agatemaggot
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Post by agatemaggot on Jan 28, 2021 15:44:12 GMT -5
I don’t know anything about the artifacts. However, the pictures of the men wearing very big rings in their ears intrigues me. Seems like the rings would be a problem in battle or hunting. Opinion? Saturday night out with the Missus !
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Post by Pat on Jan 28, 2021 15:54:26 GMT -5
I don’t know anything about the artifacts. However, the pictures of the men wearing very big rings in their ears intrigues me. Seems like the rings would be a problem in battle or hunting. Opinion? Saturday out with the Missus ! Leave your big earrings at home. 😄
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Sabre52
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Post by Sabre52 on Jan 28, 2021 16:12:06 GMT -5
When I lived in California we would often find grooved stones like that around lakes and marshes. The consensus there was fish net or waterfowl throw net weights. They were usually made of common local rock rather than fancier materials like steatite or soapstone used for more ornamental purposes as they were often lost and had to be replaced.
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agatemaggot
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Post by agatemaggot on Jan 28, 2021 18:19:10 GMT -5
Being as the item pictured was not well finished I would bet my last dollar your right, never thought about it being a net weight !
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rockhoundoz
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Post by rockhoundoz on Jan 28, 2021 22:16:30 GMT -5
When I lived in California we would often find grooved stones like that around lakes and marshes. The consensus there was fish net or waterfowl throw net weights. They were usually made of common local rock rather than fancier materials like steatite or soapstone used for more ornamental purposes as they were often lost and had to be replaced. Thanks for that information! Waterfowl throwing net or bola would make a lot of sense. Considered some fishing purposes, seems overdesigned & small for a set-net sinker for the areas near here where I fish, but could also see something like that as inline weights in a castnet for fish. I had failed to consdider cast nets 😅. One thing though, with the seemingly carved, smoothed concave side, kinda seems over-engineering for a castnet? Guess it could help it fly (thinking frisbee, haha) as a bola. It does seem to fit & with a good thumb-purchase in the hand as some sort of handtool.
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Sabre52
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Post by Sabre52 on Jan 29, 2021 10:20:00 GMT -5
Did some research in my library and found pics of very similar grooved net weights. Only thing different is rather than the concave side, the pictured weights are drilled though. Others pictured though are just grooved and not drilled. Can't explain why the one side is concave. That has me stumped. Unless, since the stone seems fairly rough, it was used as some kind of sharpening of grinding tool or the concavity was used to grip the weight in the throwing process which does seem like over engineering. Perhaps secondary use for sharpening bone or wood implements like fish hooks or bone points of fish spears? Native Americans were very efficient at finding multiple uses for items they made. I do discount the idea it might be the upper part of a bow drill set because for that sort of thing,the concavity would be of very smooth stone as would most stones for ornamental use. Bola weights I've seen have usually been round.
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rockhoundoz
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Post by rockhoundoz on Jan 29, 2021 14:35:45 GMT -5
Did some research in my library and found pics of very similar grooved net weights. Only thing different is rather than the concave side, the pictured weights are drilled though. Others pictured though are just grooved and not drilled. Can't explain why the one side is concave. That has me stumped. Unless, since the stone seems fairly rough, it was used as some kind of sharpening of grinding tool or the concavity was used to grip the weight in the throwing process which does seem like over engineering. Perhaps secondary use for sharpening bone or wood implements like fish hooks or bone points of fish spears? Native Americans were very efficient at finding multiple uses for items they made. I do discount the idea it might be the upper part of a bow drill set because for that sort of thing,the concavity would be of very smooth stone as would most stones for ornamental use. Bola weights I've seen have usually been round. That's a good point about fish hook sharpening. Both bone hooks & gorges are known from this area. One of my first thoughts finding it, it could've been used as a terminal weight for line fishing- which a one-line rig, or trot line style would make sense for the swift water here at the stones 2oz mass. That would make extra sense re. hook sharpening too. Like you say though, it's odd that it wouldn't have a hole. The grooved fishing weights that I see, without holes, were clearly created 'fast & rough', as you would expect to lose some, with most all cordage becoming softer & stretching when wet. If I put the time into a piece like this for fishing, why not add a hole. That was the primary reason I ruled out fishing initially, but hey, they probably used some really good waterproof cordage material like dogbane & slippery elm bark. Overall, I'd say fishing related usage is pretty likely given the locale, although another thought is that fishing weights are usually pretty uniform & mass-produced, & I can'tfind anyone who's seen something like this before. Probably time to bring it down to the university. On another note, did you see the second artififact that I posted, sabre52? The one that has a trigger type shape. Any thoughts?
