Is this a Native American Artifact?

[DC]

I found this stone in a field that has yeilded many full and broken points. If it is not an artifact it must be a love stone.

[pickaway]

I've seen peices that look like that on the net,and from what "THEY" said its an egg stone probably wrapped in hide or something and used as a as a head knocker.check this site they had one for sale with a description.
http://www.allpointscovered.com/hardstone.htm

Nice find by the way!If i had to guess I'd say its a tool for something seems to small to whack someone upside the head with.

[bean man]

I have no idea what it is but I think it is something because of where you found it. Here's a couple of odd ones from the campsite in the farm field I get to hunt.
bm

[deepsix47]

Could be gamming stones.
Deepsix

[Cannonman17]

[bean man]

I'm really not as sensative as I might have at first appeared. They might be just rocks. There is no way to really tell. If that is what you believe Cannon please say so. I don't want you to fill like you can't speak your opinion because I'm not going to learn from that. I wish I wouldn't have gave you that impression because really I like a little friendly headbutting.
bm

[Cannonman17]

I wasn't going to say I thought they were just rocks, although I believe that's possible- all I would say is, the two you posted pics of look like they could possilby be hammer stones and that the top one I can't see any type of wear patterns on. The one that is shown on the link is "highly polished" and the head knocker part is a guess in that person's own words. I would hesitate to call this type of thing a head knocker mostly because polishing stone requires a lot of work and any round river cobble would have easily served the same purpose- I wonder if it might not have had some other purpose in mind or perhaps even unfinished although that would be odd to have it polished before finishing it with a groove or hole or whatever-

[bean man]

Well, I got to admit I was thinking headknockers, but my family would say I tend to think that way. Rather then them being polished or worked on, I thought selected rocks, maybe for their shape, hardness and natural polish. But really they could be hammerstones, gamestones, cooking stones or they could be just rocks. But heck, I got to bring home something!
bm

[Atlantis0077]

Afternoon,


This is something of a long shot, but its possible that is a pottery smoothing stone. When you find a piece of Indian pottery that has a good polish on it, ever wonder how they managed that? Well before the ware is fired....cooked in a hole till its good and hard....they polish it with a small oval pebble such as the one you have a photo of.

Not saying that is what you have, but that is what one would look like if you did. Normally the terminal ends are more highly polished than the rest of the stone...they are not usually very large and are usually oval in shape something like a large jelly bean.

Just a thought...it could just be a rock....LOL. As I have said before, location, location, location. If there is a ton of Indian stuff where you found it, then its more likely to be an artifact than a geofact.

Atlantis

[Cannonman17]

Back in high school I tried some experiments with making pottery the old way, tried all sorts of things for the actual manufacturing as well as firing process- for brandishing (the polish on the pottery) I found out that antler/horn worked far better than stone. Stone will work also but it has to be very polished...now I have to wonder about that top picture as well as the one posted on that link... very interesting. While I don't think it makes any sense to spend the time and effort to polish a stone only to wrap it up with leather and hit somebody with it I do see how it would make a lot of sense for somebody who made a lot of pottery to have a specialized tool for doing it- very very interesting...