Educate me, I’m curious…

Mr.Waffles

Mr.Waffles

Full Member
Mar 27, 2015
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South West
Primary Interest:
Relic Hunting
Went camping over the weekend and had the most unfortunate weather… that is unless you’re an amateur paleontologist! As wind, rain and lighting smashed the top of the mountain I was on, it exposed hundreds of these sea shell fossils. An interesting reminder of the dynamic shift that God put Arizona's landscape through centuries ago and after scooping up handfuls of these things, I got to thinking. Did Native Americans ever have a use for fossils either for ceremonious or tooling purposes? I’ve seen Tnet members share pics of fossils inside of napped tools but were fossils ever specifically used. I’m sure these shells weren’t, but I wonder about dinosaur or other animal fossils? ??? ??? ???

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well they must have been aware of them...perhaps Thunderbird stories and the like stem from such finds.
 

Uncle Mac may be on to something in Greece there was tails of battles of giant's and grave yards of giants, but it ended up being Dino. bones. Who knows what ancient man thought of when he found a fossil and if it was made of a workable material , I'm sure they would use it. Cool thread!!!!!!
 

I'm sure that they must have thought ''Man there must have been a big lake or river here at one time, Duh!''
 

I'm sure that they must have thought ''Man there must have been a big lake or river here at one time, ....on this mountain top.....!!!
 

Megladon and fossilized sharks teeth were used that I know of. Gator has several with drill holes used as an adornment . I am sure there are others. They enjoyed the wonder just like us!
 

In my area they used Crinoids for Beads. I have a few I have found on Ft Ancient sites and I have seen quite a few others found.
 

This pendant is made from a pebble of Rhode Island Formation shale. Pennsylvanian Period in age, ~290 million years old. A native collected the pebble because it shows a poorly preserved fossil fern, and partly ground the pebble into the shape seen. This was found by a friend of mine many years ago, less then 1 mile from my home in RI. I have also found fossil ferns from the Rhode Island Formation at one of my multicomponent camp sites. But, I love this artifact, as it combines two of my own passions: artifact and fossil collecting.
 

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New England farms are known for having very rocky soils. It's the reason so many farmers from here headed west to the Ohio Valley when that area was first opened for settlement.

But I have a corn field that I hunt that is close to 100% rock free. Don't ask me how, but it gives me the luxury of checking almost every rock I see out there, thus leading to me finding quite a few crude, casual artifacts that might otherwise be missed in a "busier" field. So, when I found this split cobble of shale, with the poorly preserved image of a fern leaf, I knew it had very likely been transported to camp prehistorically. We moderns can give a good account of how this fern became fossilized hundreds of millions of years ago. I wonder what narrative Native Americans developed to explain a fossil like this?

i would have collected this if I split the rock and found it. In the distant past, an unknown fossil collector did the same:-)
 

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Wow! This is some fascinating stuff! Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and experiences with me, everyone.
 

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