Found these not too far from each other today close to a River looking for arrowheads. Not sure if that’s what they are but they sure go good together. The flat spot on top is perfect for your thumb to hold on. Some other rock’s around but no smooth ones like these. Anyone know much about these?

Nice find. It's a mortar and pestle, which could be used to grind all sorts of things, including nuts, other seeds and herbs.

Keith

X2 thanks for the picture.

Thanks Keith, definitely going back tomorrow, ran out of daylight today.

Those are not native. They are omars.

Looks to me like there's pecking on both piece's.

That’s cool DRF! I’m no rock expert but this is my coolest Indian rock I have found and I’m just curious if anyone would know more about it. It’s about the size of a 8 pound splitting maul head and has grooves on 3 sides for the handle to be attached.

Ice pick tip probably.

It's a 3/4 grooved axe, preceded by the 4/4 grooved axes.

Tyler very nice it's a axe head with raised ridge's. Way nice!!

What really ponder me is that no body has given the pig-castrator story yet
oh ya the Spanish brought the pigs over

many times with soil conditions there is ochar sediment in the soil and that is ground for the red dye in small mortars like that

DRF you are on the right track, but I find it unlikely those items are artifacts. As mentioned, likely omars, or the slight bowl shape is the result of water performing a freeze/pop behavior. Looking up roller pestles and mano/metate pairings might be helpful examples of grinding instruments. Like somebody once told me, when you’re on a site, you’ll know it. Keep looking, it’s addicting!

Tyler D, that is a very nice axe for mn. Really nice! A lot of the tools here were definitely focused more on function over form. Your axe is a standout. I was told regarding a similar artifact to look up Iowa type axes and even slant axes, as a follow up to learn about the raised groove style and heavier polish. It might be interesting reading for you.

I have a twin to that axe head from Iowa plus a bunch of other great finds from the plowed fields in Tama county Ia.

It looks that way to me too. It looks like the pestle was pecked to reduce the diameter of the end to fit in the mortar. Even if the mortar started as an omar, which is very possible, it appears to have been worked on by a human being.

Omars and other useful shaped rocks were used to make tools, over non useful shaped rocks, because there is less work doing so.

Keith

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What's an Omar, and pecking?

Omar is short for omarolluk, a rock that naturally develops a hole, when a softer concretion erodes and falls out. People frequently find them and think they are man made, because the holes left in them can be nearly perfect. Native Americans did pick up and use omars, because they were useful, but omars are common and most were never used. Omars that were used will show use including being polished inside from having another stone ground against them and sometimes wear from being used as a nutting stone, where a nut is placed in them and then hammered with another rock to crack it. A lot of omars have ocher residue in them from when red ocher was placed in them to grind for paint.

Pecking is a method of shaping rocks into tools by repeated, fairly soft blows, to make divots called pecks. On cruder tools, the peck marks are usually left. More worked tools will have the pecks ground and polished out. Pecking is an excellent way to remove material to shape a rock and a good way to make the surface weaker and easier to grind. Finger and thumb holes were often pecked into stone tools to make them easier to hold.

Stones that were used as tools will show pecking, flaking, grinding, polishing and or hard impact, damage that changes then from their natural form. Natural wear can sometimes mimic man made wear.

Keith

Here's an earlier thread I started on stone artifacts, that a lot of other people contributed to.

https://trapperman.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/7556779/1

Keith