field are flakes, the bits of stone created through knapping. Flint knapping is the process of reducing cores of stone, such as chert or obsidian, into tools, such as projectile points or scrapers. It was amazing to find an entire flint knapping station, where I could see the lithic reduction process from beginning to end. I could put some of the flakes back together to form part of a core. I could see hundreds of bits if shatter. And, just think, someone was sitting here hundreds of years ago, making stone tools.
*As ever, it is illegal and unethical to remove artifacts from public lands (i.e. Forest Service, BLM, NPS, etc).