Stone chisel?

Aureus

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Sep 5, 2016
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Any ideas on this relic? Looks like some type of stone chisel or other tool. Found it at one of my early sites where I discovered a few stone arrow points.

Thanks.

Screenshot_20200516-151910_Gallery.jpg
Screenshot_20200516-151923_Gallery.jpgScreenshot_20200516-151853_Gallery.jpg
 

Nice piece!! Never seen one like that. Could be axe, but I'm thinking hoe maybe adze? Try posting over on the North American Indian artifact forum.
 

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What? The tools you're showing there are all from the Middle Palaeolthic of Europe and more than 50,000 years old... long before any evidence of people in Canada. They're also sharp flake tools produced by knapping rocks which fracture conchoidally such as flint and chert. What we call 'chipped tools'. The OP's very nice artefact is not from that era, has been nicely made by pecking/grinding (not chipping) and polishing a non-glassy stone and isn't sharp, nor intended to be.

I would say it's not a cutting tool but a really nice hoe blade, judging by the use-wear scratches to be seen on the 'bit' end.
 

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Thanks everyone for the comments. Here are a few pics after a wash.

20200516_220448.jpg
20200516_220437.jpg
 

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Wow, that thing is really interesting. Is it made of slate?
 

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I've not seen a slate relic from Canada in a very long time.
Nice!

Being slate , I'd be apprehensive about chiseling with it.
Yes it's durable , but it's still slate...

Imagination has it hafted and used to flesh a hide with. The corners are right for not cutting skin with it's edges while scraping. And both hair side (after hair was caused to slip) and skin side could be worked with it ; depending on if hair on or off was desired.

But I don't really know...
It could hoe but why sharpen two sides of the edge? And again , being slate ,striking a harder material could damage it.
 

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Very cool find.

Maybe used to flip their pancakes....lol
 

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Very Nice Piece! I'm thinking maybe a large pendant. The smaller end looks like it might have the edge of a drilled hole showing. Whatever it is, it is Awesome!
 

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In North America, hand axes make up one of the dominant tool industries, starting from the terminal Pleistocene and continuing throughout the Holocene.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_axe

Ground Edge Stone Axe. The artifact is not made of slate, look close by zoom at back edge chip and you will see it is volcanic in origin.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science...ground-edge-stone-axe-fragments-found/7401728

Show proof there was not human presence in the Americas 50,000 years ago. My Native American DNA says there was by proof from major university.

Cambridge Reference Sequence study,

Haplogroup HV* Sample #93700

16192 T , 16311C , 16335 G

Part of the migration route takes us through central Canada east of Great Lakes to later become the Mississippian Mound builders. Also known by the First Spanish as North American Giants.

https://isogg.org/wiki/Cambridge_Reference_Sequence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskaloosa

legal issues surrounding this artifact:
The Ontario Heritage Act prohibits anyone from disturbing or altering an archaeological site — whether on land or under water — unless they hold a valid archaeological licence issued by the ministry.
https://www.oashuroniachapter.com/p/archaeology-law.html
A person or a director of a corporation found in violation of the act or its regulations can face a fine of up to $1,000,000 or imprisonment for up to one year or both.

In my opinion this artifact should be studied by major university in Canada then displayed in national Museum. It may predate oldest known artifacts in North America.

The reason I feel it should be studied is that the axe needs to be determined as Native American or Viking. It has a similar shape as known early Norse stone axes.

https://survivingprepper.com/viking-axe-and-indian-tomahawk/
 

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Ground Edge Stone Axe. The artifact is not made of slate, look close by zoom at back edge chip and you will see it is volcanic in origin.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science...ground-edge-stone-axe-fragments-found/7401728

Show proof there was not human presence in the Americas 50,000 years ago. My Native American DNA says there was by proof from major university.

Cambridge Reference Sequence study,

Haplogroup HV* Sample #93700

16192 T , 16311C , 16335 G

Part of the migration route takes us through central Canada east of Great Lakes to later become the Mississippian Mound builders. Also known by the First Spanish as North American Giants.

https://isogg.org/wiki/Cambridge_Reference_Sequence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskaloosa

legal issues surrounding this artifact:


In my opinion this artifact should be studied by major university in Canada then displayed in national Museum. It may predate oldest known artifacts in North America.

The reason I feel it should be studied is that the axe needs to be determined as Native American or Viking. It has a similar shape as known early Norse stone axes.

https://survivingprepper.com/viking-axe-and-indian-tomahawk/


Oh dear, oh dear.

You first cited a comparison to >50,000 year old flint/chert artefacts from Europe. Then you cited a reference to a 45,000 year old axe from Australia! Then you said it might be Viking… a Scandinavian culture for which the accepted archaeological period is from the late 8th to late 11th Century AD. Now you’re citing Adena culture… for which (as the article you linked says): “These mobile hunting-gathering-gardening peoples lived in the middle Ohio River valley between 2500 and 1800 years ago.”

