back from NV

[unclemac]

so about once a year I traipse down to my cousins ranch in NV and poke around her place in the desert in the 95 degree sun. It is always a hoot and this year like the others I find (and often leave) bunches of interesting things. Most of the things I find are pretty common and easy to identify but this one leaves me scratching my head.

Now you got to understand, this part of the desert is in the heart of Paiute country and pretty far from reliable year round water so any habitation would be spring or fall when the dry springs are running and water can be dug in pockets of the seasonal streams. Lots of shelter under the centuries old junipers, shade, game etc. but a real poverty of any material goods not directly associated with daily survival.

This rock is a loose grained basalt to 100% not any sort of fossil. The type and size of rock is as common on the desert floor as needles on a pine tree...there is nothing remarkable about the size, shape or type of stone. It was found with the carved side facing down under a juniper and was only spotted by accident when it was disturbed unintentionally. It doesn't fit in the hand particularly well and if it was meant to be held and used a thousand other nearby stones would have been better choices.

It is 100% man made, doesn't seem to have a function and "perhaps" was placed so as not to be noticed...any ideas or similar artifacts?

 

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[old digger]

Interesting! So you say that it is not a fossil. It does really look like a fern fossil.

 

[unclemac]

Interesting! So you say that it is not a fossil. It does really look like a fern fossil.

yeah it sure does, but wrong rock entirely...already had a geologist at the gold mine confirm that.

 

[Twitch]

Very cool. I would think it's a stamp, probably for pottery impression but possibly for paint application. Nice artifact. Unusual and interesting.

 

[creekhunter]

I think Twitch is spot on, really neat!

 

[unclemac]

These folks had no ceramics tradition, so no on the pottery. They were also nearly naked and had little or no adornment. Without trying to sound insensitive, the bands in this area were considered the poorest of the poor both materially and culturally. Early western contact barely admitted they were human. These bands were treated like vermin even more so than others. you have to consider their daily existence was based on finding enough to eat and not getting killed...pretty exclusively.

 

[rock]

If it is a stamp then the next step for me would be go to the museum and see if they have any pottery that matches your design. If they dont then ask if there is any place you can view pottery designs from the area it was found in. There should be some out there if its a stamp.

 

[unclemac]

...these people didn't produce pottery, baskets yes, pots no.

 

[1320]

These folks had no ceramics tradition, so no on the pottery. They were also nearly naked and had little or no adornment. Without trying to sound insensitive, the bands in this area were considered the poorest of the poor both materially and culturally. Early western contact barely admitted they were human. These bands were treated like vermin even more so than others. you have to consider their daily existence was based on finding enough to eat and not getting killed...pretty exclusively.

Perhaps this piece belonged to the bands that came before or after the specific band that you're trying to associate this piece to?

 

[unclemac]

could be of course, but it was a surface find in a spot that was a heavily used seasonal camp area...it would be like having a glass of water next to your bed..that closely associated with other recognizable items.

 

[1320]

could be of course, but it was a surface find in a spot that was a heavily used seasonal camp area...it would be like having a glass of water next to your bed..that closely associated with other recognizable items.

If this band was materially and culturally challenged, could it be that they re purposed it from another site/band? Perhaps the bands/westerners that were trying to eradicate the vermin left it behind?

 

[unclemac]

well, they really wouldn't have had to do that...the one thing they DID have was excellent lithics...great stones were as common and easy to find as fish in a barrel...I came back with several fist size chunks of great jasper spread out in the desert within several dozen yards of the camp site.

 

[Tnmountains]

Pottery stamp would be a first for me.That was a good guess. Pretty cool.

 

[monsterrack]

That is a sure enough ?

 

[joshuaream]

Look up "bark beater", if they made basketry, that could potentially fit the process.

There are also some shaft straighteners that are sort of like that. The grooves simply provide "traction" for the heated stick to get it into shape. The arrow shaft is worked across the grooves vs in them.

 

[southfork]

These folks had no ceramics tradition, so no on the pottery. They were also nearly naked and had little or no adornment. Without trying to sound insensitive, the bands in this area were considered the poorest of the poor both materially and culturally. Early western contact barely admitted they were human. These bands were treated like vermin even more so than others. you have to consider their daily existence was based on finding enough to eat and not getting killed...pretty exclusively.

No need for clothing during the hot daytime temps woven rabbit skin robes and other skins were used in cold weather and pottery was manufactured and used by desert culture people in the Great Basin .Three variants have been described: Shoshone pottery (Steward 1941, 1943a), Southern Paiute pottery (Baldwin 1950), and Owens Valley Brown ware (H.S. ... for example .

