Soft rock carvings

[johnger1]

I first ran into rocks with these little hash marks about ten years ago. At first, I thought rodents make them, while excavating their burrows. I tried to find some of the fresh rocks, but never could. I started to find more detailed ones ,so I started to collect them. Any idea what the story is with the rocks. If it helps, they seem to be concentrated on hilltops and higher elevations.Although I have also found some cruder examples made with blueish colored rock, which I thought looked like fish. These I found in the area surrounding Los Angeles harbor.
What's the deal with the funky rocks?

 

[johnger1]

I forgot to include something to reference size. Sorry, the smallest is no less than 1" x 1" the biggest no bigger than 4" X 4". If anyone wants more specifics,let me know.

 

[The Grim Reaper]

I don't see any evidence at all that any of those were modified by man, so they are just natural stones with marks on them. Since they are soft stones as you say, it wouldn't take much more than erosion or action against other stones over thousands of years to make those marks.

 

[rock]

I think you might have some pottery shards in that mix.

 

[johnger1]

I respect the opinions given and encourage any input I can concerning the origin of these rocks. I would like to say for the record that I'm not trying to play games with anyone or that I'm just walking out back and picking up some random rock and saying what's this. For fourty plus years I have been collecting rocks. My primary interest includes fossils, mineral and ore samples and gem stones. N/A artifacts are of interest, but I have only ckaimed to have found one that I'm sure is an artifact. It was an incomplete scrapper found near the astroid crater in Arizona. In the last 10 years I've collected,cleaned, and sorted easily 250,000 rocks. I'm the first to admit my limited knowledge to artifacts. I haven't been collecting artifacts but rather excluding things that I knew to be naturally occuring. Everything that I couldn't exclude, I tried to identify by means of the library or internet. I posted these rocks because I've never seen something like this before and I can't find any natural force that would produce the effect. I was only able to upload half of the photos I had taken.Some of these marks show signs of purpose. The hilltops that I find these on have great views. Many of the rocks resemble birds to me. I had read that paleo indians believed birds would take them to the next life and bird effigies were sometimes left to help the spirits. Could these rocks be some kind of offerings made at worship sites? I know it's difficult to id rocks by photo, if anyone is interested I'll send some rocks for a better look. Let me know.

 

[GatorBoy]

To be honest..I'm on a phone at the moment and because of thunderstorms have a bad signal..so photos are not showing up.
Just by reading your statements these marks sound like the result of glacial movement that created the mountians and valleys where you found these.
I think you may be reading way too much into naturally formed stones.

 

[The Grim Reaper]

I respect the opinions given and encourage any input I can concerning the origin of these rocks. I would like to say for the record that I'm not trying to play games with anyone or that I'm just walking out back and picking up some random rock and saying what's this. For fourty plus years I have been collecting rocks. My primary interest includes fossils, mineral and ore samples and gem stones. N/A artifacts are of interest, but I have only ckaimed to have found one that I'm sure is an artifact. It was an incomplete scrapper found near the astroid crater in Arizona. In the last 10 years I've collected,cleaned, and sorted easily 250,000 rocks. I'm the first to admit my limited knowledge to artifacts. I haven't been collecting artifacts but rather excluding things that I knew to be naturally occuring. Everything that I couldn't exclude, I tried to identify by means of the library or internet. I posted these rocks because I've never seen something like this before and I can't find any natural force that would produce the effect. I was only able to upload half of the photos I had taken.Some of these marks show signs of purpose. The hilltops that I find these on have great views. Many of the rocks resemble birds to me. I had read that paleo indians believed birds would take them to the next life and bird effigies were sometimes left to help the spirits. Could these rocks be some kind of offerings made at worship sites? I know it's difficult to id rocks by photo, if anyone is interested I'll send some rocks for a better look. Let me know.

I understand what you are saying and I am not trying to an ass or a jerk, I'm just trying to help you out. I have collected artifacts for 48 years and have around 17,000 Indian artifacts in my collection. With that in mind, like I said, I see nothing in those pictures that make me think they were ever modified by man, so that means that are not artifacts. Thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years of erosion and natural movement will make marks like that on stone, especially if the stone is soft. Take in to account that you say these are found in California and with all the seismic activity that has occurred there over the milleniums and you probably have the cause for the markings.

 

[catherine1]

Nice pics but no artifacts.

 

[rock]

The lines are probably plow or no till marks on some of them.

 

[kevin hoffman]

Well, You may be reaching on some, keep looking,i have seen rock bears that looked like a clump until cleaned, persistence...

 

[BosnMate]

When a flaked artifact is being worked, especially a pressure flaked artifact, and probably a percussion also, at several times during the construction of the point or knife, a blunting stone is used. The reason for this is done is to make a platform for the antler or bone used for the flaking to have a place to grab so the next flake will be released. I've seen this done by experts to the point I thought they were ruining what they were working on. Your stones, from looking at the grooves, look to me like they could very well be blunting stones used in the process of flaking points, or in filing bone into tools they had to use something, and possibly that is what you have.

 

[johnger1]

That might make sense. Where do would expect to find them. One place that I've found them, I found 3 or 4 sharp rocks.I'm not sure if they were finished or not.