more like this:
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Posted on 12/03/2021 3:32:40 PM PST by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
Holes do occur in flint/chert, as do blastoids and other fossils of many kinds, even crystals. Sometimes fossils that have fallen out or dissolved away, or trapped liquids or gasses or debris during formation, are responsible for the holes.
Or a chunk of dry split cottonwood with V notches cut into it...
more like this:
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Looks like a Ryobi without its battery pack.
ROFL!
I would assume it’s a fire starter.
I dont think its too big. Yknow, because, a lot of early peoples were 12’ tall and 1600lbs. They were well known for their baluchitherium riding skills and mammoth wrangling. One of their descendants used to live not too far from here, well known for cutting down most of the virgin timber. Odd duck though, used to hang around with a giant cow...
Since it is from a river pit, it was most likely a naturally worn stone. If a hunk of chert sat around in a village (which would be situated on a fertile loamy site overlooking a river rather than an infertile gravel bar down low) it would be converted to useful blanks and flakes pretty quick rather than be wasted as a grinder where a more common and more suitably shaped stone would do. This hunk of flint has a few bits knocked off of it but they look to be from random strikes. It is very clean and has a thin cortex from long being situated in a river amid countless other stones, that is, it hasn’t been stained from being the family mortar buried by itself for ages under layers of camp refuse and soil. Banner stones were usually slate, granite, or porphery, occasionally other materials, and the hole was bored into a bannerstone using river cane and chert grit, which makes a very regular hole perpendicular to the surface but bigger where the drilling begins and smaller where the drilling stops, and less than an inch across. Chert was preferred for knives, scrapers, drill bits, razor sharp cutting flakes, arrowpoints, and spearpoints.
For example, there is a place not too far away from me called Peewits Nest. You can walk through that narrow gorge and the water in most places is only about a foot deep. After a rain the water looks like youre walking in chocolate milk. Then youll see a kid jump from 20+ feet up right down toward that hard flat stone bottom. Sploosh! They disappear and pop back up.
There are wells ground into the solid stone floor by a similar action. The well is only a couple of feet wide and how they aim at it through chocolate milk Im not sure but its deep enough to catch them safely.
Many years ago I used to do something similar up in the UP along Lake Superior. The water there was quite clear. We could jump off the cliffs there quite safely because the wells were huge, deep, and easy to see.
Yes, very good examples of what I was describing but the ones I was talking about are still full of water like in the illustration.
Depends on the size of it, but it appears to be a weight, used on fishing nets.
You beat me to it.
It looks a little big for it, but I remember ages ago seeing something similar, which the museum claimed were “Paint Pots.” The Indians would put water in it, and rub it with a long thinner stone all around like using a mortal and pestle without anything to grind. The stones they chose would give off a fine powder which would mix with the water and produce paint they could use on their faces, or to mark stuff. The stones were weird, in that they could be brown, and produce vivid red paint, or be black and produce a white paint. The more they rubbed, the thicker the paint got.
It might explain the uneven wear pattern, as they would look for a good spot to rub, and wear it in over time. What is the stone like if you put a little water on it and rub it with another stone? Is it wear resistant, or does it wear finely and produce a paste?
Fire starter, by rubbing a stick with kindling in the bowl. Or by using a small bow to turn the stick.
It looks like a sink with a drain.
You seem confident it’s made of flint. To me, the pictures look more like limestone. What is it that makes you believe it’s flint?
A place or two has a chipped off part and you can see the flint.
It is wear resistant. Folks just don't understand what I've been writing. This stone is NOT limestone. It is VERY hard and I can see flint in a chipped off spot.
I see, now, the chip on the bottom of your last picture.
Hunter Biden’s old crack pipe!
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