Couple of Iowa Artifacts

[Arrowsmith]

I posted a picture of these items on another thread. GarGuy said they look interesting and asked if I would post some more pictures.

The North Fabius River flows through about 1/2 mile of our farm. My neighbor has told me that that there are a lot of artifacts in the river, but with building our house/shop and deer season I have not had time to look.

Back during the summer I found two strange stones with shallow cup shaped holes that appeared to be drilled into the stones. Last week I was crossing the river with a tree stand and climbing sticks on my back. I got a boot stuck in the mud and fell. I got out of the mud/water and got my gear on dry land. I went back down to the river to wash my hands and arms. While washing up I spotted a arrowhead on the gravel bottom of the river.

I think the stones were used to break open, acorns, hickory nuts, black walnuts, but I am not sure. The stones came out of the hillside where we cut in our house pad.

I am going to spend more time next spring looking in the river for arrowheads.

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[DesertDug]

The stones with the holes look like they are for fire starting, the part you push down on the spindle when doing a bow drill.

[Arrowsmith]

Couple more pictures. That is the river in the background.

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[flywise]

Very interesting and cool

[GarGuy]

In going to guess those holes are exactly what Desertdug said. My first though was cronoid fossils but after looking closely I think that is where they held a bow drill shaft to spin it.

The point appears to be a worn down paleo point of some sort. Minimum 10000 years old.

[Arrowsmith]

In going to guess those holes are exactly what Desertdug said. My first though was cronoid fossils but after looking closely I think that is where they held a bow drill shaft to spin it.

The point appears to be a worn down paleo point of some sort. Minimum 10000 years old.

Thanks for the info. I could not get the other side picture of the point to post. but it had a more or less equal bevel on the other side.

Here is some more information from Wikipedia. The picture at the bottom are some similar stones found in South Dakota. Nutting stones. Aka pitting stones, anvil stones, etc. Another few finds from the the family property in eastern SD along a crick off the James River.

Variously known as cupstones, "anvil stones", "pitted cobbles" and "nutting stones", among other names, these roughly discoidal or amorphous groundstone artifacts are among the most common lithic remains of Native American culture, especially in the Midwest.

These objects have received little study, perhaps because edged tools and weapons have more intrinsic interest to private collectors, but closer study of them might reveal something of domestic practices and toolmaking technology. There is no agreement upon their purpose or purposes, which may have included the processing of food, medicine or pigments, storage, arrow-production or fire-drilling. As such, they could represent a primitive form of mortar and pestle. The age of these man-made structures are difficult to ascertain, but generally they are believed to have been produced in the bronze-age and Upper Paleolithic although some, for example in North America and Europe, were generated at a later date.

[GarGuy]

I'm very familiar with nutting stones. I have found hundreds. The holes you posted are not nutting though. Of course many if what is called nutting holes are clearly made from spinning not hammering. I'm pretty sure you're a are just small hole versions of what happens when you hold the top of a shaft with the stone in order to spin a drill or fire starter with a bow. Still would like to see flaking on the point. Especially around the base.

[kruppa24]

Very interesting

[Tomkat70]

Cool

[IowaGirl]

Your rocks are not artifacts.
They are Omars, short for Omarolluck.
They are naturally formed stones that have been moved down from the Hudson Bay Area by glacial activity.
They are not uncommon, but you do have a nice collection of them there.
But they are not a Native American artifact.
A google search can get you quite a bit of information on them.


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