Maybe a chert scraper, Hays Co, TX

[Limestoned]

This is a surface find. It comes from a small property about six or seven miles west of San Marcos.

I think it might be an artifact because it seems to have had a lot of cortex pecked away and a crude, bifacial edge running around about half of it. Because it has some cortex remaining on both sides, and because that cortex follows the general outline of the thing, I'd guess this started as piece of chert gravel that was almost the right shape to begin with. Someone skinned it and gave it a simple edge for some field-expedient, hunty-gathery sort of purpose.

No, you won't find me in the literature.

Is it an artifact? Is my WAG about its history close enough for internet work? Thanks for any information!

[Kyflintguy]

Looks like a quarry blank. Darn interesting material. Definitely looks worked on the edges imo.

[Limestoned]

Okay, I had to look up quarry blank. If I understand the concept, that would explain why it doesn't look exactly like a tool. It's not exactly a tool yet.

Since I'm just making a collection for my mother of stuff from her property, I think I can include this as a find. Now if I can just find a Clovis point, a Folsom point, and a few chests of Spanish gold, I'll be off to a good start on the collection.

Thanks for the help, Kyflintguy!

[Broken Arrow]

That looks like it may be a fossil as well, possibly a coral or other marine life of some sort...

[Andy W.]

That is a biface that has been burned. Those are potlids all over the surface.

[Broken Arrow]

Fire damage to chert/flint doesn't produce that kind of semi-uniform geometric patterning and especially not in way that would be constant on both sides of a rock.
I think that is a fossil of a type of colonial rugose coral, and I believe the lithic is blue georgetown flint with some calcite present as well. It is possible that it is an artifact also but it was probably discarded as it appears that this piece would be unpredictable (the lithic could be a similar lithic, considered to be a close "cousin" to Georgetown flint, which exists in close proximity to where the Georgetown flint is found) Imho..

[Briarproof]

I don’t know but pretty cool looking

[Limestoned]

Broken Arrow It certainly looks like some photos of rugose corals I looked up, but I think those corals are way too old for this area, at least if Wikipedia is to be believed. I'm in the middle of lower Cretaceous rocks here, and Wiki has rugose corals listed as Permian and older. It might be a fossil of something similar, since there are a lot of marine critter remnants in these rocks.

There are actually two different patterns here. If you look at the last picture, that sort of moon-crater look is common around here on chert cortex, and there are similar textures even on regular limestone. Fossiliferous or not, it's typical. But if you look at the next to last picture, the other side is covered with marks that are more angular, more polygonal than round. That's what made me think this was an artifact in the first place, because it looks like someone chipped off the cortex, although I don't know how that kind of chipping might be done.

You might be right about the type of chert. According to that Texas Beyond History site, the real Georgetown is found north of here, but there is, as you put it, a close cousin found in Hays County.

In any case thanks for the help and the stuff to think about. I'm suffering from noob overload trying absorb so much information, but I'll get it sorted out eventually.

[Tam]

This knapping is so unusual I wish Ron would chime in !
Tom is really good at fossils . It’s driving me crazy I have to know what that is or hear a few more opinions .
Really interesting find .

[Ron Kelley]

Tam, I don't know what it is. I does not look like any knapping that I have ever seen.

[Limestoned]

Ron and Tam, well it sounds like a good find for a beginner. Mundane artifact, but with an interesting surface. For my purposes, a collection for mom, this is a perfect piece. She studied paleoindian anthropology and archeology in the 1970s, so she can appreciate this kind of thing. And it's a great example of the question I keep running up against. "How did this rock happen?"

Might have some more finds to share soon. I was clearing a space around what looks like a seam of exposed chert, and I found the first pieces that look like sure-nuff debitage. (Late-stage lithic reduction, I think? Small, thin, sharp flakes with little or no cortex.) It looks like there's plenty of archeology in the ground here.

[Kyflintguy]

The zig zagged edges give it away as an artifact. Those are key to reducing the biface down further.

[Limestoned]

Good training piece for me. I almost left it behind, because I didn't notice the edge at first. After looking at it for a few days, the working seems obvious, but I clearly need to get my collector eyes up to speed.

