portable nutting stone?

[Worldman304]

Portable nutting stone.found paint creek,wv

[Havenhunter]

That would be a keeper to me.

[Worldman304]

Yeah it's def one of the best I've found,it's all smoth on the btm deom grinding..thanks for checking my post out

[G10+]

Could be ??? Not real sure that whole was man made though

[Worldman304]

I find lot n lots.in that material there it's been pecked,find tons of tools n that material..here's a big example,I'll do a few of what I have,,but thinking it's mutli.cupstone..grinder,it's smooth on btm.and has fire starter hole w fire marks..but never know. Hope y'all like my other pics,traditional nutting stones

[Havenhunter]

These look natural to me. All nutting stones have ground depressions but not all depressions are nutting stones. You can drive yourself into a frenzy seeing nutting stones when there are none.

[gregszybala]

I think I'm going to agree with G10. All look natural.

[Worldman304]

I'ma have to dig the one out with the groves,I'll take a pic, u'll be able to clearly see the other are fact nutting Stone,the port one maybe not,all i see if pecking, the real nutting stones if ya find good ones have a indention at the btm of the hole.like it was bit and twisted n a circular fashion.ill show ya..u'll be impressed. I used to think these were made by water dripping,till I found the groves,they are very slight usually but the one I'll show is pronounced, I enjoy all of this

[gregszybala]

Okay

[Scorpion68]

Worldman - I don't know about that first picture in this post but the next three are all natural made by drippng water. The material you show is LimeRock and the water constantly dripping on it causes near perfect circular holes to form. I find them all over this mountain. You may find one rock that has several depressions and I've seen them with over 50 depressions. Don't take my word for it - take them to an archaeologist and he'll tell you the same thing. Happy hunting.

[Ron Kelley]

The pits in the stone are natural. There is no evidence that the stone was altered by ancient man. The natural stone could have been picked up and used however I don't see any evidence of use wear either.

[Worldman304]

What do y'all think?

[G10+]

Well I like point but not sure about that rock... here is a Nutting stone that I dug out of a camp ... so I can see how there might be some confusion ... the one u have pictured looks to be caused by water,, just an opinion....

[Ron Kelley]

Hey Wordman, I'm sure that you have noticed that the stone has several holes: That alone is a good clue that it is natural. I have picked up several natural stones that are interesting. Here are a few that I have but remember they are all 100 % natural.

[Worldman304]

Yeah I do see some diff ,I think your right,

[CMD]

If you lived in California, or the Great Basin of the western US, I would be inclined to identify one of your examples as cupules rock art. Cupules are among the oldest rock art in the world, found on every continent except Antarctica. They represent a deep mystery as to purpose.

This Australian paper does a good job distinguishing natural holes and man made cupules. It includes examples from around the world.

http://www.ifrao.com/wp-content/uplo...06/Cupules.pdf

Another useful guide. You can also just google "cupules" and get a wealth of information...

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/prehistoric/cupules.htm

The oldest rock art site known in North America contains cupules, seen at this paper. They really are a great mystery where early rock art is concerned:

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/vi...t=usgsstaffpub

Here'a a paper describing cupules from California. The first image below is taken from this paper. The second image below is your example that reminds me of man made cupules...

https://escholarship.org/content/qt2...0674d17edef6cb

I don't know if the example of your's is an example of man made cupules rock art, but it would have stopped me in my tracks for sure....

[Worldman304]

Nutting stone