Help me figure out this unifacial artifact

Aurora1959

Jr. Member
May 29, 2019
92
215
Central New York State
Primary Interest:
Relic Hunting
Super nice mottled brown/gray/blue Onondaga Chert...but what was its function? Snapped off base... IMG_0429.jpgIMG_0427.jpgIMG_0431.jpg
 

Upvote 0
Looks like a multi-tool, both knife and scraper. Nice one at that.
 

The other side (edge) isn't visible in your pictures. It would help a little to see it.

The technology looks old, FWIW.
 

I think multi-tool was the correct guess. I think it may have had a graver on the tip that was knocked off. I wonder if when they were cleaning up the bulb of percussion to make the graver they accidentally took too much leaving the big scar on the obverse side. Here's a very similar piece made of Upper Mercer I found years ago on our farm that is similar made on an overshot flake. The background scale is CM. The bulb of percussion was at the tip.
UniGraver.jpg UniGraver-1.jpg

BTW, that almost looks more like glossy Gray/blue Upper Mercer than Onondaga to me. The Onondaga I'm familiar with on Ohio artifacts is a dull gray/brown mottled material. It could be that our stuff is from further west, dropped here by glacier and not as high quality.
 

Last edited:
Base isn't snapped off. That's the edge of the core it came off of.

The bulb of percussion on those is almost always at the pointed end.

Multipurpose tool (odigger) is probably the best one word name for it. Pretty artifact !
 

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top