No Nuts for 5,000 years!

[Siwash]

Found this large ten-pound nutting stone, N. Illinois, over the past weekend. Internet says this kind of artifact dates from the Archaic. Is this true?

Strange thing to me is that there's no good balance point to it; it doesn't sit flat. Found in the stream side.

 

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[SportsmanAll]

I don’t notice much pecking or ware marks, I may be wrong but it’s looking pretty natural to me....

 

[Siwash]

Eight holes and one grinding area on the rock. Round from grinding.

 

[flinthunter]

Looks like an Omarolluk or Omar for short. I think it is natural.

 

[Siwash]

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/n...rthern-ohio-nutting-stones-pitted-stones.html

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Looks like an Omarolluk or Omar for short. I think it is natural.

I think you nailed it.

 

[SportsmanAll]

As you said, the thing lacking is the ability to use it efficiently due to it not being flat or easy to work with. I’m not saying it doesn’t look really close, I’m just saying if I found it I would personally rule it as nothing.

 

[Siwash]

deep non glacier grooves on one side, obvious grinds in a couple of holes, same rock material as Ohio nutting stone, I'm calling it a worktable.

 

[Charl]

Many times pitted stones are indeed work tables. And that’s because they are anvil stones, part of the toolkit for lithic bipolar production. Here are a couple of examples of anvil stones:





With nutting stones, in contrast, the pits are created first. With anvil stones, the pits result from usage. Nutting stones were apparently made with different size nuts in mind. The reason they are often interpreted as Archaic, at least here in the Northeast, is archaeologists have described what they call “Mast Forest Archaic”, where people made nuts from such trees a staple of their diet.

Here are a couple of nutting stones:



The one thing that troubles me about the stone in this thread is that some pits are positioned in a way that would make it awkward, perhaps impossible, to allow the stone to lay flat for easy use as a nutting stone. The second photo in the initial comment illustrates that problem. Why would a nutting pit have to be positioned for use with the stone positioned on edge? Perhaps the pits are manmade, but, if so, it would seem to be a very inconvenient shaped stone for such usage. I guess it can’t be ruled out, as I see the “on edge” stone is upside down in the photo....

 

[SportsmanAll]

deep non glacier grooves on one side, obvious grinds in a couple of holes, same rock material as Ohio nutting stone, I'm calling it a worktable.

Sounds good. Just giving you our opinions.

 

[newnan man]

In certain SE Ohio counties there are creeks loaded with those type of stones. Also some overhang caves have those type of pock marks on their ceilings. Some of the pocks are quite large, others the size of a pencil and everything in between. I think the stone in this thread is natural. Charls post makes that clear.

 

[uniface]

re. lying flat, anything will if shoved into soft dirt deep enough.

 

[Siwash]

The location suggests this; found buried at the edge of a small flowing creek. The creek is spring-fed, with a nearby 3-ft. bedrock "waterfall" (small, not the Niagara!). Different rock material than that nearby. The adjacent land has one or two other small creeks/streams flowing into a moderate size river; the land is undulating and would be/much is very wooded. The stone's holes aren't all regularly circular but the larger one has been mashed on in different ways. It's a fine-grained, harder stone.

 

[quito]

I find them often on sites I hunt. Omar for sure.
Once in a while one that’s been utilized is found.

have you even bothered to google Omar’s?
http://www.geo.mtu.edu/KeweenawGeoheritage/BeachStones/Omars.html

 

[quito]

I also noticed there isn’t a hole on your piece that shows any polish in the bottom.

just sayin.