🔎 UNIDENTIFIED Any idea as to age?

[Blackfoot58]

This block was found in a nearby field.
Appears to be cement. The measurements are 2-1/2” thick x 10” long x approximately 8” wide. The surface design is what has me interested. It appears to be a straw broom-made design. I’m hoping it means a structure was nearby at one time and am curious if this style of block can be roughly dated. I hope to detect the field soon.

Reverse side.

 

[Almy]

Could it be part of a tombstone? I've seen some installed without lettering, waiting.

 

[ToddsPoint]

It does have sort of a tombstone shape but yet looks homemade. A pet tombstone?🤔

 

[Tpmetal]

One thing I've found with dating concrete is to look at the aggregate. The early stuff is all local and mostly unsorted and of more various sizes. While the newer stuff is more even in size and type of rock. It's not a fool proof system but it can usually distinguish between stuff from the 50s or 60s or so and the earlier stuff.

 

[potsherd_creek]

First picture, left hand side has a curved edge like an old silo stave. The top and other side are broken off, if a stave the right hand side would have been dished so they blocks would have fit together and ran to form whatever circumference the silo was.

 

[Prairie Gazingfox]

One thing I've found with dating concrete is to look at the aggregate. The early stuff is all local and mostly unsorted and of more various sizes. While the newer stuff is more even in size and type of rock. It's not a fool proof system but it can usually distinguish between stuff from the 50s or 60s or so and the earlier stuff.

Also about dating concrete fragments, I would add, the older concrete fragments of blocks or pillars, bricks , foundation floors,etc is that not only it contains different size stones but it is STONES that are glossy and more rounded shapes ( if you could separate them in theory from the whole piece ) and various colors
As opposed to GRAVEL pieces that are added to contemporary cement.....
I believe the older concrete s stones are very mineralized...

 

[Rmeav8r]

Concrete finishing was done with a straw broom for many years to get "broom finish" like you have. Public utilities used this technique on around bridges, culverts and repairs around buildings where a smooth finish wasn't needed.

 

[Gene Mean]

First picture, left hand side has a curved edge like an old silo stave. The top and other side are broken off, if a stave the right hand side would have been dished so they blocks would have fit together and ran to form whatever circumference the silo was.

 

[Prairie Gazingfox]

This block was found in a nearby field.
Appears to be cement. The measurements are 2-1/2” thick x 10” long x approximately 8” wide. The surface design is what has me interested. It appears to be a straw broom-made design. I’m hoping it means a structure was nearby at one time and am curious if this style of block can be roughly dated. I hope to detect the field soon.View attachment 2203983View attachment 2203984
Reverse side.

I was reading about the components of cement 2 years ago ( cement being the most important component for cohesion of the product called concrete ) and they derive the materials from places of slightly different properties.
For example they mention " shale" as a component of cement and I think shall is derived from the bottom of a dried up/ evaporated lake after having completely dried up and then for many thousands of years this former bottom of lake was exposed to the Sun rays.

From looking at this plate, how dark it is, didn't you pull it out of a soggy or damp place??
It is important to determine if it was always there since it broke off a grave stone or if someone brought it by an early or mid 20th century vehicle and tossed it there for whatever reason.....
But looking at it,I think it was in a moist environment for decades. I woukd hit the edge with a 500 gr hammer by first hitting lightly,then harder and if it still resists fracturing, the third or fourth time you hit it, you will kind of intuitively realize it is not standard recipe concrete.
In fact I think it is 40 or 50 %, if not more, CEMENT.

Some 18th and 19th century gardens of monasteries have similarly smooth looking plates.....

 

[Tnmountains]

Looks like a chunk of an old side walk.?

 

[Older The Better]

People still broom concrete. I’ve poured a fair amount myself and broomed it.

Shale is just a fine grained sediment, mostly likely from mud. It can be from a lake or from a nearby river draining into an ocean environment. It doesn’t have to be cooked, just time and pressure.