Artifact or Natural Formation - Found on the TN River

[Mme Digger]

While visiting friends with property on the TN river, I brought home a rock that I fell in love with. I initially thought it was fossilized tracks or leaf litter impressions but the rock is much too old to have those kinds of fossils. The rock is from an Ordovician dolomite formation but I don't feel like the details are a natural feature. I'm starting to wonder if it's a Cherokee artifact. Does anyone here have an idea of what it might be??





Thank you for taking the time to look at and think about my find!

 

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[NJearthman]

Ordovician too old for leaf imprints but not fossil tracks and trails. Plenty of creatures crawling, feeding and nesting on the sea floor at that time. The single dashed lines are curious as are the markings also appearing on the cross-section view. In cross section the piece kind of looks like an algal mat. Anyway an interesting rock. A quick search on google images showed these similar looking trace fossils caused by clams, see link below.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jsjgeology/46030836451/in/photostream/

 

[Mme Digger]

Ordovician too old for leaf imprints but not fossil tracks and trails. Plenty of creatures crawling, feeding and nesting on the sea floor at that time. The single dashed lines are curious as are the markings also appearing on the cross-section view. In cross section the piece kind of looks like an algal mat. Anyway an interesting rock. A quick search on google images showed these similar looking trace fossils caused by clams, see link below.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jsjgeology/46030836451/in/photostream/

Thanks for taking the time to look at my pics! I've been digging for the past couple of days and hadn't seen anything quite like the clam markings, guess I wasn't looking in the right places! I was debating posting in a fossil forum I'm part of, suppose I'll go back in that direction. The dashed lines and the pattern tracking along with proximity to a known Cherokee settlement started my leaning in the artifact direction. Perhaps a little of both as the large rocks around where I found it also had the small hash like marks but none of the lines. Thanks again for your input and another avenue to more thoroughly explore!