Aztec priests used razor-sharp obsidian blades to cut open sacrificial victims, offering their still-beating hearts to the gods before tossing their bodies down the steps of Templo Mayor.

Not only is it a visually attractive material, but it can easily be worked to create sharp edges, perfect for spearheads, knives, and hand-axes. Snowflake obsidian has been linked by some to ...

Master carvers, who taught their craft over generations, roughed out the statues using stone tools called toki and employed sharp obsidian tools to make finer lines. The real mystery—how a small ...

Hand-carved arrowheads and jagged spears made of obsidian, a sharp rock formed by volcanic magma, are remnants of vast prehistoric trade networks that once cut across western North America.

It’s fine structure means both that it fractures predictably during tool-making and it will produce a razor sharp edge. But, what ultimately makes obsidian so well suited for tracking social relations ...

Hand-carved arrowheads and jagged spears made of obsidian, a sharp rock formed by volcanic magma, are remnants of vast prehistoric trade networks that once cut across western North America. No volcano ...