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Sabre52
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Post by Sabre52 on Jan 29, 2021 16:31:08 GMT -5
Yeah, I've never seen anything like that second one but what I find interesting about it is the perfect looking half circle in the concave side. I could almost make a wild guess that it was used to smooth a one inch round shaft but from the pic I cannot tell if the object has abrasive qualities. I have found pumice stones with perfect half circle channels that were plainly used to smooth or shape arrow shafts.
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rockhoundoz
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Post by rockhoundoz on Jan 29, 2021 17:42:22 GMT -5
Yeah, I've never seen anything like that second one but what I find interesting about it is the perfect looking half circle in the concave side. I could almost make a wild guess that it was used to smooth a one inch round shaft but from the pic I cannot tell if the object has abrasive qualities. I have found pumice stones with perfect half circle channels that were plainly used to smooth or shape arrow shafts. It's a very smooth/ glassy chert. It very well could've been sharpened inside that crescent shaped divet on the concave side, for shaping shafts, but it's not an abrasive material (unlike the grooved-disc). Also just so perfectly fits in the hand, and either/both of those terminal tips/ends could've been sharpened. In fact they're basically beveled & close to forming an edge, as-is. I could imagine such a cutting tool easily (like an ancient box-cutter), used to cut vertical strips of bark, hide/leather etc. Couple pics to illustrate. It fits really nicely like this & has a very natural feeling. Again, if it were such a basic tool- would suspect someone had seen something like that before, but maybe this area just had very unique craftsmen/women.
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lookatthat
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Post by lookatthat on Feb 1, 2021 16:21:39 GMT -5
Antlers can have holes due to botflies.
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Sabre52
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 1, 2021 18:55:07 GMT -5
Just another possibility re the chert piece. It could be natural. Here on the ranch we get a lot of really strange and often symmetrical chert nodules that formed in mollusc burrows or eroded water channels and then weathered from the native Edwards limestone. I can't find any tool that looks like than in all my books. I guess it might just remain a mystery.
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rockhoundoz
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Post by rockhoundoz on Feb 2, 2021 14:13:51 GMT -5
Just another possibility re the chert piece. It could be natural. Here on the ranch we get a lot of really strange and often symmetrical chert nodules that formed in mollusc burrows or eroded water channels and then weathered from the native Edwards limestone. I can't find any tool that looks like than in all my books. I guess it might just remain a mystery. Certainly a possibility. In fact, I assumed it was an unusual natural nodule at first, and then only over the couple years since, started to wonder if it was a tool. Hadn't considered mollusc burrow cast but can imagine that being true with this shape. After 30 years collecting chert & other silicates in Kentucky, just have never seen anything similar at all- but it could be a rare example. Even if it is an odd natural cast, still could have been picked up & used in some way as a tool. In that larger crescent shape on the concave side- it seems to show an anomalous wear pattern/smoothness/even varnishing which looks like it was extensively rubbed there. Don't really see that kind of smooth rind in this type of chert. A more clear pic of that: For another thing, I can't imagine if ancient people would have ground flint into a shape like that. It shows no sign at all of flaking/knapping. To be sure, we have softer & harder cherts, & we have very hard oolitic agate with surface like sandpaper, which is hard enough to grind the softer flints, but I'm not sure if that was done here in olden days. One of these days I'll suck it up & take the very small collection of mystery items into a local expert. If it turned out to not be artifact, I might sharpen the larger terminal end, because it would make an awesome small knife/ utility blade, but I wouldn't want to deface an artifact. Also no idea if there's any precedent on tribal use in this way, but could see how it would be an ideal massage tool to get into muscle/tendons/ligaments etc.
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Post by RickB on Feb 2, 2021 18:43:49 GMT -5
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rockhoundoz
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Post by rockhoundoz on Feb 3, 2021 13:04:37 GMT -5
Great examples, thanks rickb! I definitely have not ruled out this 👂, or any of the possibilities discussed in the thread. The spiro mound example looks like maybe pottery? Beautiful shape. I found many examples online, in both sandstone & limestone, which look similar. Having trouble getting concise links, but a few screen-capture images: Further, just FWIW, the concave side on the disc, when I hold the thing up behind my ear, that concavity naturally rests right on the mastoid process (bony lump behind the ear), so that it rests comfortably & flush. Also, very cool on the ground flint example from Indiana!! That is from a county on the Kentucky border- so it would suggest that flint/chert grinding was indeed happening in this region . Actually, the finish/skin/rind on that ear spool is very similar to the finish on the second, chert mystery item I posted 😎.
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Post by RickB on Feb 3, 2021 13:32:24 GMT -5
No matter what material ear spools were made from, 2 inches or more of rock in my ear would be too much. One would have to be a bad-ass to do that. I noticed many of them were flat on one side and concave or convex on the other.
