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When I was up in Rhode Island back in September..with Jay and the guys at our Southern New England AH.com meet up I was telling Jay I never found a piece of soapstone in 17 yrs of kicking ...and he gave me small oval piece he found at a quarry up there.....but i 
just found 
a cool piece 
down my river spot didn't know what it was till I got it home and washed a corner and scratched it...I thought it was a cement yard ornament
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SW Connecticut -
Super find. I have never found even a sliver of it. Nice piece.SE IA -
Sweet! What are you going to do with it?Stagger Lee/ SE MissouriComment
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Do you think it was part of an artifact?Stagger Lee/ SE MissouriComment
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Man, I'd like to find a piece that size. Do you think one could find it in Pennsylvania, or is that just a Rhode Island thing? At any rate, nice piece!"The education of a man is never completed until he dies." Robert E. LeeComment
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Thanks KP..NAs started using soapstone in the late archaic period....3 to 5 thousand yrs ago...yes you can find it where you are.. the eastern U.S....is where much is found...Matt says it's rare finding pieces and this is the rim piece of a big old bowl to me it's a significant archaeological discovery...my 3 kicking buddies all have small fragments....but this is my first piece in 17 yrs of kicking
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It's a piece of the rim of a 15 pound bowl ...steatite...NAs made bowls of soapstone before clay fired pottery.......and clay pottery started in woodland era ...3000 yrs. This piece weighs. A pound...SW ConnecticutComment
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Very nice, my first thoughts were “bowl rim” also....that is wicked cool👍Wandering wherever I can, mostly in Eastern Arkansas, always looking down.Comment
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Great find Red! That would have been a big ol’ stew pot for sure! Definitly poke around that spot more!call me Jay, i live in R.I.Comment
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Thanks Jay it's only a piece of the rim but I'm stoked with this first piece of soapstoneSW ConnecticutComment
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It's a great find for sure. I found a few pieces of broken soapstone pots back in the 1960's and 70's. Some rim sherds but most were broke bottoms or sides. It was very rare where I use to hunt in the Tenn. River area of north Alabama. I don't believe there were any local sources of steatite so I figured the pots must have been made somewhere else and brought there. I usually found them associated with middle Archaic shell middens that eroded out of the river bank.Comment
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Nice big piece of soapstone I have found 3 pieces still have 2. I gave one away in a trade. My last piece which was this year has a drill hole in it. When I blow yours up you can see the chisel marks on it from them carving it out. The pieces here are rite around 5000 yrs oldNW Georgia,Comment
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I would be really tempted to poke around that spot and see if there is more of it there. If the soil isn't too rocky, a metal probe might help you find more of it before it washes into the river. If it's soft and muddy, a straitened coat hanger can help you find stuff a few inches down.
Aside from being fragile if you drop it, soapstone is about as stable as it comes. It's inert to any household cleaning chemicals you might have. Household water won't hurt it (acids and alkalis don't etch it) if you want to rinse it off. I'd be careful about rubbing it too hard if there is still sand or grit on it, that might scratch up some of the surface.Hong Kong, but from Indiana/FloridaComment
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Appreciate your advice I'm gonna clean it up do I won't use the old toothbrush...was worried about tap water changing it. ...it's got a green blue hue to it. Just was worried about city water thanks manSW ConnecticutComment
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Hey Red, Congrats of that soapstone bowl/pot find. It seems likely that there would be more pieces close by.Michigan Yooper
If You Don’t Stand for Something, You’ll Fall for AnythingComment
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