Did I find an authentic Mano Stone ?

[tamrock]

Yesterday I took a bike ride along the trails in Boulder county Colorado that travel the creek systems of what are called Rock Creek and Coal Creek that are part of the Boulder creek watershed system of the front range north of Denver. I have lived and explored the open-space areas of my hometown of Lafayette, CO for 26+ years and find a fair amount of late 19th early 20th century items from the early coal mine era. I have always kept an eye out for native American artifacts over the years along the plowed fields and trails along the creeks, but have never found anything I would call a possible find until yesterday. Along the open-space, trails there are these low bluffs that makeup the eastern part of what would be called the Boulder Valley. Once before riding my bike along this trail that runs from Lafayette to Erie Colo. I took note of this bluff in the first picture and said next time I'm in the area I'm going to have a look up there as it sits where the two creeks merge over looking the two lower creek bottoms below. Walking around I found this stone that looks river washed and is made of a pink and red type hard sand-stones that would come from around Lyons Colo. IMO. The stone is beveled flat with a slight radius on both side and I do see striation lines that wear opposite of the stone lengthwise. I would like the opinions of you folks as to your thoughts of this wear on this rock. Do you think it was done by the cause of man or do you think I just found a rock shaped by the forces of geology?

 

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[old digger]

You have some pretty nice artifacts in your last post. Also quite a variety of different materials.

 

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[tamrock]

Go ahead and report it. Keep in mind if it's a run of the mill everyday village site of a culture that has been thoroughly studied the state archies aren't goin to get too excited. If it turns out to be the next Spiro Mounds, Chaco Canyon, or a Viking village site, there will be steps taken to protect it and study it. Federal land is a different story though, in my experience. A very interesting site in NE Oklahoma, possibly the first French village in the state, but more likely a native village with lots of trade with the French, but we apparently will never know, as the land came into the possession of the Feds and a big chain link fence went up around it. No entry, no excavation, not much more heard about it. They're saving it for future generations, I guess. I decided not to report some sites in South Park to anybody cause it's on Federal Land. They're good places to camp, and I don't wanna come out and find a big fence up around them tellin me I can't camp.

They're building homes around here now like there's no tomorrow. The city of Boulder has restricted most new development and my place 15 minutes away from downtown Boulder is a hot market these days. Just up behind this bluff is the new and I mean new town of Anthem with a new county called Broomfield county and grow'n like the plague. Good thing we all had a mail in vote about the expansion of the area maybe 15 years back and I checked off the box in favor of open-space being a must. That was a good thing and I now have that behind my house and the bike and walking trails that can take me all the way to boulder via the little creeks sheds running through all this hustle and bustle I live in. The good thing is the value of the place I purchased in 1989 has gone up a bunch from then. This site were I found the mano maybe safe from development, because it could be all part of the open-space lands. Only other thing close by is some oil wells, but that doesn't stop developers as there are lots of housing sites all huddled around others well sites that were once in the wide open where the pheasants would be found, but not no more. I can ride my mountain bike to the place of the mano anytime and look around some more. Ain't no one gonna catch on to what I do. I can see why the spot would have been a good camp, as the little creeks still to this day has a variety food source. Once in awhile I'll see some deer still, load of rabbits if you couldn't, tell by all the droppings covering just about ever square inch in the pictures, prairie dogs to smoke out, snapping turtles in the deeper pools of the creek a fair amount of waterfowl in the creek and on a few rare occasions a mountain lion will come all the way from the hills down the creek to have a look around, though I don't think the indigenous hunted many of those for a food source??. 10 thousand years ago this land was teeming with game I'll bet. Most of any artifacts that would be found still here today would be covered with the fine dust that blows off the Rockies and builds up over the millenniums imo. So it's anybody's guess whats up on that knob under the dusty ground? To me this is the first and only evidence I've ever found of the native Americans in my immediate area. I'm pretty stoked about this find, as I was sure of all the years I lived here looking and found nothing left me pretty sure I never would.

 

[tamrock]

You have some pretty nice artifacts in your last post. Also quite a variety of different materials.

All if not most were found with in an area of maybe 20-30 acres that this assembly was found and I put together. It was no doubt a well know place to hunt by many groups. The upper Arkansas valley was accessed by a few ancient mountain passes coming from every NS-EW direction. RG mentioned South Park. That place was a haven known to many groups for thousands of years as a place to head to for the warmer seasons and they came from New Mexico, Kansas Oklahoma, Wyoming and Utah and who knows where else? That's not just my conclusion based by the varieties of styles and materials they were made from. The sandstone metate I can only guess came from maybe the San Luis valley or Pueblo Colorado area, but that's just an off the wall thought. I know it didn't come from this part of the Arkansas valley. Not any sandstone like this I know of in the area. I don't know for sure, but think it was used to shape hard river stone ax heads or something like that, due to the spot I found it on top of older river bed cobblestone pile. It's worn on both sides. I'll get a photo of the back tomorrow morning.

 

[Bajahunter]

You are definitely in Boulder County open space. The area you are in has been very thoroughly searched.
http://www.colorado.edu/news/releas...ool-cache-colorado-shows-evidence-camel-horse
Your mano is a piece of fountain formation sandstone. Same stuff as the flatirons are made out of.
Pretty sure this won't surprise any of the important people in the Peoples Republic of Boulder. Contact Boulder County Historic preservation advisory Board.

 

[tamrock]

You are definitely in Boulder County open space. The area you are in has been very thoroughly searched.
13,000-Year-Old Stone Tool Cache in Colorado Shows Evidence of Camel, Horse Butchering | News Center
Your mano is a piece of fountain formation sandstone. Same stuff as the flatirons are made out of.
Pretty sure this won't surprise any of the important people in the Peoples Republic of Boulder. Contact Boulder County Historic preservation advisory Board.

Thank you!. Very interesting story that I'd never herd before, but maybe I did?. I can only guess what's beneath the ground of the front range. Also I think your correct on the rock source being the Flatirons. I'd hike up South Boulder peak from time to time when I first move to the area in 1989 and early 1990's. I think I may want to try that again. I remember one time I went up there and at the top I found a hoard of ladybugs. I could scoop handfuls of them up. Years latter I saw something on tv about folks in California harvesting ladybug hoards and selling them to green houses for folks to put in their gardens for pest control. I can't remember what time of year that was, but maybe there'd be a treasure of bugs up on the tip top of the Flatirons. I belong to the PRB. I'm hoping the other will allow the permitting on the Cash mine up in Gold Hill, so I can start selling something up there. Need to recoup from the last bunch of Canucks who left the place without paying for the stuff I took em. *******s!