You’ve missed out some possibilities. How about made in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania a couple of million years ago, or used by Noah to build the Ark?

Whatever this artefact might be (and I would still believe it to be a hoe or digging implement based on its shape, which is not celt- or axe-like, how it could have been hafted, the use-wear pattern visible from the pictures, and the lack of sharpness), it’s clearly made from polished hardstone. Polished lithic tools are strongly associated with Neolithic cultures at the time of the transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural communities which don’t date any earlier than about 12,000 years ago anywhere in the world (and a bit later in the Americas). The main reason for that is a belief that after the advent of agriculture for food production, people were able to invest more time in ‘beautifying’ their tool artefacts rather than concentrating only on functionality. Polished lithic tools do occasionally crop up in the late Palaeolithic of Eurasia, but the earliest polished hardstone tools ever found date to around 30,000 years ago, were polished only on the bit of the blade, and come from a specific region of Japan. This is believed to be the earliest recognition by any culture that polishing reduces the incidence of breakage in use.

Contrary to your belief, there is no genetic evidence to justify your earlier statement that there were people in North America (or Eastern Canada) 50,000 years ago. The genetic evidence from Haplogroups enables the heritage of the people who were there in later times to be traced to their possible origins; and maternal DNA mutation rates enable determination of likely dates when such people separated from their original homeland kinship communities or regions. But no more than that. The current evidence suggests that the founding population(s) for Native Americans separated from their original East Asian/Eurasian communities sometime between 25,000 and 15,000 years ago, but that doesn’t prove they reached the Americas as early as 25,00 years ago. It would need bones to be found with recoverable DNA for that. The ‘null hypothesis’ applies here. There’s also a distinction to be made between ‘founding populations’ and ‘first-arrivers’ since there is at least some evidence for failed migration of small groups of individuals. It doesn’t have to be proven that there were no people in the Americas 50,000 years ago… the burden of proof rests with those that propose it.. not the other way round.
 

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Oh dear, oh dear.

You first cited a comparison to >50,000 year old flint/chert artefacts from Europe. Then you cited a reference to a 45,000 year old axe from Australia! Then you said it might be Viking… a Scandinavian culture for which the accepted archaeological period is from the late 8th to late 11th Century AD. Now you’re citing Adena culture… for which (as the article you linked says): “These mobile hunting-gathering-gardening peoples lived in the middle Ohio River valley between 2500 and 1800 years ago.”

You’ve missed out some possibilities. How about made in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania a couple of million years ago, or used by Noah to build the Ark?

Whatever this artefact might be (and I would still believe it to be a hoe or digging implement based on its shape, which is not celt- or axe-like, how it could have been hafted, the use-wear pattern visible from the pictures, and the lack of sharpness), it’s clearly made from polished hardstone. Polished lithic tools are strongly associated with Neolithic cultures at the time of the transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural communities which don’t date any earlier than about 12,000 years ago anywhere in the world (and a bit later in the Americas). The main reason for that is a belief that after the advent of agriculture for food production, people were able to invest more time in ‘beautifying’ their tool artefacts rather than concentrating only on functionality. Polished lithic tools do occasionally crop up in the late Palaeolithic of Eurasia, but the earliest polished hardstone tools ever found date to around 30,000 years ago, were polished only on the bit of the blade, and come from a specific region of Japan. This is believed to be the earliest recognition by any culture that polishing reduces the incidence of breakage in use.

Contrary to your belief, there is no genetic evidence to justify your earlier statement that there were people in North America (or Eastern Canada) 50,000 years ago. The genetic evidence from Haplogroups enables the heritage of the people who were there in later times to be traced to their possible origins; and maternal DNA mutation rates enable determination of likely dates when such people separated from their original homeland kinship communities or regions. But no more than that. The current evidence suggests that the founding population(s) for Native Americans separated from their original East Asian/Eurasian communities sometime between 25,000 and 15,000 years ago, but that doesn’t prove they reached the Americas as early as 25,00 years ago. It would need bones to be found with recoverable DNA for that. The ‘null hypothesis’ applies here. There’s also a distinction to be made between ‘founding populations’ and ‘first-arrivers’ since there is at least some evidence for failed migration of small groups of individuals. It doesn’t have to be proven that there were no people in the Americas 50,000 years ago… the burden of proof rests with those that propose it.. not the other way round.[/QUOTE]


...first of all, very clear and cogent post, bravo!

but (no intent here to school you), you are wasting your time...
 

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That is a very cool piece! Someone put a lot of time into shaping and polishing it. If it were mine I would probably have an expert look at it. I did some searching on the web and I have not yet found another one shaped like it.

Steve
 

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