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Needing some opinions regarding pitted stone tools from West Tennessee Cumberland Plateau . I had a great day in shelter L4 with the kids and am looking for those experienced with pitted hammer stones AKA nutting stones/pitted stones ect. I found 10 today that are irregular shaped and some from maybe not so hard stones like sedimentaryish sandstone . Most are what I’d call hard stone or semi hard .I found a small cache with a nice grinding stone/platform yesterday and a spread out cache today . The more I cleared today the more I think 🤔 I’m in a generalized processing area , or tool production/ dads tool shed idk . If anyone has any experience with pitted tool assemblages would be nice to know some info. I thought I had a good idea and was able to identify pitted hammer stones all day and have found many many over the past 6 months and in numerous fields and shelters and thought I could even identify what predominant hand the stone was custom pitted for but this assemblage has me scratching my head . The irregularities of shapes & sizes of holes and some being made in softer than usual sandstone has thrown me for a loop . With the grouping I found yesterday and the 10 today all in 2’x3’ area from 4” -12” down. I’ve found others as well in earlier digs around the areas most associated with and anvil stone or grinding slab . I Will be able to add more pics if I decide to bring them home but I don’t have any room for more artifacts but I can take pics if anyone needs . I found a rectangular one with 3 holes the other day and also found one today. Interestingly I found one that was in the process of being pecked and was unfinished. Are those tools tradable or specialized? Seems like a lot of work goes into a pitted hammer stone or nutting stone. I don’t know if I would go into all that trouble to peck and pitt out a stone personally to crack walnuts ,hickory or pecan and wouldn’t really think the pecked/pits would be necessary for a hammer stone. I’ve found many many limestone hammer stones in Texas in middens and never saw any pits in them so I know it’s not necessary. I’m wondering if it has some deeper meaning other that an improved grip or a cultural or tribal identification. I do know that the pitted stones I find go through many generations because I’ve found them on the surface to almost 3’ deep in the same shelter. Also the same tool tech and shapes regarding anvil stones or grinding slabs or pestles. The shape doesn’t change regardless of what century or millennia in this area that’s for sure. I do find that fascinating that the overall shapes and designs of the hard stone tools here is almost unchanged. Anyway I’d like to have any input anyone might have thanks . PS I’m posting all the pics of stone tools I found today and will post a pic of all the tools in front of the shelter I’ve found minus the ones today. The pic in front of shelter of grouping was from yesterday
Last edited by SGT.Digger; 07-29-2020, 10:04 PM. -
Here’s more . Ps we also found tons of pottery most coming from one area. Hope to get a pot mostly put together
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I’ve not seen that many grinding type tools in one place, ever, outside a museum.
thats super cool and I believe pretty unique.Wandering wherever I can, mostly in Eastern Arkansas, always looking down.Comment
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Pics of area where everything cane out of
Here’s a few more for a wrap up. They just kept coming out. Lots of big pottery chunks with it along with shell
Attached FilesComment
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Also...in that bottom pic, is that a sounding rod handle?
if so, I can help you improve on that about 1,000%...Wandering wherever I can, mostly in Eastern Arkansas, always looking down.Comment
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Sorry it took so long to respond....
A sounding rod is a tool used to find things buried in the ground. They are made from a 108” whip antennae , like the old style cb radio Type.. take the rod, cut it at the base, and use the first 4.5-5’ of it. For pit work, close up and in a hole, they are shortened up. Usually about 30” long. The handle is made from a hard wood, usually walnut, but I have made them from Cocabola or Purple Heart also. I make them by cutting blocks that are 1.5x1.5x6” long, and turning them in the lathe until perfectly round. Sanded smooth, bored from both ends to a 1” diameter, leaving a 1” solid, drilled section in the middle. The antennae rod is then inserted into the center, which I drill to .25 inches 3/4 of the way through. Fought the end of the rod up and use a good two part epoxy to secure it. When finished the object will look like a “T”, sort of. On the business end of the rod, I silver solder a .250 carbide lathe center. The rod itself is .25 at the base, and tapers over the entire length of the 108”, so anywhere south of the base it is smaller than a quarter inch. Soldering the pointy lathe center on gives you a tiny point that you can push into the ground without the drag of the length of the rod. Surprisingly easy to push a rod 5’ into the ground.