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rockhoundoz
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Post by rockhoundoz on Feb 3, 2021 19:31:06 GMT -5
No matter what material ear spools were made from, 2 inches or more of rock in my ear would be too much. One would have to be a bad-ass to do that. I noticed many of them were flat on one side and concave or convex on the other. So true, but then I suspect us humans have generally been slowly declining on the badass scale for some time now . I've heard mixed reviews about the painfulness of modern day ear gauging, but surely at 2inches it doesn't feel like a dip in the hot tub 😅. They probably had smoothed the 'rim' where it touches the skin pretty good too, minimizing the effect of differing stones further & I guess sandstone would just about be the lightest option out of the options discussed here, & limestone close 2nd. Bone & wood would harbor more microbes. The tribes had significantly more advanced knowledge on pathogens than the Europeans at time of 1st contact. As a side note, was wondering all along why we don't call them 'ear plugs', until I put that into google 🤣 <- tunnel vision/sometimes very dense, lol.
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mjflinty
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Post by mjflinty on Feb 12, 2021 9:21:32 GMT -5
Hello all,
Sorry I didn't see this earlier, I have been moving and with all the rocks I have it kicked my butt!
As an archaeologist with a specialization in stone tools, I have seen many artifacts over the past 30 years and I have also seen a lot of geofacts. In fact, I have a talk I give that addresses both. The technology that was used to manufacture chipped stone tools (arrowheads) and ground stone (axes, bannerstones, gorgets) leave distinctive traces on the artifact. Flaked stone will have scars on the surface from the removal of chips and ground stone will be marked with pits from pecking and some areas may show smoothing from it being ground to shape. Nature is a powerful force that can shape stones too. A geofact is a stone that has been modified by weathering and erosion. Often a stone that has different types of minerals in it will have different layers or spots that wear away at different rates due to hardness differences. Think about a dense limestone with a soft fossil in it... the soft fossil will wear away faster than the surrounding matrix to the point that it may leave a hole in the stone. The opposite is also true; a hard chert nodule in limestone will resit weathering and the limestone erodes away leaving (sometimes) a oddly shaped nodule of chert.
It's always challenging to tell from a picture... I don't think the sandstone or the chert nodule you posted are artifacts. It gets tricky when stones like these are found at an archaeological site; people have always collected rocks and they may have picked up the sandstone thinking they'd make something. It gets left at a site with other artifacts and if the site is excavated properly we can discern if it was intentionally brought to the site based on where it was found in relation to other diagnostic artifacts. If that's the case, it would be classified as a manuport and considered an artifact since it was carried to the site for some purpose.
Hope this helps! Michael
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rockhoundoz
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Post by rockhoundoz on Feb 13, 2021 16:46:21 GMT -5
Hello all, Sorry I didn't see this earlier, I have been moving and with all the rocks I have it kicked my butt! As an archaeologist with a specialization in stone tools, I have seen many artifacts over the past 30 years and I have also seen a lot of geofacts. In fact, I have a talk I give that addresses both. The technology that was used to manufacture chipped stone tools (arrowheads) and ground stone (axes, bannerstones, gorgets) leave distinctive traces on the artifact. Flaked stone will have scars on the surface from the removal of chips and ground stone will be marked with pits from pecking and some areas may show smoothing from it being ground to shape. Nature is a powerful force that can shape stones too. A geofact is a stone that has been modified by weathering and erosion. Often a stone that has different types of minerals in it will have different layers or spots that wear away at different rates due to hardness differences. Think about a dense limestone with a soft fossil in it... the soft fossil will wear away faster than the surrounding matrix to the point that it may leave a hole in the stone. The opposite is also true; a hard chert nodule in limestone will resit weathering and the limestone erodes away leaving (sometimes) a oddly shaped nodule of chert. It's always challenging to tell from a picture... I don't think the sandstone or the chert nodule you posted are artifacts. It gets tricky when stones like these are found at an archaeological site; people have always collected rocks and they may have picked up the sandstone thinking they'd make something. It gets left at a site with other artifacts and if the site is excavated properly we can discern if it was intentionally brought to the site based on where it was found in relation to other diagnostic artifacts. If that's the case, it would be classified as a manuport and considered an artifact since it was carried to the site for some purpose. Hope this helps! Michael Thanks for your professional analysis & info, Michael mjflinty! It's likely that I will still take at least the round sandstone piece to the University, just to have the finality of an 'in person' look, although I do feel confident in your assessment. On another note, after you were 'tagged in' to this convo., I took a look at a couple of your older threads out of curiosity for other artifact related stuff, & was able to probably ID an agate you posted in the identification thread "groove wrapped agate", as a "Mississippi river zone" agate. I've collected a large amount of similar agates from river gravels in both Missouri & Mississippi, & have cut several nearly identical agates from both places, especially Missouri.
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