Petrified Shoe Sole + Native pottery shards

[bergie]

Hard to describe this find without holding it in your hand, but it's as if it's made of stone or pottery. A small piece snapped off as I was uncovering it and I was sure it was pottery. It's heavy like stone and snaps like pottery or stone. Zero bend to it at all. Has a "bronzish" type look in the one extreme close up with stitch holes, but obviously not that material. See broken cross section photo to get a sense of it. This was found in Arizona. I actually eyeballed all this stuff (including the three modern coins). I thought I found a small piece of pottery sticking from the ground, but then saw the stitching holes and as I dug around it and over it out came a shoe sole. Many native pottery shards too. How long would it take a shoe sole to get like that and what could be the material?

 

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[Professor of Engineering]

Interesting find and nice pottery pieces!

 

[Digger RJ]

Nice!!! Congrats!!!

 

[smokeythecat]

Nice finds. Some pieces are jasper, right? Anyway, a leather sole can go to the dogs pretty much at 50 years, maybe less depending on the local weather conditions. Really old soles had square nails holding the heel on. Really really old soles were sewn and had no heel, in many instances.

 

[bergie]

Thanks for the feedback - how would I ID jasper?

 

[A2coins]

Great finds

 

[smokeythecat]

Actually, those small pieces look more like shell tempered Indian pottery. I hadn't zoomed in really close until now.

This is jasper:

 

[Trezurehunter]

Now that's a unique find.