Anyway, with one of these, you can find things in the ground. They are called sounding rods because they make a distinctive sound when the tip strikes something...Stone, wood, bone, pottery. It sounds crazy, but I can take mine out on the farm and find things in the ground easily. Usually trash pits because the concentration of material in one is phenomenal. Old school pot hunters used them to locate burials. Modern criminal investigators use them to find bodies. You can tell if the ground has been recently disturbed with one after just a little bit of practice. -
Heard of guys in Texas doing that in the deep sands . Wouldn’t be practical here as I dig everything
. Thanks for the explanation. I might be interested in one to find some pipes/ plumbing stuff
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That's one heck of a lot of hardstone tools. Sometimes hammerstones have one or two pecked finger/thumb holds. You would have to look for use wear to determine that it's a hammerstone. Some of the pitted stones could be anvil stones:
Edit: I didn't read all this before posting. I have hammerstones with no pected holds, with one, and with two. My hammerstones all show obvious use wear. Hammerstones do come in many different shapes. Most hammerstones were just picked up and used with little alteration.Last edited by Ron Kelley; 07-29-2020, 11:10 PM.Michigan Yooper
If You Don’t Stand for Something, You’ll Fall for AnythingComment
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It’s great that you’re not just a one stone thing, having them all together should help tremendously in trying to figure out the use, That being said,, they must have been an important adaptation for something...interesting post...Floridaboy.Comment
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Love the group photos, awesome finds 👍🐜 🎤 SW GeorgiaComment
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Nice pile of tools. I'm thinking they could have been tossed together (and out of the way) for the next acorn season. How large is the shelter?If the women don\'t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.Comment
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When I see groups of tools like that I can picture a family sitting around processing walnuts, hazelnuts, hickory nuts, beechnut, butternuts, acorns, etc. Kids run around and collect them, you let them dry a bit until you can peal them, or you pound up the skin a bit to peel them, and they you can process them. If you find any campfires, occasionally you can find carbonized nut shells. I've seen bunches from Kentucky shelters.
Why nuts? 250lbs of shelled walnuts is around 365 days of calories for one person with lots of good fat. A couple of decent trees can give you that. There can be several trees per acre in a decent mature forest, combined with other species of nut trees or sap trees. I have no doubt that a lot of groups in the eastern woodland spent a lot of time processing nuts as they became available. Maybe they stayed at the camps year around, maybe the moved between them or down into the valleys at times, but I think even the big Mississippian centers used nut harvests and traded them up and down river.
Hong Kong, but from Indiana/FloridaComment
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Thanks for some input. I understand that there are some big shelters at the bottom of the property I’m on that can fit “300” people according to the once owner of the place. That has me really excited but at the same time it’s a long walk up and down packing a screen and tools. There are no roads. I can see these area’s easily supporting tribes year round and I can also see that there could be huge centralized hubs/ mega shelters that had splinter groups going up and down the mountain and into the canyons gathering resources to bring back & trade to the river folk or maybe they were one and the same people. I can see your view of whole families cracking away at nuts . I find pieces of charred nuts on the screen all the time . The area I’m in had shell, deer bones and charred nuts , so they were a happy bunch . So your thinking was mostly nutting stones. That makes sense to me . The pitting is larger on some rather that the smaller finger holes of a hammer stone and could explain the use of the softer materials on some
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I think clovisoid summed it up perfectly, very nice group SGT.Near the PA/Ohio state lineComment
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Here’s a pic for olden. There are huge portions of the ceiling that came down a LONG time ago that makes perfect sleeping areas for 10-12 people easy and also makes for a good place to score artifacts alone the edges of those huge slabs . I’m may dip my hook in around em and see how productive they are. I do believe there was one huge cave in event where the entire ceiling came down and is possible there are older occupations under it,
Last edited by SGT.Digger; 07-30-2020, 09:51 AM.Comment
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Cool shelter!
If the women don\'t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.Comment
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If the women don\'t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.Comment
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I'm using a free photo editing software called Paint.NET with a windows desktop pc.
I copy the pics to a folder, reorient them, and repost.
Paint.Net will do a bunch of stuff, but it's also a good program for making simple improvements. Hope this helps.
The 10 Best Free Photo Editing Software – 2020
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I only have my iPhone and am not able to control what the site does to them . Thanks -
I thought that may be the case: I know nothing about iphones, but apparently there's photo editing software for them.
here's an interesting solution: try taking pics with your phone turned upside down
Last edited by Olden; 07-31-2020, 08:07 AM.
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