Red rock

[willjo]

Found this interesting stone yesterday. It is 3" across, I have found some small triangular pieces about 3/4" long not sure what they are. Someone told me they were pigment stones and when needed some was scraped off to use, don't know.

 

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[rock]

Well they did like the color red I find plenty of hammers made from red sandstone cobbles. Yours looks to be shaped maybe from grinding meal on it. Any dimples on it? The manos I find are made from red sandstone cobbles to.

 

[RGINN]

It's just a rock.

 

[willjo]

It's just a rock.

Felt sure I would get that comment.

 

[RGINN]

Sorry willjo. There are some folks on here who will tell you every slightly chipped or strangely shaped rock you find is a 'genuine Indian artifact', but that ain't the case. If they were paint stones, they will generally be found in a village site, so did you find any other things in the area that you thought might be Indian related? The best thing for your find is 'What would I use this for?,' so see if you can scrape some off and if it is a usable paint.

 

[Charl]

I guess the two most common paint stones would be hematite for red pigment and graphite for black. But such stones are going to show a surface that has been scraped for the pigment. Your rock, in contrast, does not show it was being scraped. Had it been a paint stone, it would show it had been used that way. Look at the difference with these 2 graphite paint stones. You can see these pieces were scraped and gouged for the graphite, which would then usually be mixed with bear fat, I guess.

 

[Charl]

Here's another example of a paint stone. A lot of RI Formation shale has pockets of hemetite(ochre) and limonite(yellow pigment). This little shale pebble apparently had a pocket of yellow limonite that was extracted. Found on same camp as the graphite paint stones. It would have already been a broken pebble by the looks of it with a fat pocket of limonite....