knapping flakes in desert crust

I found a site of historic (maybe ancient) activity in pristine condition. I was exploring a stunning sandstone landscape with walls, benches, ridges and spires when I found this. The bright shards are knapping flakes, the litter left by people flintknapping, or fashioning chunks of agate into arrowheads, spearheads, scrapers and knives. The special charm of this site is that the agate flakes lie in desert crust, a diverse community of mosses, lichens, cyanobacteria and algae that seals desert soils, retaining water and retarding erosion. The crust is easily disturbed and degraded by trampling and it takes decades or centuries to recover. Undisturbed crust indicates that no one has stepped here for a long, long time.

 

How man flakes can you find? One is either minute or predominantly buried, but all can be seen at higher resolution.

Done