Nutting stone

[pingdis]

Found

in SE Tennessee; too bad it was in two pieces.

 

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[Relicgrubber]

We don’t have Omar’s here in east Texas, but we have lots of those rocks in the creeks, rivers and hills. This piece of rock lacks any use/ware and most definitely no patina around the divots like in the museum picture. Anyway let be what the eyes of the beholder wants it to be. Geezzz

 

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[CreekSide]

Could have been moved by glaciers too. There are no signs on the rock of being worked and the patina is the same at bottom of divit as top of rock, if worked it should be different.

Possibly but from what I’ve read the glaciers and Omar’s are only up north. I’m not disagreeing with anyone I’m just trying to state facts. It could very well be some kind of fossil as I stated I’m no fossil expert at all.
Now as far as the patina goes for all we know it has been cleaned. Original OP never said if they cleaned it with harsh stuff. I know some people will use lemon juice which is a acid.

 

[newnan man]

It's not a fossil. Natural formation. It's not even rare. Those types of formations/ water erosion are very common in various places on earth.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Possibly but from what I’ve read the glaciers and Omar’s are only up north. I’m not disagreeing with anyone I’m just trying to state facts. It could very well be some kind of fossil as I stated I’m no fossil expert at all.
Now as far as the patina goes for all we know it has been cleaned. Original OP never said if they cleaned it with harsh stuff. I know some people will use lemon juice which is a acid.

Point is there are no signs of being touched, worked or used by man. Just cleaning it would not make patina the same and uniform, there are also no signs of heavy scrubbing to clean either.

 

[CreekSide]

It's not a fossil. Natural formation. It's not even rare. Those types of formations/ water erosion are very common in various places on earth.

I’m glad you know cause we don’t have them here in the creeks or fields at least not in my area. You have a world of knowledge

 

[unclemac]

I do like the crack however, as if someone was using it and struck too hard. So here is a question, where it was found.... are there nuts to crack?.... who supposedly used these, where and for what? these have no use where I am

 

[Charl]

One of the books I have found valuable is Louis Brennan’s out of print 1975 work, Artifacts of Prehistoric America. I like it because it illustrates many crude artifacts, which most collectors will find, but are seldom included in the artifact guides. Brennan’s book acknowledges the existence of nutting and cup stones:

A similar type of artifact we can eliminate is an anvil stone. Anvil stones are the nether stones in a knapping operation. You’ll never see one with smooth depressions. The depressions are bound to be battered. This one had three areas of battering, from use as the nether surface during knapping, and it broke right at the edge of that now missing battered area…

One thing that has not been mentioned, and it is a possibility suggesting man made, is the mysterious subject of “cupules”. I’m going to leave a few links, which include descriptions and photos, of cupules. Cupules are the oldest known rock art in the world, found on all continents except Antarctica. They were also made through the ages, not just as the earliest form of rock art. In the United States, they have been most studied in California. They are a deep mystery as to their usage, or their meaning.

A brief intro:

The Art Of Cupules – East Bay Hill People

More extensive info, should one be interested in the subject of cupules:

https://escholarship.org/content/qt2r8196c6/qt2r8196c6_noSplash_bcaba743d277b675588390a54338dd8b.pdf?t=osvrax

http://www.ifrao.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Cupules.pdf

From a site in California:

 

[unclemac]

similar.... I remember years ago seeing something on TV about African kopjes that had similar depressions. These were boulders on top of huge rock out croppings. When you struck one you got a musical bell ringing tone. These stones had been "played" for thousands of years.

 

[Bill Farmer]

Found View attachment 2077566 in SE Tennessee; too bad it was in two pieces.

Great find! And I also got to learn what a nutting stone was and how it was used! It's amazing how one find can lead to so much education. Thanks for posting it.

 

[Gold Maven]

well here's my 2 cents.
i never bought the nutting stone idea, especially when experts kept telling me that's how they cracked their acorns.
They were eating chestnuts, the tree dominated the forest, and fed every animal that lived there.
even so, a flat rock is all you would need.
A flint knapper wrote an interesting article for the Ohio Archeologist, he said a deer antler is still the best tool for knapping, and the flint tears it up rather quickly, so you need to dress it.
The best way to do this, is ti twist it back and forth on a sandstone, as it makes a cup, it works even better, until it gets too deep. Then you start another hole.
This makes sense to me, but old theories die hard, and I'm surprised at the collectors that won't even consider this as a theory.

 

[newnan man]

well here's my 2 cents.
i never bought the nutting stone idea, especially when experts kept telling me that's how they cracked their acorns.
They were eating chestnuts, the tree dominated the forest, and fed every animal that lived there.
even so, a flat rock is all you would need.
A flint knapper wrote an interesting article for the Ohio Archeologist, he said a deer antler is still the best tool for knapping, and the flint tears it up rather quickly, so you need to dress it.
The best way to do this, is ti twist it back and forth on a sandstone, as it makes a cup, it works even better, until it gets too deep. Then you start another hole.
This makes sense to me, but old theories die hard, and I'm surprised at the collectors that won't even consider this as a theory.

I've heard similar arguments and agree with yours as well. Breaking a nut in a cup then means you have to dig out the meat with the shells. Seems like a lot of useless effort.

 

[quito]

The piece in question is the wrong material for an omarolluk imho.
I have lots of Omar’s.

 

[Crumb]

Looks like what I’ve seen that are called nutting stones,I’ve found these same things in the middle of fields at old campsites a long way from any rock formations. They used them for something

 

[dirstscratcher]

Looks like a cup stone to me. The crack probaby happened long after the cups were formed. One theory that has been duplicated by experiment is they were used to grind the end of antlers into billet ends for knapping.

 

[dirstscratcher]

well here's my 2 cents.
i never bought the nutting stone idea, especially when experts kept telling me that's how they cracked their acorns.
They were eating chestnuts, the tree dominated the forest, and fed every animal that lived there.
even so, a flat rock is all you would need.
A flint knapper wrote an interesting article for the Ohio Archeologist, he said a deer antler is still the best tool for knapping, and the flint tears it up rather quickly, so you need to dress it.
The best way to do this, is ti twist it back and forth on a sandstone, as it makes a cup, it works even better, until it gets too deep. Then you start another hole.
This makes sense to me, but old theories die hard, and I'm surprised at the collectors that won't even consider this as a theory.

I need to find an example of one of mine and take photographs. One side has full cups, and the reverse side has only the cup bottoms; around the cup bottoms are small divots where the stone was refaced removing the walls of the cups. Pretty convincing to me.