wood paint dish??? fine cut marks

[chong2]

these 2 fragments were found in a canyon ledge covered with fine dirt. im thinking paint dishes of some sort. any other ideas? has anyone found or seen small wood chippings with these fine cut marks? there is red and black paint on the inside of these pieces. thank you

[Cannonman17]

How interesting! Are you sure they are wood? They kind of remind me of cord wrapped pottery fragments that I find from time to time.
Net wrapped I meant..

[chong2]

i am pretty sure they are not pottery, that was my first thought, then i took a very small chip off and it looks like wood, its very very thin, about 1 mm thick . and if you look at the cuts, i dont see how the cord would cross cut like that. net maybe. do you have a piece you can post a pic up of? these are very delicate pieces

[blindpig]

I maybe way off here , but is it possible that they are made from rubber or plastic or even fiber-glass ? I’ve seen old shoe soles out in the desert shriveled up , like a wet witch! At first glance I thought golf-ball [split skins ] and I do find them wayyyy ....out there .
I say , use that lighter , heat up a small nail or pin and put it to that small piece , see if it melts like rubber or plastic or burns like wood , the smell of the smoke may tell a thing or two but maybe unhealthy though .
My 2cent's Blindpig

[MarkDz]

I maybe way off here , but is it possible that they are made from rubber or plastic or even fiber-glass ?

I can't give an expert opinion, but I found a piece that resembles the one on the left and a knowledgeable friend said it was probably asbestos. It looks a lot like clay but is unusually thin and light.

[tomclark]

I firmly believe they are pottery sherds. cord wrapped and the other one is fire popped. smooth inside, rough outside. I have a zillion pieces just like it.

[chong2]

markdz , does asbestos form by nature? this was a extremly remote site, and i didnt mean to put canyon ledge, but a 6ft long 1 ft high, 3 ft deep crack on a canyon wall. some bone beads were also found here.

tomclark, do you have any pics by ne chance?

i may have a small small flaking i can test with a hot needle. i dont want to poke anything hot onto these pieces. ill give it a shot tomorrow.

[pickaway]

[chong2]

sorry guys, ill get to it tomorrow

[archaeon]

those two pieces look like fiberglass to me.

[A. Grignon]

Looks like pottery to me too.

[chong2]

sorry guys i dont want to burn them............ ive been about to, then change my mind. i just cant. for all the fiber glass votes, any thoughts how it ended where it did?

[blindpig]

I guess I’ll vote for “pottery” , Tomclark has explained the cord wrapping and the fire-spalling [splitting do to steam/fire ] and appears to be familiar with this type of pottery . And in the light of it being found in association with other artifacts,.... Pottery !

*** I pulled my earlier post here as it was a bit “politically” charged and maybe not that funny to some , sorry . **
Thanks ; Blindpig

[chong2]

k, well i put a flame to the larger piece and it completly burned up ............................... na, not really, put a hot needle to edge piece, and just as i thought, smells like wood "both of them" . its still stuck in my nose "the smell"
so i dunno what it is, its been carved, has paint, but is just a fragment......... so its just another thing
thanks guys!!!!!

[MarkDz]

Hi... I tried the same test with the "thing" I found (shown here). I put a flake of it over a fire, and it burned right up. I found my "thing" in a river so it's almost certainly not wood (it would have rotted away)... now I think more than ever it's some synthetic fiberglass-type-thing or asbestos.

[archaeon]

Hi... I tried the same test with the "thing" I found (shown here). I put a flake of it over a fire, and it burned right up. I found my "thing" in a river so it's almost certainly not wood (it would have rotted away)... now I think more than ever it's some synthetic fiberglass-type-thing or asbestos.

Mark, your looks like pottery

[chong2]

i was just kidding about it burning right up. and yes, yours also looks like pottery to me mark
btw, thanks for taking the time to test your piece and photograph