Native American "Marble"?

[OBION]

I found this round :dunno: ? It is slightly smaller than a traditional marble. I cant tell what the material is; feels light but sounds like rock when dropped and I cant scratch it. I found it in a river bottom field that no white man has ever lived in. For context (see, I'm learning!) I'm including a picture of points found within 50 yards of this round thing (see how I do... scraper, ?, adena, broken dalton) . I have never found any pottery at this spot. Thanks for any ideas!

[kreative]

Posted by [GarScale]:

I found one absolutely identical to it in my excavation. It was in a cache with two other highly polished stone disc. My research indicates it is a ceramic marble made in the 1700s and likely traded post contact to natives. I also know of two others found in native sites here in East tx.

[2ndoldman]

They are also known as "clay" marbles up here in BC. Early Europeans brought them with them.
The light weight and roundness of the marble would have allowed it to roll on the stream bed for quite a ways. So no telling where it started it's journey.
To the best of my knowledge the Natives were big into games and gambling. So it's no big stretch that some would have adopted these into their daily lives.

[waterglass]

I have found a bout a half dozen of them over the years. I was wondering about it too.

[chase]

Thanks to Painshill we have great information on Marbles. The one your showing looks like the ones in our information area.  Please feel free to check it out.

http://forums.arrowheads.com/forum/information-center-gc33/pseudo-artifacts-geofacts-gc98/commonly-misidentified-modern-items-gc100/106891-balls-and-spheres-etc

[painshill]

GarScale wrote:

I found one absolutely identical to it in my excavation. It was in a cache with two other highly polished stone disc. My research indicates it is a ceramic marble made in the 1700s and likely traded post contact to natives. I also know of two others found in native sites here in East tx.

  If you have links for information relating to 18th Century marbles (as opposed to just round balls) I'd rather like to see them. My previous researches didn't turn up very much that I regarded as reliable. Just some anecdotal stuff without any references or attribution.
There is a Cherokee-tradition game known as “Cherokee Marbles” (di-ga-da-yo-s-di) which is said to have its roots around 800AD but it was played with “marbles” around the size of billiard balls. The balls were originally made of stone and thrown on a five-hole course, with the object of landing the balls in the holes in sequence while also knocking your opponents’ balls out of the way.
There is also anecdotal evidence for small balls made from pitch (fir-tree balsam) or round stones (chosen for their existing shape) being rolled down a sloping board to either see whose ball went the furthest or perhaps to land the balls in holes drilled at the end of the board.
Small stone and clay spheres (sometimes decorated) are also known from Mound Builder cultures (including as grave goods) but it isn’t known whether they were used in games (or what types of games if so) or had some religious, ceremonial, ritual or other purpose.
Other than that, the evidence for games played with marbles in North America is pretty thin on the ground until its popularisation in colonial America in the late 19th Century and subsequent adoption by some Native Americans in the reservation era.
Marble-type games are known in Europe from earlier times than the 19th Century of course and probably reached Britain via the Romans in the latter part of the 1st Century AD. The references are often unclear about the extent to which such games were for children or adults and the size of the balls used. Pieter Breughel the Elder's 1560 painting “Children's Games” for example shows children playing “marbles” in one area of the canvas but the balls are huge – more like bowls.
Generally, from mediaeval times onwards such games were frowned upon as frivolous (especially by the clergy) and forbidden or restricted in terms of where they could be played. The town of St. Gall’s surviving statutes specify that the church sacristan was authorized to use the cat-o'-nine tails on boys “who played at marbles under the fish stand and refused to be warned off.” In later times the English Church designated the Good Friday holiday as “Marbles Day” in an effort to divert folks away from more boisterous and unruly entertainment. It wasn’t a successful strategy.

[OBION]

Thanks for all the replies; amazing amount of knowledge around here! 
I find it fascinating to try to piece together the history of a site by what is there. 
Would it be an educated guess by what I have found at this site that it was occupied early Archaic (dalton base) and either continuous or again during the Woodland period (adena) and then  an associate of Davy Crockett    ( this spot is not far from his home) dropped a marble there.  Now it is a bean field on a ridge by a swamp in the middle of NO WHERE! 
Am I approaching this the right way or am I way off.

[painshill]

I guess the finds tell you what they tell you, date-wise.
The marble definitely looks like an early-mid 19th imported ceramic item. It's a lot whiter than I would expect from American domestic pipe-clay of the period and way outside Native American fired clay game(?)balls. Of all the places you might expect to find marbles, old homestead sites are pretty much at the top of the list.