 

[unclemac]

these were northern paiutes, actually quite different than southern, the bands were so very marginalized and relegated to some pretty tough spots. For example their band names were... "ground-squirrel eaters", "brine fly eater", "sagebrush eaters"...names like that, on and on.

but I will send this off to UN-reno for a look see...it is pretty unusual.

 

[IAMZIM]

These folks had no ceramics tradition, so no on the pottery. They were also nearly naked and had little or no adornment. Without trying to sound insensitive, the bands in this area were considered the poorest of the poor both materially and culturally. Early western contact barely admitted they were human. These bands were treated like vermin even more so than others. you have to consider their daily existence was based on finding enough to eat and not getting killed...pretty exclusively.

Did they have any relation to these poor guys?:

"The Diggers or rather a small portion of them, are a division of the Utah nation, inhabiting a considerable extent of the barren country directly southwest of the Great Salt Lake. They are represented as the most deplorably situated, perhaps, of the whole family of man, in all that pertains to the means of subsistence and the ordinary comforts of life.
The largest (and in fact, almost the only) game found within their territory, is a very small species of rabbit, whose skins sewed together constitute their entire clothing. The soil is too barren for cultivation, sparsely timbered, and but illy supplied with water. The consequence of these accumulated disadvantages is, that its unfortunate inhabitants are left to gather a miserable substitute for food from insects, roots, and the seeds of grass and herbs.
In the summer months they lay in large supplies against the approach of winter, –ants furnishing an important item in the strange collection.
These insects abound in great numbers, and are caught by spreading a dampened skin, or fresh-peeled bark, over their hills, which immediately attracts the inquisitive denizens to its surface; when filled, the lure is carefully removed and its adherents shaken into a tight sack, where they are confined till dead, –they are then thoroughly sun-dried, and laid away for use.
In this manner they are cured by the bushel. The common way of eating them is in an uncooked state. These degraded beings live in holes dug in the sand near some watercourse, or in rudely constructed lodges of absinthe, where they remain in a semi-dormant, inactive state the entire winter, –leaving their lowly retreats only, now and then, at the urgent calls of nature, or to warm their burrows by burning some of the few scanty combustibles which chance may afford around them.
In the spring they creep from their holes, not like bear-fattened from a long repose–but poor and emaciated, with barely flesh enough to hide their bones, and so enervated, from hard fare and frequent abstinence, that they can scarcely move.
So habituated are they to this mode of life from constant inurement, they appear to have no conception of a better one.
Their ideas and aspirations are as simple as their fare. Give them an occasional rabbit, with an abundance of ants, seeds, and roots, and they are content to abide in their desert home and burrow like the diminutive animal they hunt.
They entertain great dread of the whites, whose power to do them harm they have learned on several occasions by bitter experience. These painful lessons have generally been inculcated as follows: impelled by hunger, these miserable creatures have sometimes attempted to kill the animals of trapping parties; and the trappers, in order to prevent a repetition of such occurrences, have been accustomed to shoot down their rude assailants without mercy.
Since the practice of this summary mode of chastisement has obtained, those able to run will flee with the utmost consternation on the approach of a party of whites, –leaving the feeble and infirm in the rear, who employ their most piteous supplications and moving entreaties for mercy.
These Indians possess a capacity for improvement, whenever circumstances favor them. I have seen several, both of men and women, taken from among them while young, who, under proper instruction, had made rapid progress, and even disclosed a superiority of intellect, compared with like examples from other nations, –a fact contributing much to prove that mankind need only to be placed in like conditions by birth and education to stand upon the same common level.
Most of them are represented as inoffensive in their habits and character, –never going to war, and rarely molesting any one that passes through their country.
Their arms are clubs, with small bows and arrows made of reeds – affording but a poor show of resistance to rifles, and a dozen mountaineers are rendered equal to a full army of such solders." Excerpt from :
ROCKY MOUNTAIN LIFE
OR,
STARTLING SCENES
AND
PERILOUS ADVENTURES
IN THE
FAR WEST
DURING AN EXPEDITION OF THREE YEARS. 1841-1843

BY RUFUS B. SAGE.

 

[unclemac]

yep, they were known by that name

 

[southfork]

The Northern Paiute lived all along the East side of the sierra Nevada also and over into the west side in some areas like Yosemite . With plentiful resources and trade networks lived that way for thousands of years before first contact . And still live in the region and are a proud people . They survived it all and not at all like the picture you painted and brine fly larva was traded when dried it was a good source of protein .