Flaked objects

johnger1 · May 17, 2013

I found these in various areas of the PV peninsula. Are they artifacts, if so ,what were they used for?

NC field hunter · May 18, 2013

Some of those look like cores. I would say they are a relation to vitric tuff. I guess you see that I finally got your pics to open. Sorry to bother you with a PM, that was due to problems on my end of the line. Nice looking pieces, artifact, or not!

johnger1 · May 18, 2013

Thanks for the input, vitric tuff-makes sense. I wasn't sure about the rocks, if they were cores or some kind on striking tool.No bother for the PM. I've been collecting this material for 10 years, just guessing what it was, I really appreciate the insight. Thanks again.

rginn · May 18, 2013

Those appear to be natural rocks to me, maybe something that's went through a crusher to provide material for road beds. The 'rock' pics are similar to material we found along railroad beds in western Oklahoma. Not native to the area, but some of it might be actually workable for tool making.

unclemac · May 18, 2013

RGINN said:
Those appear to be natural rocks to me, maybe something that's went through a crusher to provide material for road beds. The 'rock' pics are similar to material we found along railroad beds in western Oklahoma. Not native to the area, but some of it might be actually workable for tool making.

...yes, the similarity of the material in all the examples does say a lot....

The Grim Reaper · May 18, 2013

I don't see anything that says artifact to me.

rock · May 18, 2013

Pic #5 first 2 from left to right. Those 2 look possibly worked to some extent. They show flakes removed from them but I cant actually tell as what removed them.

johnger1 · May 19, 2013

All of the rocks pictured came from an area of exposed rock, in my yard and the adjacent property, with the exception of the photo with only 1 rock pictured. I found that one on the coast. The rocks from the back yard were found along with looked like small rock chips and some rocks that I thought looked like abstract profiles of birds. I also found one similiar to the ones pictured thats about 18" tall and weights about 25 lbs.. Thanks for all the input, I appreciate everyone's time.Here's a picture of the larger one, it broke and I epoxied it back together. If these are naturally occuring shapes, what formed them, I've never seen this before. Thanks

johnger1 · May 19, 2013

I found these near a outcrop of rocks, I don't think they went through a crusher, but it does look simliar to what I've seen under railroad tracks. I was thinking of some process of erosion, maybe. If you had a layer of hard rock sandwiched between layers of soft rock, the hard rock might break off in shards, as it was exposed to the elements. I looked and couldn't find any pieces in transistion, so I'm just guessing. Thanks for taking the time to look at them.

johnger1 · May 19, 2013

Thanks for taking a look. I didn't do a very good job presenting these, there are three types of rock here. I'm new to this and not really sure what is and what isn't relavent. The first four are volcanic in nature, I think the first one is basalt, I found it in a field,surrounded by smaller crushed rock that appeared to have been hammered on. The piece of basalt seemed like the hammering object. There was not any other pieces of basalt nearby, so it seemed reasonable.