Thursday, February 9, 2012

Stone Tools - Ohio

Here are some pictures of some mysterious rocks that I found while looking for fossils in Loveland, Ohio (a small town just outside of Cincinnati). There are actually a LOT of fossils here because this was the site of a shallow sea in the Ordovician period, about 500 million years ago. So, there are great shells and corals and reportedly there are trilobites - but, I have not found any yet. I was questing for trilobites when I found THESE instead. Take a look:
I think that the above tool is (I am clearly just guessing) for breaking nuts. There are TONS of black walnuts down by the Little Miami River. Of course, I do not know WHEN these tools were made. I do think that they were made though, and are not just in these shapes by coincidence. I found an article about 'crude stone tools' Here:

http://forsakenartifacts.com/

Sorry, I have trouble with hot links -- so, far they are all cold. Anyway, PLEASE look at the article, because at the end there are pictures that are strikingly similar to mine. One of the pictures in the article is of a rock with a hole in it that they would have used to put a stick or something into and start a fire. I found one almost just like it! The pictures are below. There is a hole on the top and one on the bottom that almost lines up with it - the hole does not go all the way through.

The important thing I learned from the article is that the people would find a tool that naturally approximated what they needed, and then they would just have to "work" it a little bit to devise a tool. The article says that archaeologists often overlook these crude stone tools because many of their features are naturally occurring with only a few "worked" elements.

4 comments:

  1. These are very interesting pictures. From my limited experience, they have been worked by man.

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  2. Hmmm. It's not often that something found or seen in the U.K. outdoes the equivalent found in the U.S., but I reckon our flint tools, found in the area where I live, seem more interesting and a tad more sophisticated. Nice to outdo you guys for a change :-).

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    1. Well, Hannah, it is interesting you should mention that. When the people who would become the Native Americans crossed the land bridge tens of thousands of years ago and began to drink the water...their IQs mysteriously doubled! They immediately set about manufacturing microchips. As a decoy and so the place would not become over-crowded, they set their 3 to 5 year old children to the task of manufacturing fake stone tools.

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    2. I think the level of sophistication has to do with the relative age of the tools you are examining. If the American tools are older than those you found in the UK, then one would expect them to be less sophisticated. I don't see how you can reach this conclusion with the available information.

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