Is This Natural Or A Tool?

[bmartin0693]

Found this yesterday buried in an outcrop along an old field. I've traveled the road there many times to my deerstand and I've found some flakes, crude scrapers, a nice 1-5/8" Morrow Mtn Straight Base and a worn down, one-eared, black rhyolite Hardaway. The field is full of tall grass now, but it used to be plowed over 20 years ago. Every piece of material I've found from this spot has been broken and about every other rock there looks broken too. I've found some crude looking pieces of quartz, that appears to have one side edged. I'm not real sure about them, so I pictured an edge of one. I just started picking around some of the larger rocks and picked this large stone up. I'm not sure what this could be, if it's anything at all. Anyone got any ideas?

 

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[chase2]

Bmartin, I would say the first three pic's is natural, this looks like sedimentary rock, with a softer material that eroded away forming a ring. There is a flake (chip) forth pic and the quartz is hard to say, this is way out of my realm for an artifact. It appears to be a geode that was broken open, but if this was intentional I cannot say from your pic.

Thanks for showing!

 

[pippinwhitepaws]

I agree, a natural...

curious wear pattern on that quartz...

 

[bmartin0693]

The first pictured material is a really hard rock, I'm not thinking sedimentary at all. That grooved ring is intriguing, and looks similar to that of an axe. I was wondering if it was some type a tool to like a sledge hammer. The quartz piece is one of quite a few, all different colors (white, red, orange & brown). Most of the pieces look broken on purpose and crude, so I figured some may as well been worked, even though they are really weathered.

 

[SCrocks]

The first picture I would say is natural. I find the same looking ones around here with the weathered out rings. Some look really close. Quartz can sometimes be hard to tell. I find lots of plow/dozer busted pieces with an edge. Unless it has some secondary flaking it would be hard to say if it is a scraper or just some waste flake from production or busted off piece.

 

[rock]

I have been noticing that the plow does some crazy things on the rocks. The fields I hunt are hard plowed and then no tilled different times of the yr. I find some round quartz rocks that look like have been altered but I actually believe they are being altered by the machines and not Native Americans. I have not really seen the plow at work but it is strange to find these quartz rocks in a round form with all the cortex removed. Ill show you one but it isnt quartz. I am not sure if it is altered by hand or machine. Let me know what you guys think. Its just a theory.

 

[bmartin0693]

Yea you're right. I was thinking there was a chance that one was something. It looks really weathered just like that piece of quartz. I have probably already picked up all the better materials from that spot. These ones here, I've left laying outside for a while just looking at them from time to time when I ride 4wheelers by. The creek has some strange broken rocks too. Many leaf-shaped, flat broken pieces that are pretty smooth. That creek is really rocky until it meets another creek and then there is a really big rock overhang. A very well sheltered habitat I am guessing until it became eroded. I have to climb a steep bank to get to it. That's not my land to hunt though. The land I have permission to hunt anytime, but the fields are not plowed anymore. The area is full of old trails and the land owner's house was a post office about 100 years ago or more. Something I've noticed on that land is there is huge piles of very weathered stones along the outsides of the fields. Some of the piles I'm sure people drop them there, getting them out of the fields. However, there is a few more spots going down a hill in to the woods, the piles of stones are about 50 yards or more from the field and in large quantities. Some between the size of a football to basketball. There is basically a lot of rocks to check out at that spot. If I go down to the Yadkin River, in them river bottoms, that's always been the hotspots in this area.