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Post by roswelljero on Oct 22, 2009 22:02:59 GMT -5
I have a bunch of artifacts and some fossils from South America, mostly Bolivia and Peru that I don't know: What was it used for? What's it made of? How old it is? I'm gonna post a couple of pics every few days. Any help, even a guess, will be greatly appreciated! I'm gonna start labeling them in orange, once they have an ID. #1 bone or antler used for tool manufacturing?#2 bone or antler used for tool manufacturing?#3 spear head or biface blade or digging tool#4 adz blade or celt or small hammer headLater, jeri
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Post by Hard Rock Cafe on Oct 22, 2009 22:35:49 GMT -5
Well, here are my purely uneducated guesses: #2 is a spear head with the point broken off, or perhaps a scraper #3 is a hand hammer
Chuck
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Sabre52
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Post by Sabre52 on Oct 22, 2009 23:26:53 GMT -5
First two look more like fossils of some sort rather than artifacts. #3 seem to be a broken biface blade and #4 an adz blade or celt if its sharpened to a bit of a edge on the wide end....Mel
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Post by roswelljero on Oct 24, 2009 21:24:28 GMT -5
Thanks Chuck & Mel. 1 & 2. I need to find a 'fossil guy'. 3. Do you think the blade/point is flint?. 4. It is somewhat 'sharpened' on the wide edge so I'll call it a celt. #5 Scraper / fleshing tool used for preparing hidesI know it's obsidian and flat on one side. #6 is also obsidian and cylindrical. a closing device used as a button would be but would have been attached on a short thong OR Maybe worn in the ear or nose ? #7 obsidian scraper or shaping tool for smoothing small diameter shafts#8 obsidian scraper or shaping tool for smoothing small diameter shaftsI guess I was in an obsidian mood tonight! Thanks for looking. Later, jeri
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Fossilman
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Post by Fossilman on Oct 25, 2009 9:14:28 GMT -5
The first two look like corral or bone chips of some kind......As of the rest of the pics,they were easy to identify(prehistoric tools)....Cool collection.......
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agatemaggot
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Post by agatemaggot on Oct 25, 2009 22:04:16 GMT -5
It's hard to tell from the pics. but one and two might be bone or antler used for tool manufacturing.
#3 looks like an unfinished Bi-face but looking closely you can see the larger end has a fairly high polish from being used like a hoe would be. It also has 2 slight notches on each side that were probably used to facilitate binding a handle. Might be a digging tool of some kind ?
#4 Celt / small hammer head
#5 Scraper / fleshing tool used for preparing hides
#6 Maybe a closing device used as a button would be but would have been attached on a short thong OR Maybe worn in the ear or nose ?
#'s 7 & 8 look like scrapers and shaping tools for smoothing small diameter shafts . They both have a well worked radius for taking the humps and bumps off an arrow shaft or something similar. I have quite a few of these that I have found on old Indian camps up and down both sides of the Miss. River in Wisc. and Iowa and down past the Ill. boarder .
Harley
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Post by roswelljero on Oct 26, 2009 17:20:06 GMT -5
Thanks fossil... Oh! There are some fossils in the collection. I'll put them up next. Harley thank you for your help... #6 is a real puzzler! I looked up Antiqua, Guatemala and it was a Mayan place, so maybe it is a body ornament of some kind. #7 & 8, I would never have thought of wood shaping tools! There are about 35 pieces of obsidian, most just look like flakes, so maybe that's what they were used for. #9, I don't believe the shell is a fossil, but it was in the envelope with the others. The 2 in the middle have Viscachani (Bolivia) written on the back. Trilobites#10, the 2 halves fit together perfectly. Trilobite#11, a clam? The whole thing is there, not just half of a shell. #12, don't know if it's a fossil or a rock. Thanks for looking! Later, jeri
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agatemaggot
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Post by agatemaggot on Oct 26, 2009 18:43:40 GMT -5
I don't know what there called but SOMETIMES a small stone will be trapped in place by other pebbles on top of another rock and the water currents will cause it to revolve . The spinning will form the pebble into a natural sphere and it will actually drill a perfectly round hole down into the rock underneath it. It is rare to find both the stones insitu but it does happen from time to time . I once saw a pic. of one with 3 holes in it but your pic. defies all laws of probability. The rock in your pic. looks like water-worn Limestone and the pockets may have contained fossils of some type or another at one time. There are 3 ,it looks like, pockets, with stones in the bottom of them but that could be an after the fact type thingy. Whatever it is, it looks pretty Smurffy !
Harley
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Fossilman
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Post by Fossilman on Oct 27, 2009 7:28:18 GMT -5
I see a couple "Trilobites" in there,they are the ones that look like bugs,the rest are shells,They are over a million + years old...........
Except for the sea or ocean rock(they are common from the waves and sand making the holes in the rock)not worth anything,but nice to look at.
