The well-known red pipestone quarry in Minnesota "was held and owned in common, and as a neutral group" (Holmes 1919: 262). In the Western Desert of Australia, Gould et al. (1971) report that chert and chalcedony sources themselves are not held through a concept of quarry ownership. All material of usably good knapping quality is equally valued, and knapping is not a skill that is assigned great importance. However, an important totemic affiliation exists between a person and stone from the region in which they were born. Cherts from a person's ancestral region are sometimes visually distinct and therefore materials of a particular region will be sought and transported over long distances as a physical link to those regions.

These preferences appear to be a reflection of the close totemic ties each man has to the particular region in which he was born and from which he claims totemic descent. Thus, a man may have a sense of kinship with some of these localities, and he will value the stone material from them as a part of his own being. Stone materials thus acquired are not sacred in any strict sense but are nevertheless valued highly enough to be transported over long distances by owners (Gould, et al. 1971: 161-162).

Ideological and emotive links to raw material are a consideration in human activities around source areas. Social and symbolic restrictions on quarries have also been documented ethnographically in New Guinea (Burton 1984;McBryde 1984). In terms of exchange behaviors, quarry areas present special problems and opportunities for archaeologists. One of the principal difficulties with examining ethnicity and access to quarries is correlating archaeological evidence with social and symbolic behavior associated with quarries. Some theoretical models are contingent on measuring evidence of maximization and control of production at quarry areas, and these models are often contingent on the detection of boundaries and restricted access based on material evidence (Torrence 1986). Unfortunately, as demonstrated by some of the studies above, many social and symbolic limitations on quarry access leave no direct material correlates and can be extremely difficult to detect archaeologically.