Stone tool?

[LittleJellyCats]

We found this tool in Saskatchewan, where there are a number of arrowheads and other Indigenous artefacts. This one has a clear incision all the way around, and if you look closely, you can see that there is another incision exactly at the point that the rock appears to have been halved/separated. Any ideas on whether this could have been a tomahawk or hammer of some kind?

 

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[old digger]

Welcome to tnet!
Your item looks like a broken mano. but the white rings are natural. They are bands of quartz tat formed naturally before being picked up in a stream and used as a mano.

 

[Old Pueblo]

It does look like a broken, two handed mano. The question is whether there is wear marks. If its a mano it should have some nice, smooth, ground down surface(s). Here are some photos of actual Native American manos.




It may be difficult to tell in the photos, but as you see, these are all consistently smooth across the entire surface. Another way to tell is just by the shape, you dont see a lot of round rocks like the two one-handed manos you see in my photos. Two-handers are always oval to rectangular in shape, and you often find them broken in half on purpose, at least in my part of the world. The Natives here used to ceremoniously break manos and other things like metates that belonged to a deceased loved ones, and bury them with their dead. Im not exactly sure, but I think it was to ensure that the souls of their deceased loves ones were not trapped in their earthly possessions, or something like that.

 

[mudd1761]

Looks normal rock thats been in a river. Looks like it broke along a quartz band do to tumbling in said river. can you post more pics? Maybe ones that show some kind of use wear?