What is this?

[cody milam]

My agriculture teacher found this in a field a few years back but doesn't know what it is
He said he saw something similar on tv

 

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[Charl]

Maybe it's a bell pestle. Some of them had "dimples" on the underside business end....

 

[old digger]

Your item looks like a broken mano.

 

[rock]

Sometimes they were used for pounders and not grinders. I feel and of course its just my opinion but yours would of been a pounder. I have a couple of them but all are smooth for being used in a grinding motion for grains.

 

[monsterrack]

I think Charl nailed it, nice find.

 

[RGINN]

Sorry guys, I think that's just a rock. It's not anything at all like one of those pestles or a mano. I am interested in for what reason your ag teacher picked it up and kept it. Might be more to the story, which would help with an ID.

 

[Charl]

Sorry guys, I think that's just a rock. It's not anything at all like one of those pestles or a mano. I am interested in for what reason your ag teacher picked it up and kept it. Might be more to the story, which would help with an ID.

It is narrow, and that's no "dimple" on the underside. Still, I think would have picked it up based on a "sorta bell pestle shape", but then I'm an artifact hunter, not an ag teacher. Did the underside assume that appearance from pounding? I don't know. The narrowness was noticeable. Perhaps it is a geofact of sorts. Now I have seen pestles with that exact shape, but not narrow like that. But with that outline, as opposed to the in curved lines of most bell pestles.

Here's a couple of bell pestles with similar shapes....
If I were familiar with bell pestles or saw examples on TV, somehow, I might pick something like that up and wonder if it were one of "these things".
Most, but not all, bell pestles, will flare slightly, to a lot,(the first one I posted earlier in this thread flares at the base)on the business end as one example shown here....

 

[rock]

Most of the ones I have at the top has a bit removed for holding. At first I thought it was damage but all the ones I have found and saw they all have a section removed at the top.

 

[Charl]

Most of the ones I have at the top has a bit removed for holding. At first I thought it was damage but all the ones I have found and saw they all have a section removed at the top.

Not sure the rock in question is a bell pestle, so I may be steering the thread wrong here, but I'm confused by the statement. Are you saying most bell pestles have their tops deliberately removed? The one I'm showing here, from Ohio, seems typical to me. The top is intact, but maybe I am misunderstanding what you are saying, rock?

 

[PalmettoPride]

I think Charl nailed it, nice find.

I agree

 

[rock]

Might just be GA but mine and the other ones I have seen at shows with the Hoof Pestle have sections removed for gripping. Here are mine.