Strange Rocks, pottery fragments, and Turquoise Found

[markfothebeast]

During a project to level water run off in the backyard I stumbled across a rock that appeared to looked as if it were carved by hand (Photo 1). It has perfect imbedded grips for the thumb and pointer fingers as well as a sharp tip. This is either my imagination or it really is carved by man. It appears to be Sandstone, which is more common 11 miles to the west of here on the banks of the Mississippi river and nearby ancient river beds.

Further in to digging a trench, I uncovered more interesting stones, some of similar appearance. One stone that caught my attention has several scrapes across it as if it was used as a sharpener (photo 2).

The soil is a VERY heavy and thick clay that is nearly impossible to carefully separate. Deeper towards the bottom of this hill where the water runoff path is being dug out, I began uncovering fragments of red pottery. I carefully hand dug around the largest intact piece of pottery, which I have not completed as of yet. Around the area of this pottery I found several green stones of various small jewelry like size, which appear to be turquoise. I have never seen turquoise present in our area. Although I did read that it can come from sandstone. (Photo 3 & 4).

I also found what appears to be a bone (photo 5). I saved all the stones from the area, some of unimportance and others that appear to be carved in to different shapes (photo 6). Maybe natural shapes?

Is this my imagination or just a bunch of unimportant junk?

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[Relicaddict]

I am guessing that the top pic is a bird head effigy, your probably digging on or near an old indian site. Not sure about the others, but pretty sure they
where used in some way.

 

[jmaschal]

IMHO I just see rocks. Effigies are something the natives took a lot of pride in - usually very polished and pronounced. Sorry keep hunting.

Rule of thumb if second guessing and forcing a shape into an image probably natural.

 

[unclemac]

IMHO I just see rocks. Effigies are something the natives took a lot of pride in - usually very polished and pronounced. Sorry keep hunting.

Rule of thumb if second guessing and forcing a shape into an image probably natural.

yep...beyond a doubt, no room for question...100% just rocks...as was stated, if you have to ask, the answer is most likely "NO". No one is going to take the time to knock out a crude effigy piece. Native peoples had a lot of "down time" during the day, lot's of time to work items into obvious well-made objects.

 

[markfothebeast]

Is there a way to determine how old pottery could possibly be based on its construction?

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[Treasure_Hunter]

As others have stated just natural rock, if you have to use your imagination to see a shape then 99.999% of the time it is a natural rock, they were very good with working with stone, no need for imagination to identify a true artifact especially an effigy.

 

[markfothebeast]

I'm starting to believe the rocks to be of unimportance. These are soft and tend to break off in layers.

The soil seems to be very copper like, which turquoise (from what I've read) is a byproduct of. I continue to find smaller turquoise stones. Some of which is a blue powdery substance that hasn't hardened.

That has me curious about what could be further underneath the ground. Maybe a cavern 😀? The Perfect limestone and sandstone bedrock for a potential cavern. We also have an ancient dried up creek or river valley 300 ft away.

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