lap stone

unclemac · Oct 18, 2012

this one always gets me thinking....it is pecked only on one side and very smooth on the other. It is pretty heavy for its size and it rings like iron when it is struck. Lap stone or anvil? what do you think?

Tnmountains · Oct 19, 2012

Platform/lap stone. Our lap stones here are cupped out for grinding. The nut stones have large holes or dimples. Usually something on each side as yours does. I have seen cobbles with a dent in them to be used as a 3rd hand. Maybe platform maybe drilling. The only ones I know for fact are the ones I dig in context with nut gathering in rock shelters. I have a yard full.

GatorBoy · Oct 19, 2012

I have a nut stone of what appears to be the same material from Tennessee. Yours looks almost like it would have been used as a platform for knapping.

larson1951 · Oct 19, 2012

unclemac said:
this one always gets me thinking....it is pecked only on one side and very smooth on the other. It is pretty heavy for its size and it rings like iron when it is struck. Lap stone or anvil? what do you think?

reminds me of a piece of hematite....a rock
we find them in all kinds of crazy shapes

pickaway · Oct 19, 2012

cool find unclemac...

unclemac · Oct 19, 2012

how do you tell if it is hematite? I don't recolect that material being out where I am in any quantity.

IllinoisDug · Oct 19, 2012

lap stone? Sounded like a joke at first...

rock · Oct 20, 2012

larson1951 said:
reminds me of a piece of hematite....a rock
we find them in all kinds of crazy shapes

I have to agree with Larson. I find them here also and they are natural in shapes. If it was used you would see the cortex altered some and that one has all of its cortex still intact. But thanks for the look.

yakker · Oct 21, 2012

I too have found rocks that look a lot like that one- but a different lithic. Still- with dimples and indentations on one side and not on the other. If you haven't already, try looking at those impressions through the best magnifier you have- and see if they're impressions of little pre-historic critters. I thought it was really onto something until I looked really close. In my case, what I found were clearly once-living 'things' (for lack of a better word- I don't know the names of fossils or fossil impressions). Got to say, though- all the mortars and paint cups and nutting stones I've ever found were not smooth like that. They have the rough look of use and wear- not slick/wet/'oily'-looking. To me, it looks like sedimentary rock with impressions of long-dead wet-world creatures.