Hematite

[JoshMathews]

First time i have ever found this material , it shows some grinding and wear. I hung a magnet from a string , and parts of the artifact has strong pull. Is hematite found in kentucky ? Or did the bring it down from the north

Grinding on top


   Attached files 

[JoshinMO]

Not sure, it is an interesting material. Heres some info, not sure if the answer to your question is in there or not.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uky.edu%2FKGS%2Frocksmn%2Foxi des.htm

[pkfrey]

You said this has a strong magnetic pull. You would think that hematite, being a natural iron oxide, would be strongly magnetic. BUT, most hematite isn't magnetic at all, and when it is, it's very weak. This may be a solid piece of steel, maybe an old rusted part from farm machinery.

[JoshMathews]

The magnet would not stick on  it no where, only parts of it would make the magnet swing from the string .  I may have  mis lead you with strong pull.  I have done a streak test, conclusion hematite,  but i dont think hematite is in my area?

[Jeffery Howle]

Not sure what you have there...but I find hematite in my area of Ky.

[painshill]

Hematite certainly occurs in Kentucky, but the major source for many hematite artefacts in east south-central parts of the States was the Iron Mountain region of SE Missouri.
Hematite the mineral is essentially non-magnetic but often exhibits weak attraction to powerful rare-earth magnets or industrial-strength electromagnets. Anything more than that is usually due to the presence of magnetite as a secondary mineral, and that could well be unevenly distributed in hematite-rich iron ore deposits.
Warren K Moorehead pictured some similar cylindrical items (some semi-faceted) in “Hematite Implements of the United States” (published as Bulletin VI of the Massachusetts Department of Archaeology, 1912). Here’s a couple (2nd row, left and top row, left respectively in the pictures):


He uses the loose term “rubbing stones” to describe them, with a view that they were probably paint stones (rubbed against an abrasive rock to generate powdered hematite for use as red paint/pigment) or burnishing stones for pottery (in later periods).
Here’s a little more from that publication:
The distribution of objects of various forms of iron ore, ferruginous stone or hematite is general through more than half of the United States. Setting aside remote portions of the country where very few objects of stone carrying iron, or iron oxides predominate, one may roughly bound the territory in which hematites are found as follows : From Fort Worth, Texas, straight north through Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska to Omaha, north to Minneapolis, then to Duluth, east to northern Michigan, thence to Ottawa, Canada, south to Trenton, New Jersey, thence to Raleigh, North Carolina, thence to Montgomery, Alabama, and west to Fort Worth, Texas. Implements of hematite are occasionally reported outside of this area ; but after careful study of specimens in public institutions, correspondence with persons familiar with the types existing in their localities and the reading of numerous reports and papers, it is my opinion that the great country enclosed within the bounds referred to constitutes the so-called hematite belt.
Within this territory hematites are most numerous in Missouri, southern Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky. They are found in considerable numbers in Tennessee, New York, Wisconsin, and portions of Arkansas. But while that is true, the far greater number of these implements lie within a territory about the size of the state of Texas….
…The Handbook of American Indians refers to the fact that most of the hematite made use of by the prehistoric peoples was found on the surface. Doctor Whelpley is of this opinion and I agree with these and other observers. There is no evidence, up to the present, that the Indians mined hematite as they did flint or copper. But they did mine a softer hematite and oxides in order to obtain paint. Iron ore of various kinds occurs generally in the United States and it was no more than natural that the aborigine should pick up various bits of ore that he saw during his travels.
The discovery by Dr. Cox of an Indian paint mine [near Leslie Missouri in 1903] is of great interest. Whether other equally large deposits of hematite were worked to obtain paint, I do not know, although it is quite likely that the Indians visited all the available hematite veins or iron outcrops and procured the valued pigments wherever possible. A tremendous amount of work was done on the estate of Dr. Cox. I say tremendous, advisedly, for it must be borne in mind that it was necessary for the Indians to break through the various layers of stone, remove exceedingly hard bodies of ore by means of very primitive and ineffective tools. Mining by means of a hand drill and black powder is considered laborious and difficult at the present time, much more tedious than the use of the compressed air drill, dynamite and modern machinery. Yet these enterprising aborigines had no tools save rudely notched stone hammers and hammers made of the harder fragments of hematite. That they were able to excavate a considerable number of tunnels and pits in a ridge composed chiefly of iron ore, is remarkable, to say the least.

[JoshMathews]

Very interesting , thanks for the information,   I need to keep my eyes open , maybe i can find some more.