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Post by roswelljero on Oct 28, 2009 22:39:24 GMT -5
Thanks for the explanation of how the holes got in the rock Harley. fossil I've heard of trilobites, but all the ones I've seen were flat. Thanks for the ID. Back to artifacts... #13 If I knew Spanish, I might know what he thought this might be. azadon y raspador = grub hoe and scraper #14 Heavy, flat and has a sheen. digging tool / hoe ?#15 Heavy, not as flat, slight sheen. digging tool / hoe ?#16 Heavy, kind of flat. appears to be unfinished and meant to have a handleAs always, thanks for looking! Later, jeri
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Post by NatureNut on Oct 28, 2009 22:44:20 GMT -5
Harley, that was a cool explanation for the holes. This thread is pretty fascinating! Jo
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Post by roswelljero on Oct 30, 2009 0:38:00 GMT -5
naturenut I agree, he did a great job explaining how the holes formed... I've seen round depressions in really big rocks and always thought something must have weathered out of it... Now I know better. I'll be gone this weekend. Hope to see some IDs/ideas on the latest batch when I return on Sunday. Later, jeri
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Fossilman
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Post by Fossilman on Oct 30, 2009 8:22:32 GMT -5
Holy Moly,those are some nice prehistoric tools............
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agatemaggot
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Post by agatemaggot on Oct 30, 2009 17:28:34 GMT -5
#13 Small grinding stone ?
#14 / #15 From the wear / polish on the one end, they look to be a digging tool / hoe ?
#16 Looks like it was made to have a handle of sorts but shows no wear marks in the pic. one of those problematic tools, only the maker knows for sure what it was used for ? Could be that it was never completely finished and was never used ?
#6 Has the word (Polihedral ) on the label, have you ever held that little guy in front of a bright light ? Some Crystals have a bubble containing water in them. Never heard of a water bubble in Obsidian but it wouldn't take long to check it out !
Harley
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RocknCritter
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Post by RocknCritter on Oct 31, 2009 9:11:53 GMT -5
#6 Has the word (Polihedral ) on the label, have you ever held that little guy in front of a bright light ? Some Crystals have a bubble containing water in them. Never heard of a water bubble in Obsidian but it wouldn't take long to check it out ! Harley Howdy Everyone, I think in the above post from Harley he's referring to "enhydro" crystals - rocks that have small water or gas bubbles. These are certainly some pretty cool inclusions that can be seen when the crystal is held up to the light. When you move the crystal, you can see the bubble move. "Nucleo polihedral obsidiano" refers to the polyhedral center of the obsidian. The best known polyhedral specimens are the three and four-sided agates from Brasil. If you need to translate some of these terms, babelfish.yahoo.com/ is pretty helpful.
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RocknCritter
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Post by RocknCritter on Oct 31, 2009 9:19:46 GMT -5
. #13 If I knew Spanish, I might know what he thought this might be. azadon y raspador = grub hoe and scraper
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agatemaggot
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Post by agatemaggot on Oct 31, 2009 14:46:33 GMT -5
Thank you ! ENHYDRO was the word I was searching for but had a prolonged brain fart going on. The Abos used to set up a thing thats called a Core that they struck long , narrow blades from and it was polyhedral shaped and sometimes 8 to 10 inches long. The little guy pictured would be WAY to small to be one of those tho. Thanks for the link, I will probably be using it in the near future as I sometimes find south American research papers in my late night cyber-space wanderings and do not have a clue what the pic. captions mean. A lot of the items pictured are rather common and the use is obvious but others ?? Thanks again, Harley
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RocknCritter
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Post by RocknCritter on Oct 31, 2009 15:23:15 GMT -5
After I posted earlier and logged off something struck me about the polyhedral obsidian.
Is it just me or does anyone else see what might be wrong about this statement?
Obsidian is amorphous. By nature, it can't form in a cubic or polyhedral structure as I understand it. Agate (quartz) is trigonal and would be more likely to form this way. I'm CERTAINLY not an expert yet the more I think about it, either this artifact is agate or an extremely rare form of obsidian (or for all we know, something completely different).
Have you ever held it up to the light to see if there are little growth lines or rings?
Or maybe Harley is on to something. The term polyhedral doesn't refer to the crystal structure. Instead maybe it has more to do with the usage.
Either way: FASCINATING> In the voice of Spock from Star Trek.
You're a lucky girl to have this collection!!!
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agatemaggot
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Post by agatemaggot on Nov 1, 2009 13:36:31 GMT -5
I started collecting / hunting artifacts about 30 years ago.I kept records on the areas of my finds and sometimes what I assumed was the objects use. Years later I would happen to find something else from the same site and after labeling it , I would place the piece with others from that location. Once in a while I would have something catch my eye and read the label on it that I had placed on it years back. Ever once in a while I catch myself wondering, -------
WHAT bodily orifice did I pull THAT idea out of ?
I noticed that one of the labels in this thread had a question mark on it (?)
