Material · lithic
Catlinite
North America — Great Plains, North America — Eastern Woodlands
Catlinite is the red pipestone quarried at Pipestone, Minnesota, and carved into pipes by Plains and Great Lakes peoples from the Late Prehistoric period to the present. The quarry is a National Monument reserved for Native American carvers. Historic-period pipes and pipe bowls in catlinite are widely collected but many are modern crafts.
| Kind | lithic |
|---|---|
| Regions | North America — Great Plains, North America — Eastern Woodlands |
Sources
The quarry is a thin seam of argillite in the Sioux quartzite at Pipestone National Monument, Minnesota, quarried by hand by enrolled tribal members; similar red pipestones occur in Wisconsin, South Dakota and Ohio. The quarry has been in continuous Native use for centuries and is protected by federal law.
Identification
Catlinite is brick to blood red, sometimes with cream mottles, fine-grained and soft enough to carve with steel tools, taking a smooth, dull polish; it is distinguished from harder red siltstones and from Ohio pipestone, which is cream to pink. Fresh surfaces are bright red.
Substitutes and fakes
Catlinite pipes are made today as legitimate Native craft and sold widely; problems arise when they are represented as old. Ancient examples show reed-drilled bores and wear.
Cite this article
Stratum Strata. "Catlinite" (Material). Stratum Strata pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21. https://stratum.black/strata/materials/catlinite. Accessed 2026-09-21.
@misc{stratum-catlinite,
title = {Catlinite},
author = {{Stratum Strata}},
howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/strata/materials/catlinite}},
year = {2026},
note = {Material article, Stratum Strata pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21; sources: stratum, commons. Accessed 2026-09-21.}
} Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.