Kewl piece Ty, looks like a full grooved quartzite axe. I wonder if they were finished with it, it looks like it's still in the manufacturing stages? That's something that we really don't find much of here, wish we did!
Awful thin at that one end for a Maul. It looks like they beat it to form and then were still in manufacturing stages when lost or discarded.
I have had several mauls from out that direction, and some of them were mighty "beefy". I kick myself in the arse every time I reflect on selling some large western axes & mauls I had some years back, some being extremely fine examples. I had one of the finest Hohokam axes / bean plows that I've seen to date.....wonder where it is now?
Yeah, I had some mauls from the copper mines in the U.P. of Michigan that I sold... I know the feeling. And talk about beefy... holy smokes! You're right about it being tapered too much to be a maul but I don't think the beat up surfaces all the way around are because the piece was unfinished, I think some of it was probably from multi purpose "tooling". Or... maybe the guy was lazy like me and didn't finish it all the way... "ah.. that's close enough, it will work" LOL