That is probably the correct way to operate as it IS rather hard to guess correctly on the use of something that was made for a specific purpose hundreds of years in the past. ( IF ) the object is found in conjunction with other parts of the puzzle it can lead to something that can be considered a close guess ? KINDA/ MAYBE ?
Example
Several years ago I had to take an (island stop ) while fishing on the main channel of the Miss. River. I pulled over to the bank and after throwing out my bow anchor I walked into the woods a short way out of sight of boat traffic and marked my territory so to speak. On the way back to the boat I noticed a VERY large Cottonwood tree that had tipped over in the last good storm we had and, the reason the tree toppled was that the root system was growing outward rather than down because the Island was a very large limestone hump rather than the normal type of deposit from years of river action. It looked like someone opened a large umbrella and laid it on the ground. I noticed something strange where the tree had been standing, a ring of rocks in the thin layer of sand. There was a very dark area inside the ring, CHARCOAL ? Someone had camped there I thought because the area that was covered by the roots was the only place on the Island that wasn't covered in weeds. As I past by the campfire I also noticed that the ring of rock was filled with clam shells and both halves of the clam were laying side by side like you would lay down an open book ! There are NO ROCKS on the Miss. River Islands that haven't been carried there. When you see rocks on an island it is usually a good indicator that you are on an old Indian camp. As I stood there looking at the old fire pit I noticed that ALL the clams had been laid down with the outside of the shell DOWN. All the shells had a hole the size of a nickle punched thru one side, and ALL the clams had been punched thru on the same side ! As I stood looking at what I was beginning to believe was my own private museum display I noticed 2 pieces of well worked Flint laying just outside the ring of stones. The pieces were shaped like a thick Almond and were about 2 inches long by 1 inch thick. After looking at the display for about an hour I had a hunch that the flint pieces were used to punch the hole in the shells and the clams would not open up when placed on the coals so as they would steam in their own juices without pressure building up inside. You could then drink the clam SOUP from the hole and then pry the shell open like a peanut and after removing the pieces of broken shell you could deal with him like an Oyster on the half shell ! I ASSUMED the Flint pieces were used on the Clams and that you could only hold 1 Clam and 1 piece of Flint at the same time , it may have been a mother and daughter cooking a shore lunch for the boy's.
Why a mother and daughter ?
The Flint pieces looked to have been made by the same person from the same piece of stone. They are so closely made they appear to have been MOLDED !
I thought I had it ( ALL) figured out at the time but after several years had passed, I was looking at the box that held the old clam shells and the 2 pieces of identical Flint tools and another thought struck me ------
I wonder if those things had HANDLES because they look like little toy Celts !
Some things we will never know for sure for no other reason than ---
WE were simply just not there !
My apology's for Hi-Jackin the thread but couldn't resist tellin a story about one of my more interesting finds !
If I new then what I know now, sound familiar ? I could have carefully wet the ground where the Flint pieces were laying and if they indeed had handles, the remains / traces of wood particles (ghost type image ) may have appeared and I would have been able to say for sure. It takes a heck of a hit to punch a nickle size hole in a 1/4 in. thick clam shell because I tried it with a small ball peen hammer. I can only guess that they did have handles, but ,you never know as the ladies that used the tools, if that was what they were for, just may have had the strongest hands in the family and THAT'S why THEY were cooking the Clam dinner !
Again, we will never know for certain !
Harley
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Post by roswelljero on Nov 5, 2009 12:50:44 GMT -5
Sorry I didn't get back to this thread sooner. RocknCritter thanks for the link to the translation page. 1. The term polyhedral doesn't refer to the crystal structure. Instead maybe it has more to do with the usage. 2. Either way: FASCINATING> In the voice of Spock from Star Trek. 3. You're a lucky girl to have this collection!!! 1. You've all got me thinking now... Polyhedral is the adj. form of polyhedron which means; A solid bounded by polygons. (no I didn't pull that out of my head, I looked it up) So maybe he was just describing the shape of the artifact? What ever it is, that little mysterious piece of obsidian is probably my favorite! 2. ;D 3. Thanks!!! My apology's for Hi-Jackin the thread but couldn't resist tellin a story about one of my more interesting finds ! No need to apologize, it's a very interesting and educational story! I enjoyed it... My ... Maybe the flint points were used to drill a hole in the shells?... Your island may not have been an island when the camp was made. The Mississippi has changed course many times. This will probably be the last post of the mysterious artifacts. The rest are 'points' of different shapes and sizes. Speaking of which, does anyone have a link to the 'evolution' of points? Where I could read about things like; What came first, the oval or the triangle?. Without it being tooooooo technical. #17 VERY heavy, appears to be metalic, potato shaped, the groove goes completely around. #18 VERY heavy, appears to be metalic, ball shaped, the holes connect to each other. #19 Numbered 1 thru 4 on the backs. #20 There are a few of these, this is the largest. I'm guessing a hand axe? Here's the link to the whole collection, if anyone wants to look. > public.fotki.com/jero/events/william-j-kornfield/Later, jeri
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