Anyone Want To Tell Me What This Is?

[Driftwood]

Its made of a quartzy sandstone pebble... some light grinding/smoothing on one side to flatten it a bit. The 'business end' has me stumped, though. When I saw it from several yards away, I thought, "another hammer stone", but this is something new to me. The notching makes a nice edge where the two sides meet. Some kind of splitting tool? I thought it would do a fine job of processing large bones.

[chase]

Looks like its more for weaving cloth.

[Driftwood]

chase wrote:

Looks like its more for weaving cloth.

  How would it be used? Do we have a modern equivalent?

[CMD]

How about a sinewstone?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rR3pISayvo&app=desktop

[CoachG]

Neat whatever it is.

[CMD]

Here's a sinew stone from RI. With just one groove on your's, I don't know and it's just a stab in the dark anyway. Sandstone is a good sharpening stone of course. I can see sharpening something in a groove like that; might have been created by usage sharpening something....

And here is a V shaped bone awl sharpening groove on the face of a sandstone sharpening stone. The longer used, the deeper it would have become.....

[Driftwood]

@CMD: It does have similarities to sinew stones... I guess as far as being notched/grooved. It seems strange it would only have one big ol' notch like that, though. Here's a sinew stone I found locally...

[CMD]

That's a nice one. Actually I think sinew stones required multiple grooves. But it's sandstone, if it looks like that V was worn in from usage, I would just assume use as a sharpening stone did that, but :dunno:

[pkfrey]

Sinew stones have long been a puzzle, as to how they were used. Naturally the word sinew came about because back in the old days it was thought they were used to run strands of sinew through to either straighten the cords, or somehow braid several strands together. And then they began to show up in several excavated Point Peninsula sites in N.Y., and associated with primitive flint knapping tools in a tool kit. Antler billets, antler tines for pressure flaking, hammerstones, etc. It's now thought that sinew stones were used to dull the edges of the flake artifact being flintknapped. Dulling the edge where it would be struck creates a more solid striking platform, and allows the knapper better control on the piece being worked.  Modern flintknappers will do this when knapping, and they use a similar stone. Over time the grooves begin to form, and keep getting deeper.

[rmartin]

I don't have a clue what it is but you can bet it had a specific purpose

[SDhunter]

Interesting artifact.

[Driftwood]

@pkfrey: I had read at some point that the sinew stones were used to break up the fibers of the sinew... but I agree that that type of stone would be great for abrading blade edges during knapping.

[sneakygroundbuzzard]

ive processed a lot of sinew over the years,for use as hafting material
dont see how them so called sinew stones would be usefull in processing sinew
all one needs to do is pound the ligiment to break the outer husk loose and then seperate  the sinew fibers by hand
using a stone like those to process it looks like it would do more damage than good to the sinew by grinding it
i have used sand stone as an abrader for flint knapping and actuall have one that looks very similar to the first pic
those so called sinew stones look like they were used many many times as an abrader for knapping imho

[Tam]

I agree with you . Think us modern people try to theorize on this . I have found hammer stones with long to short abrading lines on them and actually tried them and it does work well for that purpose .

[jhill0962]

my first thought was an abrading tool or shaft straightener and the  sinew stones look like they may have been used to sharpen bone to me

[Danny Hamel]

I have two finds of shaft straighteners one is a two person the other is a war club shaft straightener in it