[Broken Arrow]

I'm not disputing whether it is an artifact or not, I'm just stating that there is the presence of coral fossil in/on that piece.

[Kyflintguy]

I was just noting the zig zagged edges BA to help Limestoned be able to identify flaked artifacts, I was not implying that you were wrong to call it a coral or fossil. Lots cherts are the remains of tiny underwater organisms, so your suggestion of coral did not suprised me. And for future reference BA if I am addressing a comment you've made I will do that directly through commenting or quoting your post or comment to avoid confusion.

[Limestoned]

Thanks for the input, folks. I guess the only mystery here is that weird flaking pattern. I found a similar piece of stone just a few yards from the first one, except it doesn't seem to have been worked as much. The newer one (on the right) has an intact cortex on one side with that corally texture and one flake gone. In the second picture, you can see what looks like a few flake scars on the lower right. Quarry blank and tested cobble?

Luckily I can combine jobs here. I've been raking up leaf and grass litter for the compost pile, so I'm getting the are ground exposed in the place where I found these. Maybe I can find a few more.

[Broken Arrow]

It is a type of colonial coral. If not rugosa then tabulate, or whichever you like best, nonetheless it is still coral. What y'all are seeing as flaking but are unable to hypothesize how it was achieved...is not flaking! Here is a pic of some tabulate coral from texas, it didn't get covered with sediment and become one with the chert but I think y'all may be able to imagine what it would look like if it had.

[Limestoned]

Sorry if it sounds like I'm brushing you off, but you're invoking Paleozoic corals to explain something found in a Cretaceous formation. And now you're invoking two different types of coral on the same rock to explain the two different patterns. That just doesn't sound like a well-thought-out identification to me. It sounds like simple pattern matching without any consideration of other factors.

Even so, I've also been trying to figure this out on the assumption that your coral identification is correct. If those roundish marks are fossils of a rugose coral, then it's not a local rock, even though it looks local. It would have to come from much older deposits, and the nearest place to find such things is only about 50 miles up the road in the Llano Uplift. Perfectly plausible that knapping material could have been transported from there to here.

I think the only disagreement here is that you think your coral identification is beyond dispute. I don't think you've established that.

[Broken Arrow]

Nah, I don't think my identification was beyond dispute. I just really thought that's what it is. You asked what you found, I gave my opinion. I've been wrong before, everyone has, I learned then just like I learned now.
It's not polite to tell others what they they think. Don't assume you know what is in the mind of others, especially if you have to ask what is in your own hand. No hard feelings though. That is a very interesting piece and I'm glad you posted it. Good luck in your future hunts, I look forward to seeing what else you find.

[CTex]

Based on my uneducated opinion, that looks like a type of chert that I have found on the Edwards Plateau. It tends to be opaque and more glass like other cherts in the area and almost always has inclusions. Based on the used up spalls and signs that the NA would go to some lengths to find areas of a rock of this material without inclusions to knap, has led me to think that it was a preferred material. To me it looks like a knapper struck it a few times to see if it could be used and decided that it couldn't.

Since the Edwards Plateau is comprised primarily of Limestone, which by definition was formed from dead marine life, it would stand to reason that you would find marine fossils embedded in/on the chert.

[Limestoned]

The fossils were a lot easier when I lived near Wimberley. It was either oysters or Tylostoma, and not much else. In the part of the Edwards Limestone I'm in, there's supposed to be a lot of Toucasia fossils, but I haven't seen any, or at least none that I recognized.

[Andy W.]

Another burnt piece.

[Bone2stone]

Well you guys there seems to be multiple opinions on this specimen.
I have found lots of corals over the years and boot that with lots of fire popped chert.
To my eye this appears to be a goodly size piece of chert with multiple exposure to fires with an attempt to utilize yielded such poor results it may have been discarded for a more favorable specimen.
I do not think it is coral in any way shape or form.
Long term exposure to ultraviolence from the Sun can do some strange things to rocks. This is one of those circumstances.

Bone2stone